By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
TL;DR:
Twenty-five homes closed in Port Washington in August 2026 — twenty houses and five attached residences. The single-family median came in at $1,602,500, and fourteen of the twenty houses sold at or above their asking price. What separated them was speed. Every house that beat its number was in contract within twenty-two days, and most within two weeks. Every house that sold below asking took three weeks or longer. There was almost no middle ground. The market rewarded correctly priced homes very quickly and penalized the rest, which is a more useful signal for a seller than any headline average.
August by the Numbers
Twenty single-family homes closed in Port Washington during August 2026, ranging from $965,000 to $2,510,000. The median sale price was $1,602,500 and the average was $1,559,771.
Five attached residences also closed — condominiums and one cooperative — between $1,100,000 and $1,925,000, averaging $1,338,600. Total closed volume across all twenty-five sales was roughly $37.9 million.
Days on market told two entirely different stories depending on property type. The median house went under contract in 13.5 days. The median attached residence took 48. Every figure here is drawn from OneKey MLS closed sales.
Read the Median, Not the Average
This section appears in every edition, because the caution never stops applying.
Most published market summaries report averages. An average divides total dollars by number of sales, so a single unusual transaction distorts it. In a market spanning waterfront estates and modest capes, that distortion can be severe.
August is a useful illustration of why the direction of the error is not predictable. The single-family median of $1,602,500 came in above the average of $1,559,771. Two sales cleared $2.5 million at the top, but three closed under a million at the bottom, and the low end pulled harder. Anyone quoting the average alone would have understated where the middle of this market actually sat.
The same problem applies to days on market. Blending houses and attached residences into one figure produces a number that describes neither. Houses moved in about two weeks. Attached residences took roughly seven. A seller told the market is running near two months would draw exactly the wrong conclusion about a single-family home.
Fast or Stale, With Almost Nothing in Between
This is the finding that matters most, and it is unusually clean.
Fourteen of the twenty houses sold at or above asking price. Every one of them went under contract within twenty-two days, and ten of the fourteen within two weeks. Four exceeded their asking price by more than seventeen percent, and those four were in contract in seven, eight, thirteen, and sixteen days respectively.
Six houses sold below asking. Every one took twenty-one days or longer — including one that sat for 186 days before closing roughly nine percent under its list price.
The dividing line falls right around three weeks. Homes that found their buyer inside that window generally got a premium. Homes that did not generally took a discount. There were almost no examples of a house taking six weeks and still achieving its number.
That pattern is not really about the market. It is about pricing. The homes that sold over asking were, with few exceptions, the ones priced conservatively enough that multiple buyers concluded they could win. The homes that sat were priced at or above what the buyer pool would defend, and the market corrected them through time rather than through competition.
The Peninsula Is Not One Market, and August Showed It
August's closings spread across most of the peninsula — the Estates Section, Beacon Hill, Monfort Hills, Salem, the Park Section, the Presidential Section, Soundview, the Terrace section, Port Washington North, and the Manorhaven area.
The spread within that range was substantial. Two homes sold above $2.4 million while three closed under a million, all in the same month, in the same town. A peninsula-wide figure genuinely describes none of them.
The largest premiums over asking clustered in the middle of the range, roughly $1.4 million to $1.75 million, in mid-century housing stock — splanches, split levels, and updated ranches. That band saw the most competitive bidding in August. The very top of the market behaved differently: the two highest sales split, with one closing above asking in under two weeks and the other, a new-construction listing, closing below asking after thirty-nine days.
Housing stock ran from 1920 through 2025, with most sales in homes built between the 1920s and 1950s. That matters for anyone preparing to list, because the factors that determine home values in Port Washington weigh condition and updates heavily in inventory of that age.
The Downsizer Market Moved, Slowly
Four of the five attached sales were in age-restricted communities — Mill Pond Acres, two units in Harborview, and one in the Knickerbocker Bay Club, which is 62-plus.
They traded between $1.1 million and $1.925 million, and none sold above asking. Two closed exactly at list, three below. Days on market ran 43, 47, 48, 56, and 96.
The takeaway for a Port Washington homeowner considering a move to age-restricted housing is that this inventory is limited, priced comparably to a house, and moves at a very different pace. Sellers coordinating a house sale with a purchase into one of these communities should plan for the purchase side to take considerably longer than the sale side — which is close to the opposite of most people's assumption.
Tax Bills Varied More Than Prices Did
One detail in August's closings is worth flagging because it surprises nearly every seller.
