Housing sales in Nassau County plummeted in April as the coronavirus continued to spread throughout the area. New contract signings fell 69.8 percent compared with April 2019, listing service OneKey MLS reported on Thursday.
Prices jumped, however, as buyers competed for fewer available homes. The median price of a home in Nassau County rose to $562,500, an 11.4 percent increase from a year earlier.
The number of homes for sale dropped by about 24 percent compared with April 2019, the listing service data shows.
Real estate brokerages were ordered to shut down on March 22 because of the coronavirus pandemic. On April 2, brokers were allowed to resume working, but only from their homes or private offices.
Some real estate agents have switched to remote home sales, turning to solutions such as showing homes to prospective buyers via FaceTime.
According to a Gallup survey, however, only 50 percent of Americans think that it is a good time to buy a home, a record low since Gallup began tracking this measure in 1978.
