If you follow or are in the Hamptons real estate market you are probably aware of the recent firestorm over our publishing the details of an incident we recently experienced. One of our agents, while trying in good faith to help customers find a rental,was treated in a shockingly disrespectful and dishonest manner by his prospective renters. Because this type of behavior affects every Hamptons agent on some level, after some spirited internal debate, we made the decision to publish the details on our web blog, Hamptons Marketwire. Oh yes, we knew that such a salacious story would likely be picked up and was it ever! We figure the post was probably viewed at least 50,000 times, if not more, on the various blogs and Web magazines that cover the Hamptons and real estate.

The other blogs largely spun it as a story about revenge, but we feel that angle really misses the point. Our decision to go public was not about revenge. It was really to shine a light on something that we all go through as agents to a lesser or greater degree. It was a call for business practices based on dignity and mutual respect. Don’t misunderstand us, we enjoy our jobs, we are in a great market, and most of our customers and clients are honorable just like the homeowner in question. Make no mistake though, it’s a very tough business that maybe we can all make just a little better if we deal fairly and with honesty and integrity with our clientele and with each other. That goes for everybody involved in this crazy game, agents, brokers, buyers, sellers, renters and landlords.

Rosehip Partners is growing. We need additional agents. We will be moving shortly into a much larger new office in East Hampton Village with excellent frontage and foot traffic. We have several websites that generate regular leads both for rentals and for sales across the Hamptons. We believe in our agents and in the work they do and are not afraid to stand up for them or for that matter our sellers or our buyers. That is why we published this story.

If you are an established agent or new to the game and looking for a different kind of broker, a different work environment, give us a call. We’d like to hear your story and tell you a bit more about ours.

Jon # 1 "ALL CASH"

Jon # 2 "CALL ME DIRECTLY"

Here’s one for the Hamptons Real Estate Hall Of Shame. One of the most brazen attempts we’ve ever seen to cheat a real estate salesperson out of a commission happened last weekend. Disappointingly, though maybe not surprisingly, it involved a pair of Wall Streeters. Other Hamptons realtors look out for these two! Jon Terracciano, an attorney with the largest and most prominent investment bank in New York and Jon Shechtman, a portfolio manager with a prominent real estate hedge fund have a scheme to use real estate agents for access to multiple Hamptons rental properties for their summer share house while intending from the outset to cut them out of the deal by contacting the owners directly with the hope of corrupting them.

It all started with a rental inquiry received by Hamptons real estate broker Rosehip Partners. The first Jon submitted multiple Web inquiries for high end rental properties promising with every request “all cash for a quick deal.” In good faith the agent who received the lead responded promptly to their requests. He spent several hours screening suitable properties and calling owners and eventually his Saturday afternoon taking both Jons to view possible rental houses.

He later reported that the afternoon showing properties was well spent and he felt confident that a deal might be possible on any number of the seven properties that had been shown. He further offered that they were “nice guys. We chatted college hoops. I felt pretty sure I’d get an offer on one or two of the houses we visited.”

Then the unexpected happened. The next morning the agent received a phone call from an attorney in Southampton who had happened to have dinner with the owner of one of the rental properties shown to the Jons. He was calling to let the agent know that the homeowner had been distressed, surprised, disgusted even to find the following notes. The first, the homeowner found on the kitchen counter right after the showing. The second was put under the front door later in the afternoon when the Jons returned on their own. As you can see the notes were written in different handwriting script, so they each took their turn laying on their special charm.

Left on counter while touring house with agent

Left at house later that day without agent

The smiley face is a nice touch, don’t you think? After some thought we have decided to blur out the final digits of their phone numbers. We wouldn’t want to sink to their level.

Our agent dedicated two days of work with the hope of earning a slightly more than $3,000 commission. Anyone care to speculate on the salaries of the Jons? Whatever they make, it seems it isn’t enough. The thought that the pair would leverage their well intentioned victim’s work, while planning from the outset to cut him out of a deal by attempting to corrupt Landlords, even surreptitiously advancing the effort while in the house with the agent, is ethically and morally bankrupt. All the while they charaded as “nice guys” but maybe more like real “good fellas.” For additional detail follow this link for the definition of “sociopath.”

God help us all if these are the type of people we trust to manage our money!

Apparently the Hamptons isn't all Shingles and Gambrels

Yes, it’s true the Hamptons are having a great rental season in 2013 and Rosehip Partners is riding the wave. Our website Hamptons Rentals generates a steady stream of leads every day and our agents distinguish themselves with superior service to their homeowner clients and rental customers. We are happy to report that our Principal Broker, James Young was quoted in a recent New York Times Article about the hot Hamptons Real Estate Market and in particular the extraordinary demand for rentals in Montauk. “Montauk is on fire!”

A couple quick points about the general rental market this year.

1. Maybe it’s Rosehip’s excellent representation of our Landlords, or maybe it’s the market, but our 2013 deals are happening at 90-95% of full asking price.
2. The demand for shorter term holiday rentals, the bane of the realtor’s existence, continue to increase.
3. Somewhat paradoxically, the demand for year ’round rentals is higher this year than any season in recent memory

And what does all this mean? Who knows.

