When President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariff policies earlier this year, housing markets across the country braced for impact. Headlines in the weeks following the announcement speculated on the skyrocketing development costs and uncertainty clouding buyer decisions.
But on Long Island’s East End, brokers say that the anxiety was short-lived. Instead, as the summer heads to the Hamptons this month, agents are gearing up for a booming season of business.
“There was a pause, but it was really only one week,” said Saunders & Associates’ Mark Greenwald. “Now there’s really no pause at all.”
With more homes finally hitting the market, deals are surpassing the region’s decade average. Buyers, buoyed by a banner Wall Street bonus season, scooped up properties across the South Fork, boosting average and median pricing to new heights.
Some long-lingering trophy properties are starting to trade, as sellers, once blinded by the eye-popping deals nabbed during the pandemic-era purchasing frenzy, are finally budging. Although the dip in asking prices may prevent the market from achieving another nine-figure deal any time soon, it could spark more sales to cross the finish line.
And there are plenty of buyers waiting in the wings to absorb that inventory, according to Greenwald.
“Inventory is building incrementally, but there’s demand to meet that small increase in supply,” Greenwald said. “It’s not a seismic change in inventory levels.”
Greenwald attributes the uptick to the natural “evolution” of homeowners in the area who’ve “held their houses for long enough after purchasing them during Covid.”
Inventory is improving, but obstacles to growing that number remain. Building new homes in the Hamptons is still a challenge, with sky-high land prices and swaths of open land rendered undevelopable due to environmental protections.
Then there’s the latest impediment — a new zoning amendment passed in East Hampton aimed at thwarting the construction of megamansions throughout the villages and hamlets stretching to Montauk. The zoning rules, passed in March, limit home sizes to 7 percent of the size of the lot plus 1,500 square feet, down from the previously allowed 10 percent of the lot plus 1,600 square feet.
“If it’s priced well, it can trade in a weekend.”
The changes are expected to raise home values for East Hampton owners with existing larger homes and make larger lots in neighborhoods north of the highway more attractive for developers and buyers who want to build bigger homes.
Greenwald said that the bullish sentiment among brokers extends to developers, who he claims aren’t backing down from upcoming projects.
“Builders are still actively purchasing land,” he said. “None of my customers have hesitated to move forward.”
But the jury’s still out on whether the new regulations will push sellers to list their homes just yet. Brokers say that because the changes are so new, and, in some cases, vague, deals could slow down until there’s more clarity.
“What counts as a basement? Does it count against the total?” said Serhant’s Kieran Brew. “It’s really hard for builders to know what they’re buying.”
Brew added that he expects developers to pause on new projects while the uncertainty clears — but that could have consequences down the road.
“That’s going to cause a shortage 18 months from now,” he said.
Rentals’ new rhythm
For rentals in the Hamptons, seasonality is officially dead. A market that once operated like clockwork — beachgoers securing a pad early in the year for Memorial Day to Labor Day — is now one where the rules and conventional wisdom no longer apply. It’s lost the dependability of its three-month cycle, a pattern continued from the past two summers.
Rental inventory soared in the years following the pandemic-era housing boom. But demand for a full summer stay, especially on the lower end, didn’t meet the supply as would-be temporary Hamptonites traveled to Europe or other destinations for the summer. Now, renters are on the lookout for shorter-term stays for a month at a time.
But aside from duration, brokers are split on the rental market’s new trends. Most agree that on the high end, rentals are rare, and, as a result, strong. Oceanfront, move-in ready homes are few and far between, so those who want to spend the summer in the Hamptons are quick to snap them up.
Of those homes still on the market is an eight-bedroom spread in Bridgehampton asking $990,000 a month. The oceanfront home at 15 Dune Road has been on the market for more than a month and it’s also advertised as being available for any two weeks between from June 15 and September 15 for just under $500,000.
However, for the rest of the market, reviews are mixed. More renters have already booked their properties for the summer compared to the previous year, according to vacation rental platform StayMarquis. The number of bookings for property rentals between Memorial Day and Labor Day rose 6 percent year-over-year.
“Rentals right now are just starting to gear up,” said Justin Agnello of Douglas Elliman’s Atlantic Team, which ranked among the top 20 brokers in the Hamptons last year, according to TRD’s analysis of transactions. Although inventory is high now, “the bulk of activity is in July and August, so there’s still a lot of time for these homeowners.”
But Serhant’s Brew said that while that was true for last year, this summer started booking up months ago.
“Last year, there was a lot available, and people waited really long to rent,” Brew said. “In August [of 2024], I was getting calls for rentals for this summer from people who had only just rented last summer, like the month before.”
Deals at the high end
Some of those deals are already giving last year’s most expensive trades a run for their money.
At the start of the year, an oceanfront estate on Meadow Lane closed for $40 million. It was a far cry from the $85 million it once sought, but the sale was a bid of confidence that sellers were getting more realistic about their prices.
“If it’s priced well, it can trade in a weekend,” Agnello said. “Oceanfront and big-ticket items that have been on the market a long time are starting to shift prices accordingly.”
In February, the Hamptons notched its priciest deal to close so far this year when an oceanfront estate in Amagansett sold for $70 million in two transactions. The deal was less than the $89 million sale that topped last year’s most expensive trades, but it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison — that Gin Lane home, then owned by Canadian art magazine publisher Louise Blouin, sold at auction.
Gordon Gekko’s iconic Bridgehampton home in the 1987 movie “Wall Street” sold last month for $32 million, landing the property at 67 Surfside Drive among the other top deals to close so far this year. “Sellers who are realistic and willing to meet the market are the ones achieving successful outcomes,” Preston Kaye, the co-founder of Hedgerow Exclusive Properties and the agent behind the deal, wrote in a statement. “Buyers remain out there, and demand is real — but only if the economics of a deal make sense.”
As evidence of Kaye’s ethos, the broker dropped the asking price of an oceanfront home on Dune Lane in April, from $95 million to just under $85 million after nine months on the market. Still, the 10-bedroom estate is among the Hamptons’ five priciest listings, alongside another of Hedgerow’s properties in Water Mill, a sprawling 24-bedroom home on a private peninsula on Cobb Lane asking just under $100 million.
