Hamptons Buyer Profile

When I think about who is buying and looking to buy in the Hamptons this is what comes to mind. Right now I am working with two young famiilies. When I say young, i mean in their early 30’s. They are in finance and live in New York City as their primary residence. These are second – vacation homes for them.

The first couple is looking in a price range of up to $10,000,000. They are looking for a completed home with no or very little work to be done.

The second couple is looking to build their own home and searching for a tear down or piece of property and wants to be complete with building for about $6,000,000.
There are also investors that want a “good deal” this means a fix and flip or a teardown where the upside provides them with a nice profit. This kind of fix and flip buyers are available but the product is becoming more difficult to find. The investor is always around in every price range. Many of these buyers will not give a price range but say “it has to make sense”.

Okay, so the main two buyers in my opinion are Young people who work in Finance and Real Estate speculators and builders.
There are other buyers as well.
We have been working with a Single Doctor and also a Single Woman who works in the music field. Both of these are in the $1 to $2M range. Again – Second homes.
We do get our share of the Fashion designers and the fashion Industry in general and television and movie and recording celebrities and non celebrities.

I know there are also many people on the very high end that want that special prime property and the numbers do go high. The properties are not that easy to come by and are usually not official listings. Many of these deals are done quietly and that is how buyer and sellers want them. Many are broker assisted but in a quiet way. These buyers are usually but not always older. And usually but not always families that want the compounds for children and grandchildren to enjoy. These buyers are usually trading up from other Hamptons houses that they already have. They have made their fortunes in a variety of ways and in my personal experience are “self made”. The numbers on these deals are the ones that when they transfer will make the gossip columns.

With the exception of the investor. In all price ranges and with all different professions that have provided these people with the money to buy their second or third home. They all have a lot in common. They live and work and want to escape from NY city. This is to be the ideal home. It is not unusal for them to wind up spending more money than they intended to get what they envisioned as their ideal country/beach home.
Almost always location is much more important than the house. However, having said that, if it is close then the “done” house will many times win out over a slightly better location.

You may be asking – does no one actually buy a home to live in? Well yes, but that is not my usual customer. There are of course many people that live here full time and I am one of them. But where would I go? and why would I move? A certain number of second homes become first home because the buyers love it here so much, they just stay. I don’t really know for sure, but I think the full time hamptons population stays put and does not move around much.
I think we all who live in the Hamptons either full time or part time appreciate this place and as the credit card commercial says – It is Priceless. The Hamptons….Priceless.