It has been a while since our last post here on the Marketwire but to be honest there is only so much time in the day and with the hope that this blog stays interesting to our followers we’d rather say nothing than fill it with nothing.

First a quick rental review. As expected the rental market this year continues to outperform last year’s. In a nutshell the days of pricing erosion are over following the overall reset in asset prices that started in 2008. And while prices are no longer going down, neither are they going up. There is, however, elasticity at the higher end of the market where we see some discounting from ask. The mid market (between $30,000 and $60,000 for the traditional MD-LD season) has seen good demand, good absorption, and steady pricing.

Rented by Rosehip Partners to delightful clients. South of the Highway in Bridgehampton.

The New York Times published it’s market overview this weekend and here is the link. Of course all the sex appeal is in the high end, but candidly most of  the action is elsewhere. Especially so on the re-sale side where appropriately priced properties that come to market under $1,000,000 seem to be finding a steady supply of buyers.

So as not to risk becoming longwinded here are two recent news items about things that you can’t make up…

The seller who refuses to leave her house, read a brief news report here.

And, we like this one, but pity the agent who did the deal. How was he to know? A problem that sometimes arises. Please read our July 16, 2012 post.

Vintage Montauk

The 2013 Hamptons rental season is starting to pick up, but if you are hoping to find something to rent in Montauk this season it’s already starting to wind down. There has been an unprecedented level of interest in Montauk thus far this year and most properties priced within the $25-35,000 price point have been rented by a largely younger audience. There were times in January where agents, not only from Montauk, but from points west, crossed paths with each other multiple times, customers in tow. In short order inventory was consumed.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that this will be another active rental season.

2012 is fast drawing to a close and with it a year of substantial improvement in the Hamptons real estate market.
Here is an interesting metric that might provide some indication as to how the 2013 summer rental season could develop…web traffic to www.hamptonsrentals.com over the last 30 days, compared to the same period last year, is up a very significant 38.5%. Page views are also up by nearly ten percent.
The increase in web traffic has translated into a greater lead flow compared to last year, with more closed deals as a result.
Traditionally President’s Weekend in February marked the start of the Hamptons rental season. No more. The internet has changed that.
While we can’t give you a reason for the increased traffic it’s possible that people who have historically rented in areas that have been touched by Hurricane Sandy are looking to the Hamptons as an alternative destination in 2013.

Our earlier post about the Highway Behind the Pond outlier, is only half of the story. We learned that under a separate purchase the buyer also closed on 58 Highway Behind the Pond, owned by the same seller of the aforementioned 54. The package of the two properties was sold for over $40 million. This makes Highway Behind the Pond, East Hampton perhaps the most valuable address in America with its unique combination of ocean front estates (10 of them) golf course, pond views and pond frontage.

If anyone had any concerns about the health of the high end real estate market in the Hamptons, well the recent transfer of 54 Highway Behind the Pond in East Hampton Village should allay concerns.

Sited on 1.4 acres, and overlooking the 15th fairway of the Maidstone Golf course, this architecturally unimpressive house recently sold for an astounding $20 million, and definitely ups the value of the neighborhood. In 1999 this property sold for $3,100,000, and other than some personalized landscaping not much else has changed.

It has been 4 days since Sandy barreled through the northeast United States, and for now at least, a low cloud seems to be hanging over the real estate market. Agents are reporting that at least temporarily they hope, the phones have stopped ringing, that interest has shriveled; in short, the market may be officially closed for the season.

Sandy has dumped wet sand on the Hamptons real estate market, but that can hardly be surprising, what with no electric, no cable, no internet, no cell, no phone, no water, no heat and now gasoline shortages the latest pesky annoyance. We are thankful our area got away so light compared to our friends on the Jersey Shore. Theirs is the disaster.

Near Town Line Road in Sagaponack - The bad news is another storm is expected next week.

The tremendous damage to the northeast’s coastal areas has people wondering (once again) as to the wisdom of living on, or so near to, the ocean, sound or bay. In the old days people knew better than to live too close to the sea. Communities were settled a safe distance away.
With time the question of safety gave way to the value and desirability of an esthetic. And not without good reason. Given the unimaginable wealth created over the generations, and as our population grew, it’s no wonder that owning a beautiful stretch of beach with an incomparable view, would become desireable, not to mention pretty effective at setting one apart. But it can come at a cost.

Fresh Pond beach on the bay side, in Amagansett, before the storm hit.

Man is helpless in the face of nature.
Coastal erosion is a terrible thing to watch. In the end it is real money, washing away in front of your eyes, which, in our material age, might be pretty painful to some.

The same bay, the next day. All serene, but a lot of real estate has disappeared.

It doesn’t mean anything to those working in the PC environment but one of the big hassles about the Long Island Board of Realtor’s Stratus MLS platform was its incompatibility with the Apple Mac OS.
Our office is a an Apple bastion, and having to find a PC in order to enter listings into MLSLI was, well, nothing but a hassle.
For those who’ve endured the hardship, our days in the desert are over. Stratus is now Mac compatible and it seems to work like a charm.