Hamptons home inventory suffers historic drop: report

Listings dropped nearly 55% year-over-year; days on market down 90%

Hamptons Market Data founder Adrianna Nava (Compass, iStock)
Hamptons Market Data founder Adrianna Nava (Compass, iStock)

The Hamptons is running out of homes for interested buyers.

Hamptons Market Data revealed the number of for-sale listings was down to 450 as of April 1, Behind the Hedges reported. Available homes dropped 8.1 percent from the previous month and almost 55 percent year-over-year, the largest inventory decline Hamptons Market Data has ever recorded.

The shortage has already begun to limit the number of sales.

Similar to the story across the country, demand is outpacing supply in the Hamptons. Contracts signed outpaced new listings in each individual Hamptons market except for Amagansett and Water Mill. Contract signings increased 17 percent from February to March, but decreased 32 percent year-over-year, the latest sign of a tightening market in the Hamptons.

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Finding affordable homes in the Hamptons remains a challenge. The number of new listings priced at $1.5 million or below has fallen by half, while contract signings dropped by 85 percent year-over-year and closings by 57 percent.

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The median sale price in the area in March was slightly more than $2.3 million, according to Behind the Hedges. That was unchanged from February but up 16 percent year-over-year.

The Hamptons luxury market is as hot as ever, which appears to be drawing out some sellers. According to Behind the Hedges, the number of contracts for homes priced at $10 million or more increased 33 percent from March 2021, while the number of closings jumped 46 percent.

The median number of days from listing to contract signing in the Hamptons last month was 56 days, the fastest in three years. The median time fell 90 percent year-over-year. The national median was 38 days; days on the market is usually higher in the Hamptons because more expensive properties generally take longer to go into contract.

Hamptons Market Data was founded by Adrianna Nava, the director of market intelligence for Covert at Compass.

[Behind the Hedges] — Holden Walter-Warner