REAL ESTATE

Covid drives Baldwin housing prices up

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Baldwin has seen its housing market “explode” because of the pandemic, with many houses selling in a matter of weeks.
Baldwin has seen its housing market “explode” because of the pandemic, with many houses selling in a matter of weeks.
Herald File Photo

With suburban houses heavily in demand in the greater metropolitan area because many renters are fleeing New York City amid the coronavirus pandemic, housing prices across Long Island have been increasing for several months now, including in Baldwin.

Erik Mahler, owner of Mahler Realty and former Chamber of Commerce co-president, said housing prices were already trending upward before the pandemic, but Covid-19 made them “explode.” Most homes that he has sold recently have been on the market for only a few weeks or less.

Massoud Fazeli, a Hofstra University urban economics professor, said, “In the past year, suburbs gained at the expense of big cities as the fear of pandemics hurt densely populated cities and many people demanded more space as they spent more time at home. Small city apartments became less attractive.”

Anthony Atkinson, an agent with Weichert Realty in Baldwin, said home prices in the area have steadily increased over time. The pandemic, he said, helped accelerate that growth, but not at the same rate as in other counties across the state.

Baldwin saw a peak number of 52 houses sold in December 2020, and 20 to 30 more houses were sold per month in the first few months of 2021, according to redfin.com. Most of the houses were sold at prices between 8 to 10 percent above what they were worth the previous year at the same time.

The upward trend in prices is in line with what the U.S. experienced throughout the latter half of 2020 and into 2021, but across the country, the median house price rose by 23.1 percent. Meanwhile, over the past year, the median house price in Baldwin rose by 9.5 percent, and in Nassau, by 8.5 percent, according to market data compiled by the Multiple Listing Service.

Despite solid growth in Nassau, Baldwin and other communities across the county are not seeing the same 15 to 20 percent increase in housing prices that is happening in Suffolk County or in other parts of the state.

While there are multiple factors that are causing this, space is more abundant in Suffolk, which has seen a 16.3 percent increase in the median house price over the last year, according to MLS.

The physical size of each county is one thing, but Suffolk also is less expensive per square foot of land than Nassau. The median listing home price per square foot in Suffolk is now $320, while Nassau’s is $396 per square foot, according to realtor.com. 

The median house price in Nassau was $600,000 in February this year, while it was $475,000 in Suffolk, according to MLS.