Fears of a US recession force ultra-wealthy to bail on rentals in popular summer hotspot
The rich aren't biting this year — sparking concerns about the state of the economy.
The super-wealthy, who flock to the Hamptons every summer to live in the lap of luxury, aren't spending tens of thousands per month to do so anymore.
A rental crisis has hit the Eastern end of Long Island, as mansion rentals are down 30 percent this year, according to CNBC.
And the luxury rental market that is usually booked every summer doesn't show any signs of improving.
New York City residents — who make up the majority of Hamptonites — will likely miss their infinity pools, tennis courts, and ocean views.
For ultra high-end rentals, brokers say their business is down between 50 percent and 75 percent.
While some people may simply be holding out for better deals, brokers say renters are concerned about economic instability.
'People are holding on to their money,' said Enzo Morabito, head of the Hamptons-based Enzo Morabito Team at Douglas Elliman. 'They don't like uncertainty.'
For example, one palatial seven-bedroom estate in Bridgehampton, which normally rents for $350,000 from July 20 through Labor Day, is still sitting empty, CNBC reported.
Another 11,000-square-foot mansion in Bridgehampton has slashed its summer price tag from $450,000 to $375,000 in a desperate bid to lure renters.
Experts say some would-be renters are simply holding out for last-minute bargains or have been turned off by the late season frost in the area.
But brokers warn there's deeper trouble.
Economic jitters, a turbulent stock market, and Donald Trump's tariffs are forcing wallets shut.
The crisis marks a sharp reversal from January and February, when rental inquiries were flying in.
But by spring — and with the arrival of tariff chaos — it was nothing but crickets.
Luxury broker Gary DePersia of My Hampton Homes says what he's seeing is unprecedented, and that usually, the best homes go early.
The super-wealthy who flock to the Hamptons every summer to live in the lap of luxury aren't spending tens of thousands per month to do so anymore
'This year, I have great rentals available in every town, from Southampton to Montauk,' he says.
Some nervous landlords have started slashing prices by up to 20 percent.
They're also offering concessions like shorter stays instead of full-summer commitments.
Morabito warns that homeowners who rely on summer rentals in order to pay a year's long mortgage may now be rethinking their investments.
He represents several homeowners with large waterfront properties that typically would have been rented by March or April, but that are still available.
Despite the bad news, some brokers remain optimistic.
Judi Desiderio of William Raveis Real Estate believes the combination of 'dark noise' out there financially and geopolitically, along with bad weather, was not good.
But she thinks that last minute takers will show up and predicts everything will be gone by July 1.
The rich and famous, like Christie Brinkley (pictured above), flock to Hamptons hot spots like Surf Lodge starting on Memorial Day weekend
Meanwhile, the sales market in the Hamptons is also down by 12 percent. But, sales are still happening, despite the median home price hitting $2 million, a new record.
One broker is closing on a big deal.
'I just had two Canadians put in a bid on an $18 million house — sight unseen,' Morabito said.
Still, the rentals sit.
'I think a number of people have deferred decisions, or they weren't sure what they were going to do, go to Europe or the West Coast,' DePersia said.
Famous residents of the Hamptons are heading to far more exclusive locales this year, too.
Many celebrities and the super rich are instead making their way overseas.
Jeff Lichtenstein, broker and CEO at Echo Fine Properties in Jupiter, Florida, told the Daily Mail that 'the uber-wealthy are changing it up this year,' adding that he's hearing about more people buying vacation residences in Portugal and heading to Spain on glamorous trips.
These moneyed folks are visiting 'anywhere from Lagos to Carvoeiro overlooking the cliffs on the Atlantic to ultra new golf course communities within minutes of the Faro airport,' Lichtenstein said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
34 minutes ago
- Reuters
Blood test-guided treatment with AstraZeneca pill cut risk of breast cancer progression, study finds
CHICAGO, June 1 (Reuters) - Treating breast cancer patients with AstraZeneca's (AZN.L), opens new tab experimental pill camizestrant at the first sign of resistance to standard treatments cut the risk of disease progression or death by half, a finding that could change the way such cancers are treated, cancer experts said on Sunday. The results, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, mark the first use of a blood test called a liquid biopsy to indicate the need for a change in treatment in women with a common form of breast cancer, even before tumor growth can be detected on imaging. The early switch approach in women with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer resulted in a 56% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death, said Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky, an oncologist at Valley-Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care and an ASCO breast cancer expert. "When patients progress on scans, we're already behind," Teplinsky said at a media briefing. She said an early switch approach, before disease progression, allows doctors "to essentially stay ahead of the curve." Camizestrant is not yet FDA-approved, but Teplinsky believes the data will likely result in a new treatment paradigm. The trial involved 3,256 patients with advanced hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, the most common type in which hormones such as estrogen fuel cancer growth. These cancers lack high levels of HER2, another cancer driver. Women in the trial had at least six months of treatment with aromatase inhibitors that block hormones fueling the cancer, as well as targeted drugs called CDK4/6 inhibitors such as Novartis' (NOVN.S), opens new tab Kisqali, Pfizer's (PFE.N), opens new tab Ibrance or Lilly's (LLY.N), opens new tab Verzenio, which block an enzyme that fuels cancer growth. About 40% of patients treated with aromatase