Posted on 02/21/2009 12:25:21 AM PST by dennisw
"Tragic," says Andrew Saunders, owner of real-estate agency Saunders & Associates, who adds the house would have sold in 2006 if it had been finished or priced less aggressively. "It was not overpriced. He got caught in economic times," counters A. Mitchell Greene, an attorney for the developer.
Welcome to the new Hamptons, where the boom's sunny days and Champagne nights have given way to foreclosure notices and sales at discounts of 25% to 30% and more. Some buyers are making offers of 50 cents on the dollar, and less. Brokers speak of the "Lehman houses" -- homes that used to belong to employees of the fallen Wall Street firm -- or "Madoff homes" -- those owned by clients of the Manhattan financier implicated in a Ponzi scheme. Summer rentals are languishing. "For rent" signs have begun to appear in the windows of some boutiques on Southhampton and East Hampton's tony shopping streets.
Other famous resort towns are suffering. In Aspen, Colo., sales of single-family homes above $1 million fell 44% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, according to Morris & Fyrwald Sotheby's International Realty. In the Hamptons, over the past eight years, property values soared to dizzying heights. Once a mecca for artists drawn by the light and natural beauty, the picturesque villages drew wealthy individuals from New York, Los Angeles and Europe. "There were properties that were overvalued more than in your wildest imagination, they were being built and sold for double the price in a couple of years," says Paul Brennan, regional manager for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Then last summer, he says, sales stopped. Now, "it is blacker than anyone thought it was going to be." In Southampton, the number of fourth-quarter sales plunged 45%, according to The Real Estate Report Inc.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Go to article for sideshow of very nice houses and photos too
Crappy stick built homes.
I see great communal housing for 0bama's comrades
Nice big lawn for collective farm
While this is sad, was all this growth sustainable? It couldn’t go up forever.
Oh and, the houses might be expensive and large, but they sure are ugly. Money truly cannot buy taste.
Maybe this downturn will have silver lining of people returning to quality over quantity.
One of the WSJ comments—
So much of the run-up in Hamptons pricing was due to its popularity with the Wall Street “Masters of the Universe - Part II” crowd. Many of these guys are totally out of work now; others won’t make in a year what they spent in a month in 2007.
The pain is first starting in the lovely beach world; since most of these homes are ten-weekends-a-year affairs, they’ll be the first to go when the screws are really felt. And they’ll be dumped at any price when cash is needed on the Manhattan cond’s term loan maturity. And, in the new realm of bank responsibility, they’ll be a lot fewer buyers who can qualify for loans to buy these gilded playpens.
It will only get much worse.
That painting at the art gallery sure is hideous. Only 25K on sale!
“So I decided to go away and dance and be happy.”
Yep, she’s going to be dancing on top of a steam grate soon.
One of the problems with being wealthy and no kids (or just one) is that there is no reason to plan for the future or the continuation of your seed. This leads to the desire to blow one’s wealth before they die, except when things don’t go right and they blow that wealth within a decade. Its an empty life if you ask me.
I agree. If I could have had more kids than one I would have... despite the dire warnings of overpopulation I was constantly barraged with in my college years.
Nothing wrong if you can only have one child or none, its just that when you choose to be childless and wealthy there is just something about not being a good steward of one’s money. Those types could help provide for nieces and nephews or aging parents. Oh well, its the world we live in.
In the Orient they always try to create family business dynasties. Used to easier in the past
We used to have major firms here too that were generational and dynastic
To me the real point of becoming real rich is some of your children and grand children follow you into the family business and don't becomes ridiculous English majors and artistes. Though of course the world needs artists.
Cry Me a River for these elitists.
Let them suffer their own undoings under their great leader President Obama.
That painting at the art gallery sure is hideous. Only 25K on sale!
__________________
I liked that fish painting and it is perfect for one of those Hamptons mansions. But at $25,000 there are no buyers
(painting is in the slide show in the WSJ article)
I understand you. We had friends who never grew up and chose to not be parents because it would hinder the lifestyle they led.
Right now, the rich are not getting richer, and IMHO, their anger will be taken out on King Obama.
Hmmmmmm, wonder what kind of art work the Obama’s have in their Chicago digs.
I love dynasties, even if you are middle class. Its one of the reasons why I buy Twinings Tea. After 308 years they are still run by a Twinings and still maintain the original address in London. Its about vision and preparing for generations on down. Nothing wrong with an estate in the Hamptons. It is the way these buffoons go about “acquiring” the property that ends in ruin.
Mebbe ACORN can break in and settle some of their friends there.
Ahem, there’s this thing we call the “death tax”.
I recall reading that very few family businesses in America that survive to three generations.
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