Andrew Doud 0:08

Okay everyone, it's Thursday. I'm Andrew Doud. It's time for our Happening in the Hamptons podcast, our weekly breakdown of the Hamptons market, new listings, and events on the East End. We are sponsored today by New York Title Abstract, the Hamptons leading title insurance firm. Visit NewYorktitle.com. Joining us today is Dave Rattiner. He is back.

Dave Rattiner 0:27

Good to be back.

Andrew Doud 0:28

It is good to be well, it's it's certainly not as warm as the Dominican Republic, I'm assuming, but good to have you back. And Steve has set sail for warmer destinations now, so he's in Florida, I think.

Dave Rattiner 0:40

No, he's doing the Disney parade.

Andrew Doud 0:42

Oh no.

Dave Rattiner 0:44

Two kids in tow.

Andrew Doud 0:45

That's okay. So Steve's yeah Steve's busy.

Dave Rattiner 0:48

Yeah.

Andrew Doud 0:49

All right. So Steve's out today, but we have Dave, myself, and today, Darius Narrazano. How are you, sir?

Darius Narizzano 0:55

Terrific. Thanks for having me, guys.

Andrew Doud 0:57

He's a return guest. It's been a little while, so it's good to have you back. And I like today's headline. We're calling this You Can't Lose in Hampton's Real Estate. Darius says you can't lose. What does that mean? How can you not lose?

Darius Narizzano 1:08

Yeah, how is that possible? Well, Dave told me anyone who's listening to this podcast only wants to know one thing, and that is if this is a good time to buy real estate. So rather than throw a bunch of math against the wall, which is if you know me, that's totally not in my nature. I thought better to talk.

Andrew Doud 1:24

I'm not a math guy either.

Darius Narizzano 1:26

I thought better to talk common sense, practical knowledge, right? Okay. So my experience teaches me that there's never been a wrong time to buy real estate in the Hamptons. As long as you can afford to buy and hold it.

Dave Rattiner 1:40

Right.

Darius Narizzano 1:41

Of course you should buy smart, right? You still want location, condition, and most important, that this is the property that excites you, that you want to live in it or invest in it. Right. It's not about whether it's at its cheapest price. If you can get it, even if you buy at the top of the market that you're in with a little bit of time, you'll be a winner. As long as you can afford to buy it and hold it.

Dave Rattiner 2:08

And and there is no example of losing in the in in the history of the handle.

Darius Narizzano 2:13

Not if you buy smart. I mean, you'd have to buy it as long as you hold it. As long as you can hold on to it, right? I mean, look, I believe this is the best place on earth to live for beauty, quality of life. I agree with that. Market stability and growth as well, right? But from my experience, the only way to lose in our market is to overextend yourself and be forced to sell at the wrong time, right? As long as you can hang on, you'll always win in the end, even if you overpay up front.

Dave Rattiner 2:44

Well, what I'm trying to understand is something that you spoke about a little bit prior to the podcast. You were talking about how you've always heard in your forty-one years of living out here that it's always overpriced. It's the it's always going up too fast.

Darius Narizzano 3:03

It's always that's not quite what what I was saying. Right. So I've been here for 41 years. I came here in 1982. Right. And I can remember, I think the first day I was here in the Hamptons, and it was Southampton then, I was told that the market was unsustainable, that there was going to be a correction. And I think I've heard that every year since that there's gonna be a correction. The sky is falling, but it never happens.

Dave Rattiner 3:26

And so just wait, you'll get a better time to buy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And everyone kicks themselves every year.

Darius Narizzano 3:33

Look, the population keeps growing, and yet at the same time, there's not more real estate because they're not making it anymore.

Dave Rattiner 3:42

Right.

Andrew Doud 3:43

Right. The real value is the land. You know, it's like where where the house is, the location, and when you're talking about the Hamptons, it's all valuable. Well, all property.

Dave Rattiner 3:55

So does that mean like 20 years from now, property that's normally $2 million is going to be three, four million dollars. These ocean front properties will be $200 million. Like, does that really is that is that really the future? It's so hard to imagine. But then again, I never thought that eggs would be $8 million.

