Hamptons real estate has found its footing, though it’s not off to the races just yet. Third-quarter prices are down in many Hamptons locales, but activity is brisk. Days on market has shrunk. House-hunters are making the rounds, but mostly at smaller (read: affordable) properties. Caveats abound!
According to third-quarter surveys, transactions are up 2.2 percent to 469 compared to the same time last year, per Jonathan Miller’s Prudential Douglas Elliman report. The median sales price fell 10.7 percent to $625,000. In the South Fork and Shelter Island, luxury estates at the top 10 percent of the market took a hit price-wise, with averages and medians down 10 percent and 29 percent, respectively, according to Corcoran’s report. The number of luxury transactions rose 31 percent.
Interestingly, Brown Harris Stevens’s findings show substantial business in the under-$1 million segment, which comprised 75 percent of closings in Amagansett, compared to 33 percent in 2009. That brought average and median prices down to $1.3 million and $763,500, respectively. Still, says Cia Comnas, executive managing director of the Hamptons and East End offices of BHS, “there are good deals to be had out here at all price points.”
