Long Island and Queens home sales dropped 25 percent in the fourth quarter and the inventory of properties surged as the housing decline hit residential areas east of Manhattan, Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers said.

Sales fell to 6,359 from a year earlier. The median price declined 3.2 percent to $425,000, New York-based Miller Samuel said in a report issued today. A total of 38,769 homes were on the market, 41 percent more than a year ago. The survey excludes the Hamptons.

“We're seeing real price erosion across every major market,” on Long Island, said Jonathan Miller, director of research for Radar Logic Inc., a real estate data company that owns Miller Samuel. “Their behavior over the last couple of years has been the opposite of the city.”

The price decline is the fourth consecutive quarterly drop for these markets and puts them more in synch with the rest of the U.S. than Manhattan, where fourth quarter apartment prices rose 6.4 percent. The median price of an existing U.S. home has fallen 8.7 percent to $210,200 in November from a five-year high in July 2006, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Home sellers in the Northeast are having to lower their expectations as the real estate decline worsens. An index measuring signed contracts for previously owned homes fell 13 percent in the region in November, the most in the country, the Realtors group said in a Jan. 8 report.

Suffolk Suffers

In the fourth quarter, sales in Suffolk County declined 28 percent to 2,341 homes, the biggest percentage decline of the areas surveyed by Miller Samuel.

The unsold inventory, which has nearly tripled in the market since the fourth quarter of 2004, rose the most in the New York City borough of Queens. The number of unsold homes there jumped 53 percent from a year earlier, Miller Samuel said. Queens also had the biggest percentage fall in median price with a decline of 5.2 percent to $460,000.

Prices in the luxury market, defined as the top 10 percent of sales, rose 1.6 percent to a median of $965,000. The number of sales fell 17 percent.

The best-performing market in the fourth quarter was Long Island's North Shore, also the most expensive place in the study. The median price there was little changed at $725,000.

“What was somewhat surprising to me this go-around is the pace of decline in the North Shore seemed to ease,” Miller said. Before the fourth quarter, prices there had previously declined for five consecutive quarters on a year-over-year basis.

The Radar Logic survey is based on 6,359 completed sales. It excludes East Hampton, Amagansett and other seaside resort towns on Long Island's east end. It was prepared on behalf on Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

Radar Logic collects residential data on 25 U.S. metropolitan areas and uses it in to create an index for trading property derivatives.

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