Darius Narizzano 4:16

Unless the economy stalls, I guess. I mean, I'm not an economist, right? But as long as salaries happen, that's what's happening. As long as inflation happens, then it property will rise at the same rate. I mean, really, property is a hedge against inflation. I mean, there's there's no better hedge against inflation or the volatility of today's stock market than our real estate. Right. Right? It's the best thing to buy. Look, think about it. We all have so many stories of the properties that we we would have, should have, could have purchased, but didn't because we thought at that time that it was too rich for our blood, we couldn't quite afford it. And then we look back at it and we realize, oh my God, it was actually perfectly.

Dave Rattiner 5:02

Would have been a life-changing thing.

Darius Narizzano 5:04

And the gains would have been huge, right? But I challenge you, do you have any stories about a property in the last 10 years that you didn't buy because you you you thought it was a mistake, and then you realize now you dodged a bullet that it that it wouldn't have been a good thing to buy? No, because every property, even the ones that were most expensive, have gone up. And they always have consistently. There's never been a time. I mean, I think we'd have to have the rise of the sea level or a nuclear attack for something real. And if that happens, then we all then everyone loses it. Exactly.

Andrew Doud 5:41

So you know I I think back to like my own experience. I've only been out here six years, I guess now. Yeah, six. And when we first moved out here, you know, we bought a house, we lived in it for a year. Um we f found another one that was like the right house, the right time, the right price, all that kind of stuff. And we really wanted to keep the house we were in as a rental property and buy the next thing, and you know, we were like, well, you're smart with that. What was what ended up happening was we really at the time it made sense to sell the house and use the profits from that as a down payment for the next one. So it got us to the next level. But I look back and I'm like, man.

Dave Rattiner 6:20

You just doubled them on the phone. I really wish we had kept it.

Andrew Doud 6:23

I really wish we had found a way, and I don't know what the way would have been, but it just would have been cool.

Dave Rattiner 6:27

Like they got a rent or something, you know.

Andrew Doud 6:29

So we looked into it. I mean, we we looked and we had people come by, and it's just like the the rental prices for where we needed it to be weren't where they are, but they would have been there now. Right. You know what I mean? And that's like it would have been a slam dunk to like get it rented now, right? It just the the price that we needed at the time wasn't quite where the market was. So that's my my coulda, shoulda, woulda. It's not that it's not like I wish I had bought it, it's I wish I'd kept it.

Darius Narizzano 6:53

Yeah. You know, one of the smartest agents I know who's a Saunders agent, Ed Bruhl, his like motto is buy and never sell. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. And in a perfect world, I mean, I agree with him, and I think that would be terrific. It hasn't worked out that way in my life because of resources. I continue to buy things, improve them, and then sell them, and then be able to get something else. And that's another way to go for a lot of people. Sure. But if you could do what you were saying and and and continue to buy properties every year, put renters in them, and they're paying for the property. I mean, that's the ideal situation. Yeah.

Dave Rattiner 7:30

The thing for me that in terms of real estate that I think it's really hard to educate people on, at least for myself, it was really hard for me to learn this, is that a house is money. Like a house is money, but it's also something that you live in. So what I mean by that is is like when somebody goes to sell their house, 90% of the time it's because they need money. You know, 90% of the time it's because, oh well, well, we don't have we don't we have we need the money, so we have to sell it. And it's you know that but when you go to buy, you think that you're giving money away in your psychologically. It feels like you're buying like a like coffee or it feels like you're buying this like crazy expensive item like a car or something. But what you're buying is a real asset that's like worth something and it's interchangeable for money. I mean that and and it's I feel like that's such a hard thing to learn with real estate. It's easy to learn it with the stock market because you can buy and sell it so fast, but there's something about real estate that like people just don't realize so easily that it's almost a risk to not do it, you know, because in the end you have nothing if you're not saving m money in the bank versus you're putting it towards your mortgage, it's paid off and it's worth it. Dave, you can't you can't live in your bank account.

Darius Narizzano 8:58

You can't live in your stock portfolio. It's so hard to it's so much more with property, the things that you can do with it, besides living in it or monetizing it by renting it or selling it. Um I mean, the the whole point, the bottom line is in my opinion, I don't believe that you can lose in the Hamptons real estate market unless you can't hold on. And that's why you need that insulation for the point that you made out. If you need money and you have to sell because of an illness or something else that comes along, then all of a sudden you're forced to sell, and that's where you can lose.

