Hampton’s Home Buyers on the “Sidelines”
Home sales in New York’s Hamptons fell to the lowest marks in 3 years as potential buyers of luxury properties stayed on the sidelines during this past volatile Quarter on Wall Street.
Purchases in the 2nd-home market popular with Wall Street bankers and celebrities, totaled 437 in Q-1 of this year, this down 19% from last year, according to a real estate report published Thursday. The median sale price was $895,000, a 2.8% fall.
Last year’s sales activity in the area receded, as the financial industry began Y 2016 on a down note.
Wall Street bonuses fell 9% in Y 2015 to an average of $146,200. In January, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index registered its weakest start to a year since Y 2009 amid worries of declining Crude Oil prices and fears of an economic slowdown in China.
Sales of luxury homes, the Top 10% of the market priced at $4.05-M in Q-1 dove 20% to 45 deals, according to the report. The median price of those purchases was $5.5-M, unchanged from Y 2015.
Wealthy buyers “view a pullback in the stock market as a buying opportunity for stocks, which makes them sit on the sidelines for vacation homes,” said the CEO Town & Country Real Estate, which also released a report on the Hampton’s market.
Sales fell in all but 2 of the towns and hamlets measured by Town & Country.
In the Bridgehampton area, which includes Water Mill and Sagaponack, 30 homes sold in the frame, a 39% fall from a year earlier, the brokerage said.
At “$18-M and up, there’s just too many things on the market,” he said. “There’s just too much inventory.”
Lower-priced properties were in demand during the Quarter as buyers seeking value flocked to towns west of the Shinnecock Canal, such as Remsenberg and Hampton Bays, said a S-VP Corcoran Group, which released its own report Thursday.
Homes priced below $500,000 accounted for 42% of all sales west of the Canal, compared with 37% a year earlier, Corcoran Group said. Deals for $1 to 2-M accounted for 20% of transactions in those towns, up from 13% a year earlier.
Now anything $3.5-M and under is the customer base there.
Have a terrific weekend.
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