Annual property taxes across the twenty houses ranged from about $11,400 to more than $30,400. That spread is not explained by price. One home that sold for $1.58 million carried roughly $11,400 in annual taxes. Another that sold for $1.4 million — a lower price — carried more than $25,100. A buyer comparing those two is looking at a difference of nearly $14,000 a year in carrying cost between homes priced within about $180,000 of each other.
Assessments do not track sale prices closely, and on this peninsula the layering of county and village assessments complicates it further. One August listing advertised that its taxes had already been grieved, which tells you the listing agent understood buyers were pricing that line item.
Sellers whose tax bill looks high relative to nearby homes should raise it with their attorney or a tax professional well before listing. It is a real objection, it shows up as a price conversation rather than a tax conversation, and the filing windows are fixed.
What This Means for Sellers Listing This Fall
Price to sell in the first three weeks. August's data says that window is where the premiums live. A home priced to generate competition early outperformed a home priced to leave negotiating room, and it was not close.
Prepare before listing, not during. The homes that beat their numbers were, almost without exception, described as updated or renovated. The ones that sat were more often positioned as opportunities.
Ignore peninsula-wide averages when setting a number. With sales spanning $965,000 to $2.51 million in a single month, the only comparable set that matters is the handful of genuinely similar homes in the same sub-market.
What This Means for Buyers
Buyers in the single-family market should expect to move quickly on anything well-priced. Fourteen of twenty houses sold at or above asking, and most were gone inside two weeks. Waiting a weekend to decide was, in August, frequently fatal.
The exception is anything that has been sitting. Homes past three weeks on market consistently traded below asking, and that is where negotiating room existed. The attached market moves far more slowly, which gives buyers there considerably more time.
The Honest Bottom Line
August 2026 was not a slow month in Port Washington. It was a fast month for correctly priced houses and a slow one for everything else.
The homes that sold in two weeks and beat their asking price did not do it by accident, and the ones that sat for a month did not fail because of the market. Both outcomes were largely determined before either listing went live.
Figures compiled from OneKey MLS closed sales in Port Washington, Nassau County, for August 2026, covering 25 transactions. Market statistics describe past sales and are not a prediction of future results or a valuation of any individual property. Tax figures are as reported in listing data for varying tax years. This post is not legal, tax, or investment advice.
For a read on where a specific home sits in this market, a current look at Port Washington home values is a practical starting point.
FAQs
What did homes actually sell for in Port Washington in August 2026?
Twenty single-family homes closed between $965,000 and $2,510,000, with a median of $1,602,500 and an average of $1,559,771. Five attached residences closed between $1,100,000 and $1,925,000. The median is the more useful figure here, since it sat above the average — the low end of the range pulled the average down more than the top pulled it up. Anyone using these numbers to think about a specific home should narrow to comparable sales in the same sub-market, since the monthly range spans more than $1.5 million.
Are Port Washington homes selling above asking price?
Most did in August. Fourteen of twenty houses sold at or above their list price, and four exceeded it by more than seventeen percent. But that outcome was closely tied to speed: every home that beat its asking price went under contract within twenty-two days. The six that sold below asking all took twenty-one days or longer. Selling above asking was not a function of the market generally — it was a function of pricing that attracted competition in the first three weeks.
How long are homes taking to sell?
It depends entirely on property type, which is why blended figures mislead. The median single-family home went under contract in 13.5 days. The median attached residence took 48 days. Within the single-family group the range was wide — from seven days to 186 — but the concentration was tight, with half of all houses in contract inside two weeks. A seller told the market is running near two months would draw the wrong conclusion about a house.
Why do property taxes vary so much between similar homes?
August's closings showed annual taxes ranging from roughly $11,400 to more than $30,400 across houses, and the spread did not track sale prices. One home that sold at $1.58 million carried about $11,400 in taxes while another at $1.4 million carried more than $25,100. Assessments are set separately from market value and adjust on their own cycle, and homeowners in incorporated villages face an additional village assessment layered on top. Buyers evaluate the tax bill alongside the price, so an out-of-step assessment can become a pricing objection.
Is now a good time to sell in Port Washington?
August's data suggests preparation mattered more than timing. Homes that were updated, priced to generate early competition, and ready when they listed sold quickly and often above asking. Homes that came to market priced to leave negotiating room generally sat and then sold at a discount. That pattern points toward getting a listing right rather than waiting for a better season. Sellers with a specific timeline should look at recent comparable sales in their own sub-market rather than at any peninsula-wide figure.
By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
Eric Berman | Long Island & Queens Associate Broker | Compass
1468 Northern Blvd, Manhasset, NY 11030
(917) 225-8596 | eric@ericbermanre.com | theericbermanteam.com