Dave Rattiner 9:36

Right, right.

Andrew Doud 9:37

If you haven't had it long enough. Yeah. You know, but if you if if this is an asset you've had for 10, 15, 20 years and it's appreciated, now all of a sudden that that's money that you're you're you're cashing out on for whatever the the current need might be. Right.

Darius Narizzano 9:50

Well, you can't time the market. We all know that. But it's not a good thing. We do know like when we are in a seller's market, we know that that's the best time to sell and monetize your property. So you don't want to sell it in a downturn if you don't have to. The only time you sell in a downturn is if you're forced to.

Dave Rattiner 10:10

It's just so hard to think, I think, for especially for younger people. It's so hard to think 25 years out, you know, it's so hard to think 25 years out. But if you can wrap your mind around thinking that way, where you're thinking, oh, you know, I think when you have kids, you can start thinking that way because you start thinking, well, what's my daughter gonna be like when she's 25? You know, that's 25 years away. And you can kind of envision the path on how to get there. But um, when you're younger and you're looking to buy real estate, it's so hard to say, well, I'm I don't know where I'm gonna be in 25 years. I might not, I could be in a totally different field or whatever. And if you can start understanding that 20 years goes by fast, like I'm 40, and when I think about how long ago I was when I was 20, that does not feel like a long time.

Andrew Doud 11:05

This year is my 20-year high school. That was 20 years ago. Oh, just when 20 years ago.

Dave Rattiner 11:09

Yeah, I'm gonna be 60 in a couple of months.

Darius Narizzano 11:11

I just say to myself, and I'm still 25, you know, right?

Dave Rattiner 11:14

I remember being 20 and being like, oh, you know, I wish I could buy some real estate or whatever, but I'm not gonna do that because you know, I might live in India or something, you know what I mean? Like I remember not being able to think past neck the the next weekend, you know. But if you can get that long-term thinking and realize that time marches on, you know, you can really set up with Hamps, with Hampton's real estate using this strategy you're talking about, uh, a way you can't lose. And and a lot of people look for that and they don't realize it's right in front of their face.

Darius Narizzano 11:50

You know, well, like you said, time goes by, yeah, and you can't even believe that 20 years have gone by of a mortgage. Yeah. Right. That you that you have somebody else renting the house anyway, so you're not even paying it yourself. So you think about it in terms of this is where you want to be.

Andrew Doud 12:03

In that terms, let's just say you buy a property as as an investment. You're like, you get a 30-year mortgage on it, and if you did that when the rates were three percent, then good on you, right? So you have somebody in there, they're paying your mortgage, you make you know, whatever, whatever the number is, a couple hundred bucks, a couple thousand dollars, whatever you can, you know, your your your cash flow is for that month. So now every month your mortgage is getting paid for, and then some. And then at the end of 30 years, which is coming whether you're ready or not, you know, it your mortgage is paid off by somebody else. You've made money in the meantime, and then you have uh, you know, just straight cash flow coming in after that. It's like a it's a great plan for retirement. Um if you can if you can think that that far ahead. My question though for you, Darius, is is you're saying, you know, it's it's you can't lose as long as you you know you can afford to hold on to it. So is there a well nobody can necessarily time the market, everybody tries certainly, but is there a magic number like five years, seven years that you think is is kind of the bare minimum to hold on to something, or is it dependent on the property?

Darius Narizzano 13:11

Well, it all depends. Wait, if you could hold on for I mean, yeah, it all depends on your personal plan. It my whole thing is when I say that you can't lose, it's as long as you don't sell it in the downturn. We know from history, uh, as long as we can see back, it only goes up, right? When it when it stagnates or drops slightly, it's only for a very short period of time, and then you have the next boom and it just goes up. So it there's never been a time that it actually goes back and stays down.

Dave Rattiner 13:45

Well, because when things go down, people the people want this stuff. People want real estate. They they want Hamptons real estate in particular. So when it goes down, it's like an immediate, oh my god, it's down, let's get in.

Andrew Doud 13:55

Right. And there's certainly plenty of buyers that are like they've been saying it's like I'm gonna wait for it to go back down, whatever doubt.

