Are The Hamptons In Foreclosure Trouble?

June 23rd, 2008

Rising foreclosures are seeing the emergence of a new kind of transaction: the short sale. Unheard of even until a few years ago, these sales involve homeowners selling their homes for less than the amount of their mortgage. The sale is carried out in agreement with the bank, to avoid a foreclosure.

In the Hamptons, foreclosures were not a major concern until quite recently. The area watched other parts of the country experience a spate of repossessions but seemed to remain untouched by it.

The story however is now slowly changing. The last year has seen a steady rise in “lis pendens” or the first legal foreclosure notices in the East End area. Foreclosure auctions too have started taking place.

The Hamptons has always been an upscale area where the truly affluent have their homes. Foreclosures of $ 1 million or $3 million homes are hardly a concern for those whose homes are valued at $20 million and $ 30 million. Author Steven Gaines, who is considered an authority on the Hamptons, sums it up thus, “This has always been a place for people who could afford to live here. If one can’t, that’s fine……And if that means that you don’t have to wait three days to get a plumber, that’s good, too.”

But experts anticipate that it is the plumbers and other service providers who are likely to face the foreclosures. And too many defaulters could easily affect the economy of the Hamptons as a whole. Real estate agents too feel that no neighbourhood is safe from foreclosures.

Ashley Clark of Brooklyn’s PropertyShark , publisher of real estate research and data, points out that legal default notices and announcements of foreclosure auctions in the Hamptons would rarely be seen in newspapers even two years ago. Today however such notices appear weekly, even though their numbers are limited to one or two. Clark says, “It’s small in actual numbers and in comparison to the rest of the country, but it’s a big change for that particular area.”

ProertyShark data reveals that 415 lis pendens were filed in the five towns on the East End from October 2007 to March 2008. This reflects a 30 percent increase from the previous six months. The data also shows that 42 foreclosure auctions were scheduled for this period, an increase of 40 percent.

Real estate agents put down the foreclosures to the effect of the national foreclosure crisis and say it is no unusual that a few foreclosures will take place in the Hamptons as well. They do not anticipate a crisis and expect long term residents to remain unaffected by the situation.