By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
TL;DR:
Twenty homes sold in Port Washington in October 2026, against twenty-two a year earlier. The headline is not the price. It is the speed. Setting aside Sands Point, which behaves differently, the middle house went under contract in about 18 days this October, down from roughly 35 days a year ago. Homes also sold closer to what sellers first asked for. The typical house sold at about 100 percent of its original asking price, up from about 98 percent last October, and far fewer sellers had to cut their price to find a buyer. The middle sale price did slip about 6 percent, but that number rests on only twelve houses and should be read carefully. The clearest pattern of the month was a hard line at about thirty days: every home that beat its asking price went to contract inside thirty days, and every home that sold below its original price took longer.
Homes Sold Twice as Fast as Last October
Sands Point sits in its own section below, because its prices and timelines are so different that mixing them in makes everything else harder to read. Everything in this section covers the rest of the peninsula.
Twelve houses sold outside Sands Point in October 2026. Fourteen sold in October 2025. Close to the same number of sales.
The time it took to find a buyer was not close at all. The middle house this October went under contract in about 18 days. A year ago that number was about 35 days. Buyers moved roughly twice as fast.
Seven of the twelve houses sold for asking price or more. A year ago, six of fourteen did. So a larger share of sellers got what they asked for, and they got it sooner.
That combination matters more to someone deciding whether to list than any single price figure does. A market where homes sit for five weeks and a market where they sit for two and a half weeks are different places to sell, even if the prices look similar.
More Sellers Got Their First Asking Price
There are two ways to measure what a seller got. One compares the sale price to the last asking price. The other compares it to the original asking price, the number the house first came out at.
The second one is the honest measure, because it counts price cuts. A house that starts at $1,200,000, drops to $1,000,000, and sells for $1,000,000 looks like a full-price sale by the first measure. By the second, the seller gave up seventeen percent.
Measured the honest way, October was a better month for sellers than last year.
The typical house sold at about 100 percent of its original asking price this October. Last October the typical house sold at about 98 percent.
The gap shows up even more clearly in how many sellers had to come down at all. Five of twelve houses sold for less than their original price this October. Last October it was nine of fourteen.
Put plainly: most sellers this October named a number and got it. A year ago, most did not.
Thirty Days Was the Dividing Line
This is the cleanest finding in three months of these reports, and it had no exceptions.
Every home that sold for more than three percent above its asking price went under contract in thirty days or fewer. Every home that sold for less than ninety-five percent of its original price took thirty-two days or more. Not a single sale landed in between.
The fast ones were striking. One house listed at $845,000 and sold for $999,000 in twelve days. Another listed at $1,329,000 and sold for $1,525,000 in eight days. Two more sold for thirteen percent over asking, in fourteen and twenty days.
The slow ones tell the other half. One house came out at $1,200,000 and closed at $950,000 after fifty-nine days. Another started at $2,250,000 and closed at $1,940,000 after ninety days.
The same pattern appeared in August and in September. Three months running, the first few weeks have decided the outcome.
Consider a composite example of how this plays out. A Port Washington owner has a house where recent nearby sales support about $1,100,000. The owner would rather start at $1,275,000 and come down later if nothing happens. October’s data says that plan costs money. The house spends its best three weeks with no offers, then needs a cut, and by the time it sells the buyers who are left are looking at a home that has been sitting. Houses in that position this October finished in the low-to-mid ninety percent range of where they started. Starting at $1,100,000 would more likely have produced competing offers inside two weeks.
Sellers whose homes have already stalled may find more detail in why a Port Washington home might not be selling.
The Middle Price Slipped, and Why That Number Is Shaky
The middle sale price outside Sands Point was $1,089,000 this October, against $1,162,500 a year ago. That is a decline of about six percent.
It deserves a caution rather than a headline.
Twelve sales is a small number. One unusual sale moves the middle figure by several percentage points. This October included a newly built home and a new modular home, both at prices well above the rest of the group, and the mix of what happened to sell in any given month swings the middle number around far more than the market itself moves.
The average sale price actually rose, from about $1,180,000 to about $1,246,000. When the middle figure falls and the average rises, it usually means the mix changed rather than values changing.
This is why the speed figures and the original-price figures lead this report. Those hold steady no matter which houses happened to close. The middle price in a twelve-sale month does not. What actually drives value here is covered in what determines home values in Port Washington, and the peninsula’s neighborhoods are laid out on the Port Washington community guide.
Sands Point Moves on Its Own Clock
Two homes sold in Sands Point in October 2026. Two sold there in October 2025. In all four cases the home sold for less than its original asking price, and in all four cases it took months.