inhibitors develop mutations in the estrogen receptor 1 gene called ESR1 mutations, a sign of early drug resistance. Camizestrant and similar drugs called Selective Estrogen Receptor Degraders (SERDS) block estrogen receptor signaling in cancer cells. In the trial, researchers used blood tests to look for ESR1 mutations until 315 patients were identified. They were randomly assigned to either switch to camizestrant plus the CDK4/6 inhibitor (157 patients) or continue with standard treatment plus a placebo (158 patients). The researchers found that it took 16 months for the disease to progress in women who got camizestrant, compared with 9.2 months in those who continued on standard therapy, a statistically significant difference in progression-free survival. No new side effects were reported and few patients from either group dropped out due to side effects. "This is going to be very impactful for our patients," said Dr. Hope Rugo, head of breast medical oncology at City of Hope in Duarte, California. The question, she said, is how do doctors incorporate the testing into clinical practice. Separately, adding AstraZeneca's immunotherapy durvalumab to standard treatment before and after surgery in patients with early-stage stomach and esophageal cancers helped extend the time patients had without cancer progression or recurrence compared to chemotherapy alone. The global study of nearly 950 patients tested durvalumab, sold under the brand Imfinzi, in combination with a chemotherapy regimen called FLOT given around the time of initial cancer surgery. Patients in the durvalumab plus FLOT arm experienced a 29% better event-free survival than those who received the chemotherapy regimen. "We demonstrate that immunotherapy works in early-stage disease, which is great," lead study author Dr. Yelena Jarnigan of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York told reporters at the meeting. "We did not see any new safety signals, so this will change practice for our patients, which is exciting to see." Both studies were published on Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Reuters
39 minutes ago
- Reuters
Gilead's CAR-T cell therapy shows promise in deadly brain cancer
CHICAGO, June 1 (Reuters) - A Gilead Sciences-backed therapy made with a patient's own white blood cells shrank tumors in 62% of patients with recurrent glioblastoma, a rare event for a fatal brain cancer with few treatment options, researchers reported on Sunday. The study, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago and published in Nature Medicine, is the latest among several efforts testing next-generation chimeric antigen receptor T-cell or CAR-T treatments, a type of immunotherapy in which patients' immune cells are engineered to recognize and kill cancer cells. The work, from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Gilead's (GILD.O), opens new tab Kite cell therapy unit, tested a dual CAR-T treatment in an effort to overcome the defenses of glioblastoma, the most common brain tumor in adults. CAR-T therapy is already used to treat blood cancers including leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and those treatments typically only take aim at one target on the tumor. But solid tumors such as glioblastoma tend to have multiple subpopulations of tumor cells, suggesting that treatments will need more than one target to succeed, said University of Pennsylvania researcher Dr. Stephen Bagley, who led the study. For the treatment, which is injected directly into spinal fluid, the team selected EGFR, which is found in 50% to 60% of all glioblastoma tumors, and a second target called interleukin-13 receptor alpha 2, found in an estimated 75% of glioblastoma tumors. Typically, advanced glioblastoma patients whose cancers return after initial treatment with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy live six to 10 months. Interim results of just six patients were published in March 2024 in Nature Medicine, opens new tab. The current study now includes 18 patients treated with the experimental therapy after their tumors returned following standard treatment. Of these, only 13 had a measurable tumor at the time the cells were introduced, and of those, eight, or 62%, had their tumors shrink, Bagley said. "That was pretty remarkable to us because historically for recurrent glioblastoma tumors, we usually don't see anything shrink them." Several patients lived 12 months or longer, and in one patient, the disease remained stable for 16 months. But so far, the benefit is largely temporary, with many patients relapsing two to three months later. Most patients experienced fevers and neurotoxicity such as lethargy or confusion for two or three days after the cells are injected, but the side effects were manageable, Bagley said. Cindy Perettie, executive vice president of Gilead's Kite cell therapy unit, said she is encouraged by the 62% response. "What we didn't see that we wanted to in a majority of the patients was persistence," she said. Kite is working to develop a third target that will allow the drug to remain in the brain longer. "We will be putting that construct into the clinic sometime next year," she said. Meanwhile, the team wants to test the therapy in 12 patients with newly diagnosed disease. "We know patients in the frontline setting are going to be healthier," she said, and the hope is to see more persistent results. Demand for the trial has been great. Perettie estimates there are 10 times as many patients seeking enrollment for every open slot, and some doctors are referring patients from as far away as Hawaii. "Today, there's only one approved therapy outside of radiation, so for these patients, this is really exciting to see any kind of response," she said. Kite hopes to expand to three or four centers with its triple-target version of the product. "I think we're on the right track," Bagley said, adding that he believes there will be longer-lasting treatments in the next few years.
Times
40 minutes ago
- Times
Sam Altman and Jony Ive to create AI device to wean us off our screens
Act now to keep your subscription We've tried to contact you several times as we haven't been able to take payment. You must update your payment details via My Account or by clicking update payment details to keep your subscription.