Dave Rattiner 14:01

Well, look, I know I know plenty of people, you know, growing up out here. I know plenty of people that you know are you know 40 or or a little older and never made the never made the decision to buy property, and they'll still say, oh, it's too exact I'm waiting for it to come down. And I'm like, look, man, you're gonna be saying that till you're 60, man. You know, it's just just do it, you know, like right. It's like get married, right? You know, it's like if you want to have a kid and you want to get married, it's like there comes there comes there's there's a come to Jesus moment. It's like, you know, you gotta you gotta just do it.

Darius Narizzano 14:37

And a lot of people have that problem in this particular market because this is a very tenuous market with the stock market doing what it's doing right now, which is up and down and up and down and up and down and interest rates and and war in Ukraine and all these other things, people are have a tendency to just watch and see what's going on. But and and think things have to come down.

Andrew Doud 14:57

Right.

Darius Narizzano 14:57

They've got to come down at some point. If we have a recession, they'll come down, but that's not necessarily true. If people don't have to sell, they're not gonna sell. Right. And so some things might sell. But the the the the the trick is if you see something that you see yourself in and you can afford it, buy it.

Dave Rattiner 15:17

Yep, yeah. It's very, very, very you can't time the market.

Darius Narizzano 15:20

Like you said, Dave, you know, it might be up instead, and then you've lost your moment to get it, and somebody else buys it, and then they don't sell it for 50 years.

Andrew Doud 15:27

It's almost it's almost so simple. You're like, if you see something you like and you can afford it, buy it. Really? That's it.

Dave Rattiner 15:34

It's not it is it, it isn't, it isn't, it isn't.

Andrew Doud 15:36

Um let's Darius, do you have any any properties or listings that you want to mention while we got the got you on the podcast today? Sure.

Darius Narizzano 15:43

I've got one brand new construction, 1168.

Dave Rattiner 15:46

I love this property.

Darius Narizzano 15:47

Brick Hilm Road, five acres in Sag Harbor Modern Barn.

Dave Rattiner 15:51

Um that has such a cool fireplace in the middle. It's like so grand. You walk in and it's huge ceilings, and then there's like this huge fireplace right in the middle of the room.

Darius Narizzano 16:00

If you haven't seen it, I'll be there again this Saturday from 12 to 2 p.m. 1168 Brick Hilm Road. Come and check it out. Beautiful house.

Andrew Doud 16:08

Pretty construction for sure. Yeah. Um pool, pool house.

Darius Narizzano 16:17

Again, on five acres, three-tenths of a mile from Mashishimowit Park.

Andrew Doud 16:22

Yeah, it's a good one. 7995. Exactly. We just dropped it 600,000. So now it's at 7995. Ready for moving, ready for summer.

Dave Rattiner 16:32

Darius is a very aggressive seller's agent in terms of presentation of the house. He I remember I went to an open house and the whole place smelled like cinnamon and apples. And I was like, Are you what the hell's going on here? And he had apple cider going.

Darius Narizzano 16:50

Yeah, don't make a pie. Hot apple cider. It smells terrific through that.

Andrew Doud 16:55

They say make baked cookies or an open house or something. Yeah. Hey, whatever works, right? Yeah, um, it makes me feel good. Aromatherapy. Yeah, sure.

Dave Rattiner 17:05

It'd be nice to just have that in the office all the time. Just have some like cinnamon apple pie cooking, you know, apple cider cooking. Talk to Steve about that when he gets back.

Andrew Doud 17:14

Um, speaking of, uh, we're gonna let Dave take a crack at the numbers this week since since Steve's not here. So go for it.

Dave Rattiner 17:22

All right. Hello, Steve. I hope you are enjoying Disney. But here are the numbers. This is for the week of 131, 2023. Over the past week, there were 17 listings that went into contract from West Hampton to Montauk compared to this week. Last year, there were 37 listings that went into contract, which is a year-over-year decrease of 54%. Same week in 2021, there were 63 listings that went into contract compared to the week last in 2023. It's a decrease of 73%. The breakdown of these 17 transactions are one between 10 and 20, 3 between 4 and 6, 3 between 2 and 4, and 10 under 2 million. So under two under 2 million, 10. Over the past week, the volume was 48 million compared to the same week. Last year, 2022, the dollar volume was 101 million. It's a decrease of 52 percent. The same week in 2021, the dollar volume was 152 million. Compared to the past week in 2023, it's a decrease of 68%. This past week there were 29 new listings coming onto the market with 17 listings going into contract. This increases the inventory by 12 listings, and the breakdown of these 29 new listings are five between 10 and 20, 2 between 8 and 10, 2 between 6 and 8, 2 between 4 and 6, 12 between 2 and 4, and 6 under 2 million. The overall inventory as of February 7th, 2023, is 1,633 total listings, active and in contract. And there are 1,206 active listings and 427 in contract listings. So that is your weekly breakdown.