This October, one sold for $4,800,000 after 121 days, about 91 percent of where it started. The other sold for $3,000,000 after 163 days, having first come to market at $3,999,000. That is 75 percent of the original number.
Last October told the same story. One sold for $5,375,000 after 167 days at about 83 percent of its original price. The other sold for $2,300,000 after 231 days at about 84 percent.
Four sales across two Octobers, every one of them below the opening number, every one of them taking four months or longer. At this price level the buyer pool is small, buyers are patient, and an ambitious opening price does not get tested quickly. It gets ignored, and then negotiated.
Sellers in the village should also plan around the extra steps that come with it, covered in Sands Point village rules and waterfront closings.
What Sold, and One Correction From Last Month
Twenty homes sold across Port Washington in October 2026, against twenty-two in October 2025. Volume was essentially flat.
Condos and co-ops accounted for six sales in each October. Also flat.
That last figure is worth pausing on, because last month’s report said something different. The September edition reported that attached sales had dropped sharply, three against nine a year earlier, and treated it as a real decline. October’s numbers suggest that was a one-month fluke rather than a trend. Six and six is about as even as it gets.
A single month of twenty sales is a small sample, and that cuts both ways. It is why this report flags which figures are stable and which are not, and why a number that looks dramatic one month is worth re-checking the next.
What Sellers Should Do With This
For a Port Washington owner weighing a listing, October points to a few things.
Price to win the first three weeks. Three months of data now say the same thing, and October said it with no exceptions at all. The premium goes to homes that are priced right when they launch, not to homes that get there eventually.
Look at the original asking price on comparable sales, not just the final number. A house that sold for its asking price after two cuts is not the comparable it appears to be.
Be ready before listing rather than after. The speed advantage only exists for a home that is finished, cleaned and photographed on day one. There is no benefit to a fast market if the house is not ready to meet it.
Read a twelve-sale month carefully. Anyone quoting a precise percentage change in Port Washington prices from one month of data is overstating what the data can support. The direction of the days-on-market figures is far more reliable than the exact price figures.
The honest bottom line for October is that this was a faster market than a year ago, and a market where naming a realistic number worked. Prices did not run away, and the middle figure actually slipped. But sellers who priced sensibly sold quickly and at or above what they asked, and sellers who reached did not. Anyone wanting a current read on their own home can start with a home valuation, and the September report covers the prior month.
Based on information from OneKey® MLS, for the period October 1, 2026 through October 31, 2026, and October 1, 2025 through October 31, 2025. Information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
FAQs
Did Port Washington home prices go down in October?
The middle sale price outside Sands Point was about six percent lower than a year earlier, but that figure rests on twelve sales and should not be read as a six percent drop in what homes are worth. The average sale price rose over the same period. When the middle number falls while the average rises, the usual explanation is that a different mix of houses happened to sell, not that values moved. The more reliable signals in October pointed the other way: homes sold about twice as fast as a year ago, and a larger share of sellers got their original asking price.
How long did it take to sell a house in Port Washington in October 2026?
The middle house outside Sands Point went under contract in about 18 days, down from about 35 days in October 2025. Speed tracked closely with pricing. Every home that sold for more than three percent above asking went to contract within thirty days, and the fastest results came in eight to twenty days. Homes that sold below their original asking price all took thirty-two days or longer, with the slowest running past ninety days. Sands Point sales took considerably longer, between four and eight months.
What does “percent of original price” mean and why does it matter?
It compares what a home sold for against the price it first came on the market at, rather than against its most recent asking price. The difference matters because the second measure hides price cuts. A home listed at $1,200,000 that drops to $1,000,000 and then sells for $1,000,000 looks like a full-price sale against its last asking price, while the seller actually accepted about 83 percent of the original number. In October 2026 the typical Port Washington home sold at about 100 percent of its original price, compared with about 98 percent a year earlier.
Why do Sands Point homes take so long to sell?
The buyer pool at that price level is much smaller, and the buyers in it are rarely in a hurry. In the four Sands Point sales across October 2026 and October 2025, every home sold below its original asking price and every one took at least four months, with the longest running 231 days. One came to market at $3,999,000 and closed at $3,000,000. An ambitious opening price in that market does not get tested and rejected quickly the way it does lower down the peninsula. It simply sits, and the eventual sale is negotiated from a weaker position.
Is a single month of data enough to draw conclusions from?
Not on its own, and this report tries to be clear about which figures hold up. With roughly twenty sales a month, price averages swing considerably based on which homes happen to close. Days-on-market figures and the share of sellers getting their original price are steadier, because they describe how buyers behaved rather than what sold. Patterns confirmed across several months carry far more weight than any single month’s number, which is why the thirty-day pricing pattern, now consistent since August, is the most dependable finding in this report.
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
