25 Rawson Road

From the March issue: Every year, Hamptons broker Jane Gill gets a call from the same Wall Street trader, looking for a summer rental with a fenced-in yard, an acre of property and a garage for his Ferrari. He always calls at the last minute, usually around Memorial Day, hoping to get a good deal: a $200,000 property for about $75,000.

“He works with every broker,” said Gill, a vice president at Saunders & Associates in Bridgehampton. “Last year, I showed him a few things, and then I lost contact with him. I assume he found something.”

He may not find it so easy this year, however. Brokers say that while last year many renters waited until the eleventh hour, they have been receiving calls from interested renters over the last month, and some of the most exclusive properties have already been picked up.  [more]

25 Shaw Road and Stephen Siegel

Stephen Siegel has purchased a $13.7 million seven-bedroom, 7.5-bath home with 200 feet of private beachfront in Sag Harbor, a spokesperson confirmed to Newsday. The sale of the 25 Shaw Road home, raised eyebrows last month when it ranked the highest selling one-family home in the town, the seller’s broker Tara Newman of Saunders & Associates told The Real Deal at the time. The buyer’s identity was not immediately available at the time. The property was on the market for two years before Siegel nabbed it from Charles Ray Langston, a Miami-based hedge fund manager. The property has a 50-foot heated swimming pool, theater and croquet court. Just last month Siegel purchased a Manhattan property, a $1.75 million two-bedroom apartment at the Fairchild condo at 55 Vestry Street. [more]

An eight-bedroom, seven-bathroom “Nantucket-style” cottage in Sag
Harbor Village is in contract for $15.995
million and is expected to close shortly. The 8,200-square-foot waterfront home has a wine tasting
room, movie theater, billiards room and indoor gym. The gated-property has a heated pool, hot tub and three-car-garage. Tara
Newman of Saunders & Associates is representing the seller. [NY Mag]

[UPDATE, 5:30 p.m.]
The sale closed today at around 3 pm for approximately $14 million, the seller’s broker Tara Newman told The Real Deal. The property, which she identified as 25 Shaw Road, broke sales records for the town, she said. The previous record deal was for the $6.85 million Hannibal French House, for which Newman was also the listing agent, in 2006. She has sold the French house three times in her career, Newman said. The Shaw Road property has been on the market for over two years, most of which time it was listed by the Corcoran Group while it was used as a rental home. During its tenure as a rental, 25 Shaw Road netted $395,000 per summer, another record-breaking figure for Sag Harbor Village, Newman said. Although she did not disclose who the buyer or seller were, Newman said that they were “nobody you’ve ever heard of.”

The church in Sag Harbor and Dennis Suskind, former Goldman Sachs chair

Sag Harbor resident Linda Mintz has proposed transforming the town’s United Methodist Church into a 15-room inn. Dennis Suskind, a retired Goldman Sachs chair, had purchased the historic church for $3 million in 2007 with the intention of transforming it into a single-family home. Suskind reportedly gave up on his goal shortly after purchasing the spot and put it back on the market. The town is divided on the issue, the Sag Harbor Express reports, with many residents concerned that the bed and breakfast would be too large.

Judi Desiderio, founder of Town & Country Realty

A Hamptons housing report released today shows progress in some markets, while sales volume in certain areas is still slipping. The number of home sales in the Hamptons in the third quarter was only down 2.5 percent from the same period a year ago, according to a report released today by Town & Country Real Estate, a more modest drop than other markets are experiencing, particularly in the luxury sector. There were 251 sales transactions in third-quarter 2009 versus 257 in the same three months last year, the third-quarter East End market report shows (see the full report after the jump). Judi Desiderio, founder of Town & Country, which has nine offices on the East End, said that she had predicted that the market would stabilize that quarter and that the report proves her right. Even so, six markets on the East End saw sales drop.
[more]

The Hamptons have shown a handful of positive signs recently, as the number of contracts signed in the region rose to 156 in August from 62 in July, according to an eastern Long Island listing system. Additionally, home sales rose 34 percent to 344 units between the first and second quarters of the year, according to data firm Suffolk Research Service. While local brokers say they’re cautious about calling a market recovery, Mala Sander, a senior vice president at Corcoran’s Sag Harbor office, said that she’s noticed a significant uptick in buyer interest — enough that a 2,800-square-foot home she listed in Sag Harbor sold for $150,000 above asking. “I’m completely booked every weekend,” Sander said.

