Even the Hamptons are Feeling the Heat

Saying the real estate has morphed from every American’s dream investment into every American’s nightmare, would be an understatement at this point. Even the rich are now feeling the heat. An article in today’s Reuters talks about how the real estate market and the economic downturn has not spared even the most exclusive and wealthiest areas/communities in the nation.

Welcome to the other side of the housing bust.

From Reuters: “New York City real estate prices are looking increasingly shaky as instability in two of the city’s sexier submarkets — second homes in the Hamptons, and new condos in Manhattan — register the latest signs of a housing downturn.

Property prices in the Hamptons, a fabled playground of the rich on nearby Long Island, rose steadily for almost two decades, but the prices on almost 1-in-3 of current listings have been cut an average 11 percent from the initial asking, said Sofia Kim of real estate website StreetEasy.com.

Back in town, the number of sales in new developments dropped a whopping 71 percent in April from a year earlier as condo developers enmeshed in complicated financing arrangements have been slow to slash prices even as the market corrected all around them, Kim said.

But if prices on these new condo towers do not fall to match the rest of the market and stay empty as a result, then it could eventually trigger foreclosures of entire properties, forcing much bigger price cuts as lenders seek to reduce their liability.
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When the rest of the country was watching new neighborhoods begin to disintegrate into foreclosure ghost towns in 2007-2008, Manhattan landlords would still publicize new buildings by hosting parties featuring pop stars, sushi and girls twirling hula hoops in a bid to convert still-airborne Wall Street bonuses into down payments.

Today, that bonus pool has dried up..