Andrew Doud 0:08

Good Thursday afternoon, everyone. I'm Andrew Dow with Connors and Associates, and welcome to another episode of the Happening in the Hamptons Podcast, our weekly breakdown of the Hamptons market, new listings, and events on the East End. Joined as always by Steve Glick, our senior VP of Advertising and Marketing, Dave Rettiner, Director of Digital Marketing and Technology, and we're also joined today by Jennifer Wilson here in our East Hampton office. We will start as always with the latest numbers. Steve, a big week this week. Let's hear the breakdown.

Steve Glick 0:36

Yeah, good morning, Andrew. Hi everyone. There's certainly a lot of excitement in the air out here in the Hamptons, and also a lot of traffic in the Hamptons as always. It was another busy week in the Hamptons real estate market, which continues to be the trend. Over the past week, there were 76 listings that went into contract from West Hampton to Montauk. Compared to the same week last year, there were 30 listings that went into contract, which is a year-over-year increase of you ready for this one, Dave? 153%.

Dave Rattiner 1:06

It's just not stopping. It's not stopping.

Steve Glick 1:08

It's not, and it continues to be the trend, like I said. Um the quick breakdown of these 76 transactions are one over 20 million, three between 10 and 20 million, one between eight and ten, five between six and eight, seven between four and six, nineteen between two and four, and as always, 40 deals under $2 million happening this past week in the Hamptons. The three-month average of properties going into contract each week remains consistent of 75 listings per week. However, this is one data point we should all pay close attention to is the number of listings coming onto the market each week. This past week there were 36 new listings hitting the market, and with 76 going into contract, that leaves a deficit of 40 properties. Certainly, if this trend continues, we may even run out of inventory. Unbelievable. One of the new listings hitting the market recently is 20 Borden Lane, located in East Hampton Village. Listed with Jen Wilson here in the studio today. This property has a headline of Hampton Classic, and it truly fits your picture-perfect Hamptons home. It comes complete with four bedrooms and over 4,000 square feet, price of 3.995 million. Jen, good morning. What makes this house so special?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

20 Borden Lane is a house that was built by Jack Forst. Um, and it's really a classic home. It's a beautiful lot in the village down a um along Cul-de-sac street, tucked away from really everything. You don't you feel like you're outside of the village, but you're you know, a quick bike ride to Main Beach or Georgica Beach. The house is four bedrooms, it has um a finished basement, it has a beautiful sunroom that I would literally live in. The yard is um it's on 0.75 of an acre. Okay, and the property is beautiful. The gardens, it has a pool pavilion, a beautiful pool. Um you could just picture yourself moving right in.

Andrew Doud 3:16

It's an amazing location. It's right between right between the village and the beach. So whichever direction you want to go is right.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

It's a great location. That's awesome. It's one of my favorite streets out here, and many people don't know about the street.

Andrew Doud 3:27

Uh open houses coming on?

SPEAKER_00 3:29

I have an open house today from 12 to 1, and then I also have an open house on Saturday from 11:30 to 1.

Andrew Doud 3:36

Okay, so perfect. So if you're in the East Hampton neighborhood, definitely check check out this new listing with Jen. Uh so Steve, you know, you you talked about the numbers another huge week, and we've kind of seen this a little bit of an ebb and flow over the last three or four weeks here. Uh things back up here this week. So, what's contributing, do you think, to the latest surge?

Steve Glick 3:54

Yeah, look, there are many factors as to why the Hamptons market is accelerating at a rapid rate. Uh, one of these factors that we're gonna discuss today is that it's the latest one. Major companies based in the Manhattan area are now having most of their employees work from home permanently. Companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Shopify, just a few making the latest headlines. This is an inflection point society as the world has evolved, and it's now common to work remotely as many significant organizations have firmly endorsed this new protocol. In my feeling, what better place to do so than in the Hamptons?

Andrew Doud 4:30

Which for you, Jen, I mean, you grew up here. You grew up here, you've lived and worked here, you raised your family here. What do you think is is such what makes the Hampton such a special place to not just live but also work?

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Well, I can't imagine being anywhere else. I think that we are so fortunate out here to be surrounded by gorgeous beaches, both the bay beaches and the ocean beaches. Um I also think that raising kids here is really special. It's a small town community feel, but with a lot of, you know, additional things like arts and nature. Besides the oceans, we have hiking trails. Um, you know, you could go to any farm and pick pumpkins and dig up potatoes. Um you could take a ride out to Montauk and go surfing. Right. Um my youngest daughter is a surfer, she surfs year-round out here. Um both of them were ocean our ocean lifeguards, and you know, there's just so many nice qualities of living out here that again, I think we're all very fortunate.

