Brokers on Long Island’s East End must be feeling like the Maytag repairman: dispensable, lonely and left to tinker with their own devices.
New listings plummeted last month in the Hamptons and North Fork, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel’s monthly report for Douglas Elliman.
“[Listing growth] was expected to rise with demand that peaks in the summer,” report author Jonathan Miller said. “People are pulling back and are less willing to put listings on the market. They want to see where things are going.”
Last month, they went down. New listings declined 10 percent month-over-month in the Hamptons, the first monthly decrease since February. In the North Fork, new listings dropped 14 percent in the first monthly dip since December.
In the Hamptons, new listings have declined annually since February. New listings decreased 13 percent last month from 150 in the same month last year to 130. New listings in the North Fork were down from 64 to 38 year-over-year, a 41 percent annual decline and the largest so far this year.
New signed contracts were down last month on the East End after a surge in activity in May. New signed contracts dropped by 38 percent in the Hamptons and 34 percent in the North Fork compared to the previous month.
“Activity has been very volatile month to month,” Miller said, and added that the fluctuation is a reflection of the market. “There hasn’t been a clear sign of the direction the market seems to be going in.”
The number of new signed contracts in June remains below the year-ago sales spike in both residential markets. In the Hamptons, new signed contracts declined 28 percent year-over-year, down from 78 in June 2022 to 56. In the North Fork, new signed contracts dropped 10 percent, from 30 in June 2022 to 27 in the same period this year.
During the pandemic, buyers rushed to the Hamptons in search of a getaway from cramped Manhattan apartments and lockdown restrictions, propelling the East End’s residential market to an unprecedented peak.
But the market has since cooled, as mortgage rates rose and overseas destinations beckoned travelers away from the once-coveted beach town summer rentals. While prices remain high, deal volume and rentals have declined since 2021, leaving brokers on the island to contend with a market plagued by few listings and delayed new development.
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