Originally published: July 23, 2014 5:20 PM
Updated: July 24, 2014 12:38 AM

By MAURA MCDERMOTT
 maura.mcdermott@newsday.com

A home for sale at 23 Brookside Dr., in Huntington, Wednesday, July 23, 2014. (Credit: Steve Pfost)

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With prices making slow but steady gains, more Long Island homeowners are putting their homes on the market.

The number of homes listed for sale on Long Island grew to 17,208 in the April-to-June period, 5.6 percent higher than a year before, according to a report due to be released Thursday by the appraisal firm Miller Samuel and the brokerage Douglas Elliman. The figures do not include East End sales.

Across the Island, the median home price ticked up in the second quarter to $360,000, 1.4 percent above the same period last year. It was the fifth consecutive quarter of slight year-over-year increases. The number of sales fell by 6.3 percent year-over-year, to 4,950.

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Previously, “a lot of people couldn’t sell their houses because they had no equity,” said Dottie Herman, chief executive of Douglas Elliman in Manhattan. “As the market got better, you see more people put their homes on the market.”

Nationwide, a shortage of listings has sparked rising prices over the last few years, said Jonathan Miller, chief executive of Manhattan-based Miller Samuel. The recent inventory increase on the Island could “moderate future price growth to keep the housing recovery sustainable,” he said. Long Island’s inventory remains below the 10-year average of 20,504, Miller said.

Along Nassau County’s South Shore, the median price rose by 4 percent compared to the previous spring, to $390,000, and the number of sales rose by 1.9 percent, to 732. The area has made a solid comeback since superstorm Sandy hit on Oct. 29, 2012, Herman said.

In the Hamptons, the median home price fell by 1.3 percent year-over-year, to $908,500. The number of sales rose by 3.7 percent, to 700. The share of under-$1 million sales increased, making up 56.6 percent of sales, up 1.3 percentage points from a year earlier, Miller said.

On the North Fork, the median price rose by 3.9 percent, to $477,500, and the number of sales fell by 3.8 percent, to 154, according to the Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman report.

The North Fork’s priciest homes were in East Marion, Orient and Peconic, where houses sold for a median $540,000 in the second quarter, 17 percent higher than a year earlier, according to a Corcoran report also due to be released Thursday.

“The North Fork is becoming continually more popular,” with rising numbers of newly built, waterfront homes and large parcels of land, said Ernest Cervi, executive managing director of Corcoran in Bridgehampton.