The Wall Street Journal - 13.03.2020

M8| Friday, March 13, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

and less expensive than the Hamp-

tons, shot up 40% over the past de-

cade, and rose about 2% from last

year, according to Douglas Elliman.

“All of 2019, every day, every

real-estate broker walked into

their office, they saw price reduc-

tions,” said Judi Desiderio of

Hamptons-based Town & Country

Real Estate. “It was staggering.”

Even with falling prices, the

Hamptons are still prohibitively

expensive for many New Yorkers.

And a growing number of home

buyers are avoiding the Hamptons

for reasons other than cost.

For 10 years, Jim Houlihan, a

commercial real-estate broker,

owned a summer house in the

Hamptons. But when he started

looking for a new home there after

a divorce, he noticed that “the

prices were crazy,” he said. Mean-

while, “the kids would say, ‘Dad,

can you cook dinner so we don’t

have to go to a restaurant and wait

for a table for two hours?’ Finding

parking, getting stuck in traffic—I

was going, ‘why am I doing this?’ ”

Instead, they started vacation-

ing on Nantucket Island, Mass.,

said Mr. Houlihan, 67, who lives

mostly in Bronxville, N.Y., with his

second wife, Pat Houlihan.

They bought their first Nan-

tucket home in 2011, then up-

graded to a larger house on 5

acres in 2016 for $4.1 million. On

the small island, he said, “we

found that we could really relax.”

Another hot second-home loca-

tion is the Hudson Valley, where

actor Liam Neeson, hotelier André

Balazs and numerous celebrities

now have properties. “I know peo-

ple who bought up there who can

easily afford the Hamptons, but

they don’t want to,” said Manhat-

tan real-estate agent Leonard

Steinberg, who owns a country

home in the hamlet of Waccabuc,

N.Y., and is co-owner of the restau-

rant Market St. in the Hudson Val-

ley village of Rhinebeck. “They like

the low-key, less-flashy lifestyle.”

Lori Shabtai, who has spent de-

cades summering in the Hamp-

tons and owns a home in Water

Mill, said she often encounters

negative perceptions about the

South Fork. “A lot of people who

don’t live in the Hamptons say

‘Oh the Hamptons, it’s so

crowded, it’s so scene-y,’ ” said

Ms. Shabtai, 59, a commercial

real-estate broker who lives pri-

marily in Manhattan. She said she

rarely experiences that side of the

Hamptons because she prefers to

Marie-Eve Berty, right, in her

Wainscott, N.Y., home. She is

selling the eight-bedroom house to

downsize following the death of

her husband.

Hamptons

Go Cold

Go North

Sales prices in the exclusive and pricey Hamptons have plummeted, while the more rural North Fork is on

the rise.

2010 median

sales price

2019 median

sales price

Change

in price

2010 number

of sales

2019 number

of sales

Change in

sales volume

Hamptons $906,000 $860,000 -10.2% 1,632 1,597 -2.1%

NorthFork $450,771 $632,000 40.2% 443 612 38.1%

Source: Douglas Elliman

said Mr. Crowley. The year they
married, they bought a circa-1800s
house outside Kingston, N.Y., and
now spend almost every weekend
there with their two young chil-
dren.
With its pristine sandy beaches
and picturesque villages, the
Hamptons have long been the de-
fault summer vacation destination
for New York’s rich and famous.
But that may be changing.
Located about 90 miles from
Manhattan, Long Island’s South
Fork is facing its worst real-estate
slump since the financial crisis.
That is partially due to the same
market forces pounding New York
City real estate, like oversupply,
brokers said.
But the Hamptons are also los-
ing some of their allure. Over the
past decade, the South Fork has
developed a reputation for Mc-
Mansions, a status-obsessed cul-
ture and grueling traffic, even as
luxury homes got bigger and ask-

ing prices climbed higher. Youn-
ger buyers especially have re-
sponded by voting with their feet,
eschewing the pricey beachside
haven for other second-home des-
tinations, from the Hudson Valley
to Long Island’s more-relaxed
North Fork.
Some are going farther afield
to Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard
or even the Caribbean. And while
the Hamptons still have plenty of
loyal devotees, many are baby
boomers looking to downsize into
smaller homes, leaving large,
high-maintenance estates linger-
ing on the market.
The Hamptons “has more com-
petition than it has in the past,”
said New York real-estate appraiser
Jonathan Miller. As new wealth is
created in the tech sector, he said,
“I’m not sure they place the Hamp-
tons at the top of the to-do list.”
After years of skyrocketing
home values, the Hamptons real-
estate market was dismal last year.
There were 1,597 homes sales on
the South Fork in 2019, a 18% drop
from 2018 and 2% less than in
2010, according to a Douglas Elli-
man market report. Meanwhile, the
2019 median Hamptons sales price
was $860,000, 10.2% less than
2018, and 5.1% lower than 2010. In
contrast, the median home price on
the North Fork, more rural, quieter

Continued from page M1

“The kids would say,

‘Dad, can you cook

dinner so we don’t have

to go to a restaurant

and wait for a table for

two hours?’ ”

JimHoulihan,formerHamptons
homeowner

DOROTHY HONG FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (5)

Ms. Berty’s kitchen, above. Her contemporary home is located near the Hamptons coastline,

left. The home’s dining room, above left, and staircases, top left.

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