Dave Rattiner 5:34

You were an ocean lifeguard as well, and your dad was, or who was my dad was. Oh, yeah. So there's a heritage there.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Right. So my dad was an ocean lifeguard at Georgia Beach. My brothers were, and now both of my daughters, and they both went through the um the junior lifeguard program that East Hampton Town runs, which is an awesome program that teaches ocean safety and builds confidence in kids, nine and up, um, to learn how to swim in the ocean.

Andrew Doud 6:02

It's really a great place to grow up, you know, all so much uh nature around you and things to do, it's just a really wonderful place.

Dave Rattiner 6:10

It's so interesting that these huge companies are permanently working from home, and that's turning this area into a place where people you know that work for Microsoft are gonna work full-time.

Steve Glick 6:22

I mean, they're they're saying that it's the close proximity to Manhattan. We're still 90 minutes away, you know. So you if you need to go into the city for a meeting one or two days a week, you're able to do that and then still escape the city and live out here in the Hamptons and year-round. I mean, Jen, you talked about a lot of things that are activities that are happening not just over the summer, but also in the fall and winter. And I think a lot of people now are experiencing fall season in the Hamptons for the first time ever. And w we see it, it's it's very active, very busy. I know there's a lot going on in the Hamptons, but it's just a beautiful place to live in the fall, winter. It's my favorite time of year.

Andrew Doud 6:58

Well, if you're and if you're buying out here, I mean that's gonna be a a big thing, is is a home office. You know, these houses that you're looking for, you know, maybe it's a bedroom or something else that you're gonna want to convert because you're gonna need your office space, especially if your company is one of those companies that's moving towards uh working from home full time. So uh to that point, Jen, I mean you're you're in East Hampton. Uh that's kind of your hotspot where you're always uh working with buyers and sellers. So if you're uh a seller right now in the East Hampton area, what's what's your advice for somebody that might be looking to sell?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Well, I think sellers are in an excellent place right now. Um if if our recommendation to our sellers is to price your house correctly, and really the comps that we base our pricing on is starting in March because March started a whole new market. Um so when we're looking at sold comps to show our sellers when they're listing, we go back to March. Um and if you're priced right, the house is going to sell probably close to ask, if not at ask, and maybe above. We've had it, we've experienced a couple of bidding wars since March. It's been really a wild ride in real estate.

Dave Rattiner 8:12

Do you think this is going to continue? Do you think this trend is going to continue on? I mean, it's really been going on now for literally since March. We're not seeing it let up. Do you see this happening throughout the ne rest of the year into next year?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I do. I think that um families have moved out here. Some art of the kids are in our local schools, they're experiencing being free in nature and just that feeling of being out of you know the confined apartments that they were experiencing in March. Um and I think that like Steve said, people are starting to really enjoy what we have out here.

Andrew Doud 8:50

Yeah. So if you're if you're a buyer then, you know, and and you're saying that people are, you know, a a house priced well, priced right, will sell. So if you're a buyer, I guess you're not going to be getting that that deal. Or you may be you may be thinking, I I can get it for you know, 10,000, 20,000 under ask. May it sounds like asking price is the deal. If you can get a house for what it's listed for, then you're doing okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Yes. And I think that as a buyer, there's a couple of things that you have to realize that one, our inventory is going down, and so prices will become more inflated than they are now. And secondly, um, if you're a buyer, you need to be ready to go. If you see a house that you like, it comes on the market, you need to have your 10% in the bank ready to put down, you need to have your lawyers ready to go, um, and a pre-approval letter if you're getting a mortgage. You just have to be ready.

Andrew Doud 9:48

So are you seeing people losing out on deals just because I mean is it is it a matter of days, hours? I mean days. Hours. Hours. I mean that's yeah.

Steve Glick 9:55

Well, Andrew, typically in the Hamptons, when you see a a last listed price of a property, what it's sold for, it's seven to ten percent off the last listed price. What we're seeing now is one, you know, at ask to no more than three percent off the last asking price. So certainly when you're out there, you know, making putting an offer on a property, keep that in mind to make it you know close to ask as possible because that's what's gonna, that's what it's gonna take in this market.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

And also, I believe that the stronger offers are non-contingent offers, meaning that it's all cash or non-contingent upon a mortgage. So you can get a mortgage, but the deal is non-contingent.

