Stuart ElliottIt’s that time of year again — time to escape the city and head to the beach. Time to trade your pumps and wingtips for flip-flops and sandals. Time to trade fluorescent office lighting for the sun beating down on your back. Time to reserve lunch tables for lobster roll shacks, get pieces of corn stuck between your teeth, and wash it all down with a beer.
With summer season in the Hamptons kicking into gear, we thought, “What better time to take a look at the biggest firms and priciest deals on the East End?”
Unlike those caught up in the migration from Manhattan, it hasn’t been vacation time for top agents out there on Long Island. In an improving market, they’ve been listing and closing deals with big seven- and eight-figure price tags.
Take a look at our cover: Who does Manhattan superbroker Dolly Lenz of Douglas Elliman trust when she wants to sell her Water Mill house? That would be Tim Davis of rival firm Corcoran, who is marketing Lenz’s seven-bedroom manse for $5.9 million. And that’s one of Davis’ tinier listings: He’s got two $38 million properties on the market in the Hamptons, and a $49 million estate he is selling as well.
While Elliman is the largest East End firm, the two other East End superbrokers gracing our cover are Susan Breitenbach of Corcoran and Harald Grant of Sotheby’s, who have Hamptons properties on the market for $68 million and $58 million, respectively. While those estates may not hit their asking prices, they would surpass the Manhattan price record if they did, proof of the big money involved in real estate in the Hamptons.
Meanwhile, another top broker, Gary DePersia, has sealed the priciest closed deal of the year so far on the East End — $36 million for the Tyndal Point estate, north of the highway, in Sag Harbor.
Of course, there is time for play this summer, too. One rite of the season for the New York real estate elite has been developer Joe Moinian’s annual party at his waterfront Westhampton house (elaborate enough to involve several changes of outfit by the dapper Moinian). If you snag an invite and don’t already know him, you can learn more about Moinian in our “Closing” interview.
Moinian talks, among other things, about recently raising the price of his unsold apartment at 1045 Park Avenue. The price increase is partly a result of a renovation and partly a result of the improved market, he says.
For a while, this market has been about properly pricing apartments in order to achieve healthy sales. (See more in “The one with the penthouse.”) Yet in raising prices (which Davis has on Lenz’s house, too), maybe the smart money knows something the rest of us don’t.
Speaking of smart money, this summer will mark four years since the onset of the credit crunch, which first reared its ugly head in July 2007. It’s hard to believe it has been that long. I remember driving back then from the North Fork, scratching mosquito bites and listening in rapt attention to an NPR segment explaining what credit default swaps were, and how they had almost done our financial system in.
So much of our collective economic outlook is still centered around that summertime crash, but should it be? If you look at many of the stories in this issue, they show the extent to which the city’s real estate market (if not the nation’s) has staged a recovery.
We look at the decline in residential shadow inventory in Manhattan; the improving northern New Jersey office market; the impact of Condé Nast’s $2 billion lease at One World Trade Center (see “Leasing with style”); the opening of the second phase of the High Line (see “A developer’s climb”); one of the priciest residential conversion deals in a long time (see “Penciling out 737 Park”); and the demand for high-end office space in the Plaza District.
Finally, check out our annual survey of Manhattan’s top agents, and some of the challenges faced by the city’s (as well as the Hamptons’) largest brokerage, Douglas Elliman.
Maybe those stories will get you to stop worrying about the next global meltdown. Here’s to enjoying the lobster roll and corn on the cob.
Stuart Elliott