Map shows the Sag Harbor real estate shuffle

Sag Harbor’s pristine beaches may be a draw for the wealthy and influential set. But it’s a street in the center of town that attracts another set of movers and shakers — the village real estate firms. A stretch of Main Street that is less than a quarter mile long is lined with brokers’ offices, and as the market shifts, firms play a more strategic game of musical chairs, most recently with Brown Harris Stevens (seen in green) moving down the street and Agawam Realty (seen in purple) taking over the firm’s old digs. [more]

Charles Manger and BHS’ old Sag Harbor location at 76 Main Street

Brown Harris Stevens has moved its Sag Harbor office down the street from its old digs at 76 Main Street, continuing the group’s nearly two-year pattern of office relocations throughout the East End. Since 2007, BHS has relocated its Bridgehampton and Southampton offices as well, and added a new office in Amagansett.
The new office, located at 96 Main Street, is the site of the Corcoran Group’s old Sag Harbor home. Corcoran closed the office in February 2009, during its massive consolidation on the East End. Corcoran has been steadily paring down its Hamptons presence. While still a massive force in the region — Corcoran has the greatest number of agents on the East End — in April 2009 the company had 80 fewer agents in the area than two years earlier, according to an analysis by The Real Deal in April. BHS had 149 agents at the time. [more]

Panoramic View (top left), Bulova Watchcase Factory (top right) and Prime 103 (bottom) are at the center of legal controversies

This summer, a court is set to decide whether a group of brokers in the
Hamptons is functioning like a monopoly. By charging too-high fees for
their shared online system, known as OREX, the brokers are illegally hoarding key property data, a lawsuit alleges. But while the sweeping legal action is keeping lawyers busy, it’s not
their sole source of work, as the upscale second-home destination on
Long Island’s East End suffers from the housing downturn like the rest
of the country. For one, the region has been hit with a rash of short sales, brokers
say, as homes teeter on the brink of foreclosure. The Springs section
of East Hampton has been particularly hard hit, with 12 short sales in
the last few months, said Veronica Montemarano, a sales agent with
Prudential Douglas Elliman in Montauk. [more]

• 1. Kensington residents trying to turn Caton on the Park into affordable housing [Arch Paper via Curbed]
• 2. Corcoran takes over sales at 14 Hope Street, lowers prices [Brownstoner]
• 3. Developer John Catsimatidis talks about 202 Myrtle Avenue project [Brownstoner]
• 4. Brooklyn Bridge Park loses $8 million from budget, foot bridge cut from plan [Brownstoner]
• 5. Architect Santiago Calatrava said designing the World Trade Center transit hub was difficult [Crain's]
• 6. Tailor restaurant in Soho goes bankrupt [Crain's]
• 7. Appeals court upholds decision that developer Shaya Boymelgreen improperly assigned lease to Forest City Ratner [AY Report]
• 8. General Growth Properties gets new terms on a $400 million loan [Bloomberg]
• 9. REITs raise $10.6 billion to cut debt [Bloomberg]
• 10. Prices on Long Island still high [LIBN]
• 11. John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor to be expanded [Sag Harbor Express]
• 12. Reservations rise, helping Bovis Homes [FT]
• 13. First concrete laid for Sept. 11, 2001 memorial [AP via SI Advance]
• 14. History of the collapsed 217 Court Street [Lost City]

[more]