Dave Rattiner 10:36

Those are the strongest offers. If you're a buyer, are you at a better do you have a better advantage if you go directly to a real estate broker and work with someone as a buyer's broker today more than ever? Because I know kind of the the old game used to be that you would go on the internet and then you would just kind of pick and choose which houses you wanted to see, and then you would go and go and meet up with whoever was listing on that listing. But now, do you think there's a more of an advantage to having a a buyer's broker since the buyers know like the markets? I do.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

I think that the buyers need honest advice, and I think that they need people like um Tracy and I, my team, we have um we know local attorneys really well. We can move quickly, we can get inspections done quickly because of our relationships. So I think if you're working with a buyer's broker, they're gonna work hard to get the deal done for you.

Dave Rattiner 11:32

And you might even hear it. Would you sometimes you can even hear about something that you know might be coming on the market?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

That's right.

Dave Rattiner 11:38

And you can kind of that's right.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

In fact, we've done that recently with a couple of our buyers.

Dave Rattiner 11:44

Interesting.

Andrew Doud 11:46

Yeah. So, Dave, I want to send it over to you. You're another East Hampton guy.

Dave Rattiner 11:50

I am an East Hampton guy.

Andrew Doud 11:51

So, what's going on in East Hampton?

Dave Rattiner 11:52

I am an East Hampton guy. I love East Hampton.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Dave's older sister and I grew up together. We're we were very good friends in high school.

Dave Rattiner 11:59

Yeah, yeah. There you go. I I I've heard some very interesting stories. Um, all right, so this is what's happening in the Hamptons this weekend. You can always check out happeningtheHamptons.com to see what events are going on. Um, this week, as usual, I am going to pick my top three favorite things, and we are also going to focus on East Hampton since we're in East Hampton today, Steve. That's right, East Hampton. Alright, so my first pick this weekend is the clubhouse in East Hampton. The clubhouse is proudly open and they're available for mini golf, bowling, dining, and to go orders. Uh the arcades are not open, but you can go on for some bowling or to play some mini golf. And you can also try some of their fantastic foods.

Steve Glick 12:43

That place, that's open year-round, right? That's year-round year round the week.

Dave Rattiner 12:46

They're ready to conduct business in a safe manner, and they're just a very well-run operation. And it's interesting to me about the what's interesting to me about the clubhouse is that it is a fun place for both kids and adults. So you can bring your kids there, you can have a great time. If you don't have kids, you can go with your friends there, and you can also have a great time. Uh, it's just a great night out for any every everyone and everybody. It's really just like a gift to the East Hampton community. Are you any good at bowling? No, I am a terrible bowler. I am an absolute bowling. Minigolf? Terrible bowler.

Steve Glick 13:16

But they have bumpers there, right? You can put the bumpers up there.

Dave Rattiner 13:18

I put the bumpers up for Dave. Of course. I do put up the bumpers.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

They also have a big outdoor bar.

Dave Rattiner 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Um, maybe they're keeping that open this fall, and they have the mini golf.

Dave Rattiner 13:29

Yeah, I mean, they're doing, they, they, they, they're a go-to place for East Hampton now, especially this time of year. Um, so my second pick this week is believe it or not, there's another farmer's market uh in East Hampton. So what's nice about the farmers markets, it seems to be a trend out here that they're continuing them on in East Hampton. They're planning on having the farmers market go all the way through December 20th, which is, you know, that's never happened. They used to always end in the summer. Um, so there's some silver lining happening with this. Um, so it's been approved by the new East Hampton Village Mayor, uh Jerry Larson. Uh, and if you don't know where the parking lot is, where this far farmers market is, it's located between Herrick Park and the stores on Main Street, and it's open every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. And you can always go there to get your favorite pickle. You can get a pickle there. That's right. It's true. Alright, and then my third pick for this weekend in East Hampton uh is always a good night out, and that is Nick and Tony's restaurant. Jen, I asked you earlier what your favorite restaurant is, and I agree with you. Nick and Tony's is definitely at the top of my list. They have incredible Italian food there, and it's a great year-round restaurant in the Hamptons. Um, and they offer an excellent price fix menu this year. Uh, and all and what's great about Nick and Tony's is all the food is sourced from local places and special places, and they take where the food comes from and the quality of the food really seriously. Um, I haven't been there in a while, and I can't wait to go back there. The food is just so fantastic. That's what's happening in the Hamptons.

Andrew Doud 15:05

Perfect. Jen, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for solid advice. Steve, as always, appreciate the breakdown, and Dave telling us what's going on in the Hamptons, East Hamptons today. The Happening in the Hamptons podcast is brought to you by New York Title, the leading Hamptons title insurance firm. And again, we're now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, so please be sure to subscribe and follow along each week. And to see all our listings and all our agents, be sure to check out the doggers.com. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Major Dow, and that's what's happening in the Hamptons.