The Hamptons Half-Price Sale: Prices for opulent weekend homes are slashed

Wall Street Journal ^ | 2/21/09 | LUCETTE LAGNADO

[jimbo123]

At first glance it's a gated mansion worthy of a Gilded Age: more than 14,000 square feet with eight bedrooms, 9½ bathrooms, five fireplaces, a pool, a pond, a tennis court and ocean views all nestled amid fields perfect for lavish summer parties.

Built on spec, this property was offered for sale in 2006 for $24.95 million. Today? Try $12.95 million -- and even that lower price hasn't yet lured a buyer. The mansion is now being sold at auction as part of a bankruptcy plan by the developer's firm. The manse stands unfinished, forlorn and uninhabited.

"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.

[tlb]

If west coast people would prefer something a little more economical, Debbie Gibson has her home listed at $280,000 less then her purchase price. Pity she didn’t think to straighten up the place before the realtor took the pictures.

SELLER: Deborah Gibson

LOCATION: Forest Knoll Drive, Los Angeles, CA

PRICE: $995,000

SIZE: 1,733 square feet, two bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, one of which appears to have a stand up urinal installed, an apparatus we don’t imagine Miss Gibson used much.

DESCRIPTION: Fabulous designer home in Hollywood Hills above Sunset Strip. Beautiful chef’s kitchen, stainless steel app, slate/tile baths, formal dining, den and wonderful backyard for pool. Very private. Offer subject to short sale.

http://realestalker.blogspot.com/2009/02/deborah-gibson-taking-hit-in-hollywood.html

[Condor51]

'The Hamptons Half-Price Sale: Prices for opulent weekend homes are slashed'

I think the FHA & HUD should buy these, split them up into apartments, and move all the people who've defaulted on loans, been evicted from their homes, and move them into these.

New 'pads' for Tyrell, Lashika, LaQueesha, Juan, Maria and Pablo.

They're much better than some trashy Trailer and I'm suuuuuuuure that the LIBERALS in the Hamptons won't mind a little 'diversification'.

Really.

No Kidding.

I'm 'series'.

Bwaaaahahaha ...

[Allegra]

They're much better than some trashy Trailer and I'm suuuuuuuure that the LIBERALS in the Hamptons won't mind a little 'diversification'.

LOL - now, that would be some chickens coming home to roost.

[bert]

I spent a weekend out there. My friend Bernie was a chick magnet and they flocked to his parties. He spared no expense on the food and drink with chocolate and champagne being flown in from Paris. There was white truffle souffle with champoun sprinkles for breakfest. Faaantastic.

[Condor51]

*** LOL - now, that would be some chickens coming home to roost. ***

Yep. We'd see exactly how tolerant 'our betters' really are.

After the first drive-by shooting, armed robbery, car-jacking, or worse - rape/murder, occurs, by one of the down trodden minority neighbors, I have a feeling they'd be screaming for Death Penalties and 25-Life sentences for stealing a bicycle.

And they wouldn't give *a spit* if little Jahkeem was 'turning his life around' or had a job interview 'tomorrow'. No matter how much Auntie or Grandma cried for the TV camera it would be 'off with their head'.

[mj1234]

That bathroom is a Riot!

So Debbie gets to sit on the toilet with her face in
the Urinal!?- and you only need a million.

[Lets Be Frank]

If the mega rich are feeling this squeezed...that spells doom for the rest of us. Bad news.

[yazoo]

Thanks for posting that, it was a great laugh. I particularly love the “designer kitchen.” I guess designer means cramming too much stuff in too small a space.

[ottbmare]

I grew up in a town where rich people from a nearby city had once vacationed and then built their primary residences, much like Greenwich or the Hamptons. So many of these mansions were abandoned in the 1930s, and as a child in the 1960s and ‘70s my friends and I would occasionally come across the ruins of such places. Once, playing in some woods, we came across the remains of an inlaid dance floor, with red marble pillars fallen nearby and covered with brush and muck. It spoke hauntingly of a vanished golden past where lovely ladies and handsome gentlemen in black tie glided across those polished floors, before everything was destroyed . . .

And so it is today, once again.

[org.whodat]

"It was not overpriced",

It isn't often that you see a whole train load of Bullsh*t.

[org.whodat]

If the mega rich are feeling this squeezed...that spells doom for the rest of us. Bad news.

Paying for Madoff's life style sure was a bitch for many of the nova rich in the north east.