Darius Narizzano 19:14

So low inventory still.

Dave Rattiner 19:17

Low inventory still, but it you know, 12 plus new listings, that's kind of a new number. That's kind of a new number. I mean, I used to see you know that I like seeing the new listings on the market because I want to see more transactional activity with the agents, you know.

Andrew Doud 19:32

I think that's so uh, you know, you're talking about this being a seller's market, yeah, right? There's no not a ton of inventory. And so people would say, well, I'm gonna wait for it to be a buyer's market, and then I will buy whatever that whatever that looks like.

Dave Rattiner 19:52

Right.

Andrew Doud 19:52

And you're saying, Darius, that if you find the right property, even if it's peak of the market, as you know, whatever, whatever you can define that or whatever that looks like, you would say still buy now, because looking down the road, chances are even if it's at the height right now, it's still gonna be higher down the line.

Dave Rattiner 20:09

There's no crystal ball.

Darius Narizzano 20:10

Yeah, you don't know that it's actually gonna go down at all either. You know, we could just, you know, the economy could just take a bounce and it can and keep going. I mean, you can wait for a bargain forever and not get there, as Dave was saying, or 20 years goes by. It's kind of like playing the lottery. It's gonna go up the lottery. Find what you want.

Andrew Doud 20:33

No, no. So here's all right here's my analogy for this. If you can't afford it, don't do it. Think about well, there's that. But think about this. The you know, there are there are folks that'll go and they'll play the lottery every day or once a week, or whatever the case is. I had a friend who's dad, he was always like, you'd always buy a lottery ticket, right? And I think it was just kind of like a fun thing for him, but it was like, surely one of them will hit, right? And then you're waiting, you're waiting, and you're waiting and you're waiting, and it never happens.

Dave Rattiner 21:00

Oh, you mean waiting to buy waiting to buy.

Andrew Doud 21:03

You're like, I'm gonna wait. The next next year is the winner. Good luck. The next ticket's the winner. And it's like you could wait forever and still not hit the jackpot.

Dave Rattiner 21:12

And you most likely will wait forever if you go with that mindset.

Andrew Doud 21:15

Does that analogy make a little bit more? Now it makes more sense. Something. Yeah, yeah. Maybe not the best one, but that's what I'm going with.

Darius Narizzano 21:19

Again, the really important thing though is if you can't afford to necessarily hold on, then it's a total gamble. Right. Because maybe it will go up and you're gonna win.

Dave Rattiner 21:29

But if something happens and you're forced to sell the guys, yeah, you know, you could lose a lot of money, you could lose everything.

Darius Narizzano 21:36

Right. So you have to be able to invest to hold on.

Dave Rattiner 21:40

Yeah, and and and those investors, when they get caught with their pants down, that's really where people get you know, hear the horror stories. Right. That's where you get hurt. And you don't want to be you I mean, if you want to be that kind of an investor, you know what you're going for. You're going for broke, you know. And which is fine.

Andrew Doud 22:00

Swinging for the fences though.

Dave Rattiner 22:01

You know, but if you're like, you know, most I would say most of your clients, I mean, you have a couple have you ever had a an investor? Most of your clients, you know, you give them that straight up advice, which is, you know, buy what you can afford and stick with it, and you can't lose. And I really love that. You're a smart He's a smart guy. Yeah, he's a smart guy. You know, when you you know, you kinda have you know, Darius is locally came out here, you know, it's like it's not like you can go and work for Goldman Sachs while you live out here. You know what I mean? Like out here, it's do or die if you're local with real estate. You either, you know, get in get figure out how to buy real estate and figure out you know, some kind of service job. You worked, and remember you worked uh as a a house manager for a while, you know.

Darius Narizzano 22:50

I was actually a butler administrator, executive assistant for 30 years, managing five homes in four different countries.

