Hamptons middle market picks up in Q1

Resi sales in the $1M-$5M sector jumped nearly 22%: report

From top left: 61 Becky's Path, Hamptons Bays, 111 Bailey Road, 3 High Point Road
From top left: 61 Becky's Path, Hamptons Bays, 111 Bailey Road, 3 High Point Road

As the high-end Hamptons residential market continues to soften, sales for homes priced between $1 million and $5 million jumped in the first three months of the year, according to the quarterly report from Douglas Elliman.

The number of sales in that middle sector increased by 21.6 percent year-over-year, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel and author of the report.

By comparison, sales for pads priced over $5 million dropped almost 13 percent from last year, and were at their lowest point in three-and-a-half years. In the sub-$1 million market, sales were flat.

“After the financial crisis, the luxury market in the Hamptons was the first to come back,” Miller said. “We saw the market pop in 2012, 2013 and 2014 …perhaps we’re now in a more stable period.”

Overall, the median sale price in the Hamptons hit $995,000 in the first quarter of 2017, an 11 percent year-over-year jump. Meanwhile, the listing discounts hit 12 percent, a 1 percent increase from last year.

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For condominiums, the median sale price reached $725,000, a nearly 30 percent increase from last year, though Miller said the sample size is small and the figures are prone to large swings. The median price of a single family home also jumped hitting just over $1 million, a 11 percent increase on last year’s first quarter median price of $925,000.

The softening at the high end, a feature of the market in the Hamptons and New York City, continued in the first quarter. The median price for the luxury sector — the top 10 percent of all sales — was just under $5.2 million, a 6 percent drop on the same time period of last year. Listing discount was 16 percent — nearly double what it was last year. The average days on market has increased by more than 80 percent to reach 197.

Miller pointed out that while the most publicized part of the Hamptons is the high-end market, homes over $5 million actually account for less than 6 percent of sales. Still, he said the luxury end had gone from boom, to a reset and now to stability. “In the last year-and-a-half, it’s gone through a rest. Just like we’ve seen in Manhattan,” he said.

Scott Durkin, COO of Douglas Elliman, added the “agents are feeling that the over-$10 million market will continue to improve.”