A Bridgehampton home

Vacation homeowners in the Hamptons and NYC-area getaway communities are facing an increasingly competitive marketplace when it comes to renting out their homes, according to the New York Times, as new listings websites bring more prospective landlords to the market. A National Association of Realtors survey recently found that 22 percent of all vacation homeowners in the U.S. plan to rent out their homes, and that huge figure is being reflected in the growing number of listings on sites like HomeAway.com. [more]

From the May issue:

Horse county in Bedford Village

Like the Hamptons, summer retreat towns in northern Westchester are seeing their rental markets gain strength for the first time since the downturn, according to the New York Times. Towns like Bedford and Pound Ridge are seeing increased activity from renters, who prefer the more private, lower-key semirural towns to the paparazzi-and-traffic-laden options on Long Island’s East End. [more]

Click screengrab to watch the video

Five years after the housing bubble burst, there are problems in the Hamptons. The number of unsold homes has hit a 30-year high, prices have plummeted, and more than 1,000 homes worth over $1 million are in distress, the BBC reported in the video above.

From left: Prudential Douglas Elliman Chairman Howard Lorber and a Helicopter landing in East Hampton

Residents of Floral Park on Long Island have scored a victory over wealthy New Yorkers who fly helicopters over their homes towards the Hamptons on summer weekends. According to the New York Times, the Federal Aviation Administration has acquiesced to Senator Charles Schumer’s long standing push on behalf of those constituents and intends to ban helicopters from flying directly over Long Island — except in emergencies. [more]

Aerial view of the Hamptons

Home sales below $1 million boosted the volume while decreasing the median price on the East End of Long Island, according to fourth-quarter 2011 market reports from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Brown Harris Stevens released today.

Sales in the fourth quarter were higher than expected, holding steady year-over-year, despite the fact that changes in tax rules produced an artificial uptick in the fourth quarter of 2010, Elliman’s Hamptons/North Fork sales report indicates (see chart). [more]

The $2 million to $3.5 million homebuyer disappeared from the Hamptons during the fourth quarter, pushing the median sales price down even as the number and dollar volume of home sales increased, according to a market report released today by East End residential brokerage Town and Country Real Estate.

There were 290 homes sold during the fourth quarter of 2011, a 9.4 percent year-over-year increase, at a median price of $787,500, down 16.2 percent from the prior-year quarter. [more]

From the November issue:
[more]

Source: Prudential Douglas Elliman

East End residential sales activity and prices grew by double digits in the third quarter of 2011, according to a report released today by Prudential Douglas Elliman, although the increase, as is often the case, was skewed by booming luxury sales and a slow market in the same period last year.

Compared to the third quarter of 2010, home sales in the Hamptons and North Fork jumped 14.7 percent, to 538 from 469, and the median price rose 12 percent, to $700,000 from $625,000, the report says. Following seasonal patterns, sales activity in the third quarter dropped 13.1 percent and the median sale price decreased 8.6 percent over the previous quarter.
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Hamptons high-end home sales saw positive growth in the third quarter of 2011, according to a report by Hamptons brokerage Town & Country, with the upper categories monitored by the company for all Hampton markets combined realizing sizable gains of as much as 60 percent.

Sales in the Southampton area more than doubled from the third quarter of 2010 — to $41 million from $11.9 million — but Amagansett experienced the greatest year over year change in volume of home sales, from six in the third quarter of 2010 to 11 in the third quarter of 2011. Sales prices were also up in nine of the 14 areas surveyed. In East Hampton, the median home sales price was up 39.92 percent; in Montauk, it was up 27.34 percent and in East Hampton Village, the median price was up by a massive 155.26 percent — to $4.85 million in the third quarter from $1.9 million a year previous. — Katherine Clarke [more]