Dave Rattiner 22:57

That's like a really fantastic job out here, and it's like you know, but if you don't take the plunge, it's like in terms of buying real estate, it's like everyone just washes out. They move to North Carolina, they they leave, and it's kind of sad. I know a lot of locals that just kind of that just kind of leave, you know. You gotta make it happen.

Andrew Doud 23:18

I did the opposite.

Dave Rattiner 23:19

Yeah, you did the opposite.

Andrew Doud 23:20

Came from North Carolina to New York.

Dave Rattiner 23:22

And came right in.

Andrew Doud 23:23

Um all right, I'm gonna send it back to Dave because he's also our so what to do, our what to do guy this weekend. This is the Dave show with Darius. I'm just here to here to listen.

Dave Rattiner 23:37

Is bringing back world famous karaoke Saturday. That just kind of sounded like a Darius one, so I decided to go with that one. But if you want to do karaoke Saturday, 9 p.m., it's a good time. Almond in Bridgehampton is the place to do it, I'm sure. Place for karaoke. I am sure that is a hilarious way to spend an evening in the Hamptons.

Andrew Doud 23:58

And you're gonna be there, Dave, on Saturday? Uh I I could do it. I could definitely. What's your karaoke song?

Dave Rattiner 24:06

That's a good question.

Andrew Doud 24:07

Just don't say journey, right? That's like everything. Like don't stop believing.

Dave Rattiner 24:11

It would definitely be like piano, man.

Andrew Doud 24:13

That would probably be that's gotta be at least a top three.

Dave Rattiner 24:15

That's probably my karaoke song. All right, so another thing this is super cool and a very wonderful local band is the if you're looking for an option to enjoy the Super Bowl in the Hamptons, then you should look no further than Best Pizza and Dive Bar on the Napeag Stretch. So that's Sunday, February 12th, from 4 to 5 p.m. The local band, the Cherry Bombs, will be performing a pregame show before the big game. So you can watch a live performance. They have good pizza too.

Andrew Doud 24:47

I've I've had pizza there. Well, there you go.

Dave Rattiner 24:49

I've never I heard it's the best.

Andrew Doud 24:50

It's very good.

Dave Rattiner 24:50

I've never been there. Oh god, that's a darius joke.

Andrew Doud 24:53

And it's a nice setting, yeah. Well, now that you're a dad, you can tell those jokes.

Dave Rattiner 24:58

And then in terms of Valentine's Day, what do you do for Valentine's Day? That is the question in the Hamptons. So Nick and Tony's, I think, is my number one restaurant for Valentine's Day, and my number two restaurant for Valentine's Day would be Pierre's. And my number three.

Andrew Doud 25:17

I thought you were gonna say 1770 house.

Dave Rattiner 25:20

I'm I'm about to say that for number three. I'm about to say that for number three. If anyone out there is looking to do Valentine's Day, or or if you want to make go out to Montauk, you go to Gurney's for Valentine's Day.

Andrew Doud 25:34

Yeah. You go to Gurney's Guurney's is good.

Dave Rattiner 25:36

That's your Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in the Hamptons.

Andrew Doud 25:40

Big weekend, man. I'm you know I'm excited for Sunday. I'm not even here to like talk trash to Steve because I'm pretty sure he's a Giants fan. Eagles are in it.

Dave Rattiner 25:50

I feel like you were like you were like crying with happiness when they won. When was that? That was like when they that was five years ago.

Andrew Doud 25:57

And I drove you down. Yeah, I drove down to live with my high school friends and woke up at three o'clock in the morning just to drive back to come to work the next day.

Dave Rattiner 26:09

We've been working, have we been working here too long? Yeah, that was that was fun. That was fun.

Andrew Doud 26:12

Steve was like, I woke up at nine o'clock, and he's like, You came in today. I'm like, well, yeah, I gotta work today. He's like, I'm just you know, yeah. I wasn't expecting it to be. So go, so go bird. That's it. Um so all right, Derek, thank you. Good insight, as always. And uh, Dave, excellent job filling in for Steve and our rundown of what's going on this weekend. That's it. I'm Andrew Dowd. That's Thursday. Everybody have a great weekend. Enjoy the Super Bowl. That's what's happening in the Hamptons.