Billy Joel Is Movin’ Out of His $49 Million Long Island Mansion

Billy Joel’s roughly 26-acre, waterfront estate on the North Shore of Long Island is coming on the market for $49 million.

The Grammy winner paid $22.5 million for the first roughly 14 acres of the Oyster Bay, N.Y., estate in 2002, public records show. More recently, he acquired several adjacent parcels of land, restoring much of an original estate that was broken up in the 1950s, according to listing agent Bonnie Williamson of Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty.

Centre Island, N.Y.: Billy Joel’s Centre Island home, also known as Middlesea. (Photo by David L. Pokress/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

Known as Middlesea, the property was briefly listed for sale in 2006 asking $37.5 million, but was taken off the market soon after, Ms. Williamson said. She said the Piano Man is looking to sell now because he and his wife, Alexis Roderick, with whom he shares two young children, are spending more time in Florida. A spokesperson for Mr. Joel couldn’t be reached for comment.

Located on Centre Island, a small island roughly 40 miles east of Midtown Manhattan, the estate is close to Mr. Joel’s hometown of Hicksville, a hamlet also located in the town of Oyster Bay. The centerpiece of the estate is a roughly 20,000-square-foot mansion. The property also has a floating dock, a beach house with guest rooms, a gate house, two outdoor pools and a helipad, Ms. Williamson said.

Currently under renovation, the five-bedroom main house has covered porches, brick columns and archways, and a two-story entry hall with black-and-white marble tiled floors. Other amenities at the estate include an under-construction playroom, a room designed to be a spa and hair salon, a bowling alley and a wine cellar. Mr. Joel covered up an indoor pool so he could use the space, which has excellent acoustics, as a music room, Ms. Williamson said.

The renovation of the house is expected to be complete by the late summer or fall, she said. Mr. Joel decided to put the house on the market in the midst of the renovation, Ms. Williamson said, because “whoever buys will want to do their own selections of how to paint and decorate and perhaps style the kitchen.”

Mr. Joel, known for songs like “Piano Man,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and “Uptown Girl,” is in the midst of residency at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Records show a company tied to Mr. Joel purchased an estate in the Lantana, Fla., area, for about $22 million in 2015. Another company tied to Mr. Joel also owns property in Sag Harbor, N.Y., records show.

Middlesea will be the most expensive home for sale in Oyster Bay, where the next priciest listing is asking $8.5 million, according to Zillow. In the first quarter, Long Island luxury sales were down by about 34% from the same period of last year, according to a recent report by Douglas Elliman.

The typically busy spring season for the housing market was a dud, and the summer isn’t looking much brighter.

Housing services companies like Zillow Group and Rocket RKT +3.78% were loud and clear last week on earnings calls: Rocket CEO Varun Krishna called the quarter through June “one of the toughest spring housing markets in years.”

Jeremy Hofmann, Zillow’s chief financial officer, said on a conference call that the company predicted earlier this year that the market for mortgages would be flat. “We actually now think it’s going to be down low-to-mid-single digits,” he said.

The rest of 2026 will remain challenging for mortgage origination volume, says KBW analyst Bose George. The question now is what happens in 2027. “If mortgage rates remain [around] 6.75%, I think that’s going to be challenging even for next year,” he says.

But what’s bad news for mortgage companies could be a positive for bargain hunters. Buyers can expect prices to grow more slowly—or mildly decline—with less competition as long as mortgage rates remain unpredictable.

Mortgage rates at the beginning of the year were solidly below year-ago levels, notes Zillow senior economist Kara Ng. But they surpassed last year’s levels recently, she adds, referencing Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of 30-year fixed mortgage rates. Last week’s reading, at 6.69%, was higher than year-ago levels for the first time in 2026.

“From the affordability point of view, it’s going to get more challenging in the second half of the year,” she says. “And when affordability gets more challenging, that impacts sales and home price appreciation.”

Mortgage application data tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association has cooled since the beginning of the year. The trade group expects that the number of mortgage originations in the remaining two quarters will lag behind last year’s levels, after exceeding 2025 levels in the first half.

Rocket’s early-stage data—which the company told Barron’s it derives from its brokerage Redfin, demand for its mortgage products, and signs in its servicing portfolio that a homeowner is preparing to refinance or move—“leads us to expect the third quarter mortgage market to be smaller than the second,” Chief Financial Officer Brian Brown, said on the company’s call. He added that such an occurrence is “something the industry has not seen since 2022.”

Prices will be about flat nationally, Ng says. Zillow’s most recent forecast, which shows how values are expected to change in the year ending June 2027, show them dropping in roughly half of the 100 largest U.S. metros for which data is available.

Buyers aren’t rushing in at a time when mortgage costs are rising and unpredictable. But those with the right combination of patience and cash could stand to benefit. “If you are financially qualified to buy a starter home, you are facing less competition and you’re more likely to get a price cut,” Ng says.

Billy Joel Is Movin’ Out of His $49 Million Long Island Mansion

The Grammy winner wants to sell the roughly 26-acre waterfront estate now that he and his wife are spending more time in Florida