While every news anchor and talking head in the world of finance continues to congratulate the Fed despite inflation still not being under control, prices are telling another story. 

Specifically, housing prices. In fact, a new report from Bloomberg is now detailing how even doctors making $350,000 per year are “struggling” to find places to live in locales like Long Island.

The report cites the region’s “chronic housing shortage” and detailed the story of Paul Connor, who helps run Stony Brook’s Eastern Long Island Hospital. 

“The single most difficult impediment to get around right now is the housing prices,” he said of the area. 

Long Island’s North Fork, including Greenport, epitomizes New York’s severe housing crunch, with home prices surging by 50% to nearly $1 million, and available listings plummeting by 60% for its 50,000 residents, the report says.

This crisis mirrors a broader state issue, characterized by a mismatch of job growth to housing availability, leading to historically low rental vacancies in New York City and skyrocketing rents – and spitting in the face of the narrative that inflation is cooling.  

Upstate areas like Buffalo and Syracuse also face soaring property prices, compounded by restrictive zoning in the suburbs and mortgage rates nearing 7%, making homeownership increasingly unattainable. Suffolk County’s meager housing growth rate, one of the lowest in the state, further underscores the acute challenge of expanding the housing supply to meet demand.

Rachel Fee, Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference added: “It’s a huge concern. It’s not just a New York City issue anymore. Affordability is an issue across the state.”

“Part of the squeeze with the North Fork is the spillover effect from the Hamptons because prices have risen so rapidly that the North Fork became this cheaper alternative — until it wasn’t,” added Jonathan Miller, President of Miller Samuel.

Connor concluded: “Whether you’re a cardiologist or you work in one of the local restaurants, it’s to the advantage of everyone in our community to have people who live and work locally.”

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