If you want to know who has the leverage in a housing market, there is one number that tells you: months of inventory, also called the absorption rate.
It is simple math. Take the number of homes for sale, divide it by the number selling each month, and you get how long it would take to sell everything on the market if no new listings appeared. Under 6 months of supply, sellers have the leverage. Over 6 months, buyers do. Right around 6 months, neither side does — that is a balanced market.
Staten Island has not seen a true borough-wide buyer’s market since 2008 to 2012.
2008–2012: the last real buyer’s market
In the aftermath of the Great Recession and the subprime mortgage collapse, Staten Island became a textbook buyer's market:
Months of supply: SIBOR reported 13.3 months in summer 2012, well above the 6-month line.
Inventory: active listings routinely ran 2,000 to 2,500+ homes across the borough.
Time on market: days on market approached 200 days to get a listing into contract, per SIBOR.
Prices: distressed sales, foreclosures, and short sales set the tone, and sellers had to make heavy price concessions to move a property at all.
If you were selling in that window, you were competing against bank-owned homes and short sales, and buyers knew it.
2018–2019: the closest it came back
The period right before the pandemic — late 2018 through 2019 — was the closest Staten Island came to buyer-friendly conditions again:
Active listings climbed over 2,200 units in 2019.
Sold-to-list price ratios dipped to around 96%, meaning sellers were routinely accepting 4% or more below their asking price.
Months of supply spiked to 7.46 in March 2019, briefly past the buyer's-market line — but the period as a whole hovered near the tipping point rather than settling there.
It never settled there. Then 2020 changed everything.
Why a true buyer’s market has not returned
Two things happened, and they are still holding inventory down today.
The 2020 pivot. The pandemic sent buyers out of higher-density Brooklyn and Manhattan looking for single-family detached homes with yards and extra space. Staten Island had exactly what they wanted, and demand surged.
The rate lock. Buyers who locked in ultralow mortgage rates in 2020 and 2021 are not selling now, because selling means giving up a 3% rate for a much higher one. Even when rates rose in 2022 and 2023, listings did not flood the market. Instead, they dropped dramatically, hovering around 750 to 900 active units. Homeowners stayed put, and supply stayed tight.
The exception: micro buyer’s markets today
Here is the part sellers miss. While single-family and two-family homes on Staten Island remain firmly in seller territory, co-ops and older condo units sometimes drift into buyer's market conditions of their own — often 6 to 12+ months of supply. Higher HOA fees, financing restrictions, and lower demand relative to fee-simple single-family homes all push in that direction.
So the borough is not one market. It is several, and the segment you are selling into matters more than the borough-wide headline.
What this means if you are selling now
If you own a single-family or two-family home, you are still selling into a seller's market — but that does not mean any price works. The 2018–2019 window is the warning: when supply creeps toward 6 months and sold-to-list ratios slide toward 96%, leverage starts moving, and overpriced listings sit.
If you own a co-op or an older condo, you may already be selling into a buyer's market, and pricing has to reflect that from day one.
Know which market your property is actually in before you pick a price. That is the whole game.
Nicandri Estevez is a licensed NY real estate agent and licensed NJ home improvement contractor. Questions about selling on Staten Island? Call (917) 335-7258.