Home Prices Are Climbing in Staten Island.Sellers Aren't Gaining Ground.
In the twelve weeks ending August 23, 2026, median sale prices rose in two Staten Island markets, even as sellers in both gave back more of their asking price than they had a year earlier.
A rising median sale price usually reads as good news for sellers. It sounds like leverage: more buyers competing for the same homes, more room to hold firm at the table, less reason to blink first when an offer comes in under list.
That is not quite what the last twelve weeks show in two Staten Island markets where prices climbed the most.
MLS sold data · Twelve weeks ending August 23, 2026
Start with one Staten Island market. A year earlier, its median sale price was about $595,000. This period it was about $669,000, up roughly 12%. That is a real gain, and on its own it's the kind of number that would suggest sellers had the upper hand. But look at what sellers in this Staten Island market actually kept of their asking price once a deal closed. A year ago they were getting about 98.6% of list. This period, about 97.7%. The price went up. The room sellers had to hold their number went down.
A second Staten Island market tells the same story with different digits. A year earlier its median sale price was about $655,000. This period, about $731,500, also up roughly 12%. And again, what sellers in this second Staten Island market kept of asking slipped, from about 99.5% a year ago to about 99% this period.
Neither move is dramatic by itself. A point here, half a point there. But the direction is the tell, and it runs opposite to what the price alone would suggest. In both of these Staten Island markets, homes are selling for meaningfully more money, and sellers are giving up a little more ground to get there.
A rising price is not the same thing as a stronger seller.
Normally those two lines move together. Prices climb because buyers are competing harder for what's available, and buyers who are competing harder tend to pay closer to the asking number, not further from it. Here they came apart instead. Prices went one direction. The seller's actual negotiating position went the other.
What that likely looks like on a Saturday of showings is a buyer willing to stretch to meet the price, but not without something coming back the other way. A credit toward closing costs. A repair allowance. A small concession that never shows up in the sale price itself but shows up in what the seller actually walks away with relative to what they asked for. The number on the contract climbs. The number that reflects how much ground the seller gave does not keep pace in the same direction.
For anyone selling in either of these two Staten Island markets, the practical takeaway is not to price off last year's expectations about how firm you can be. A higher comparable sale down the street does not mean you can hold the line on every term. Expect the concession conversation to happen even at a price above where the market sat a year ago. For buyers, there's a small bit of real leverage sitting inside a headline that looks discouraging at first glance. The asking price in these two markets has not become the untouchable floor that a rising median might suggest.
What would change this read is if that gap between price and sale-to-list kept widening the next time this data is pulled, in both Staten Island markets at once. That combination, rising prices paired with a shrinking share of asking price actually collected, is worth watching over the next reporting period. Right now it shows up in two markets and it's modest in both. Whether it stays modest, or becomes the pattern across more of Staten Island, is the open question this data leaves on the table.
This report is built on MLS sold data across Staten Island's ZIP codes for the twelve weeks ending August 23, 2026, compared with the same twelve-week window a year earlier.