The North Fork real estate market showed strong signs of recovery in the first quarter of the year, according to home sales figures released by Suffolk Research Service.
The number of home sales jumped 21.5 percent in Riverhead Town and 11.5 percent in Southold during the first three months of 2015, compared to the same period in 2014.
The median price of a single-family home in Southold sold during the first quarter — $499,500 — grew 13.5 percent compared to the first quarter 2014. The median price of a single-family home in Riverhead sold during the first quarter this year went up 19.4 percent year over year, to $370,000.
Riverhead’s median home prices in the first quarter of 2015 also showed a healthy increase over the fourth quarter of 2014, rising 16.3 percent from $318,000 to $370,000. However, Southold’s first-quarter median home price of $499,500 was down 9.2 percent from its fourth-quarter median of $550,000.
Homes on the North Fork remain much more affordable than anywhere else on the East End, where the median price of a single-family home across all five towns rose to $750,000 in the first quarter of ‘15 — up 3.2 percent over the same period last year.
South Fork home values continue to climb to new heights, where median home prices have exceeded those reported before the 2008 market collapse.
The median price of a single-family home in East Hampton, which leads the East End in home values, topped $1 million — only the second time the first-quarter median home price in East Hampton exceeded the million dollar mark, according to all data reported by Suffolk Research dating back to 2002.
Southampton Town’s median home price in the first quarter was $880,000, up 7.9 percent over the first quarter of 2014 and higher than any other first-quarter value reported by the Hampton Bays-based research service since 2002.
Single-family home prices on the North Fork still have a ways to go before they reach pre-crash levels. In the first-quarter of 2007, the median price of a single-family home sold in Riverhead was $470,000. In Southold, it was $510,000 in the first quarter of‘06 and $550,000 in the same period in ‘07.
But the number of homes being sold is increasing to near- 0’6 and ‘07 levels on the North Fork, a “healthy trend of recovery,” according to Suffolk Research president George Simpson.