It’s a Hamptons real-estate renaissance.
Fueled by emboldened Wall Streeters, total home sales in the ultra-tony East End’s five towns skyrocketed an astonishing 59 percent from the first to the second quarter of this year, according to a study.
Southampton, East Hampton, Shelter Island, Southold and Riverhead saw their overall residential sales vault from $596 million in the first three months of 2011 to a staggering $948 million in April, May and June, said the report by Suffolk Research Service.
“I was astounded by these numbers,” said Research Service owner George Simpson. “It looks like the 28-year-old Wall Street guys are back hunting for $3 million houses.”
Southampton Town figures represented the biggest jump, with sales spiking from $384 million in the first quarter to $632 million in the second — or a 64 percent hike.
The total number of homes sold in the town rose from 224 to 332 units during the period — a 48 percent boost. Their median price jumped from $779,000 to $910,000, or a 17 percent rise.
East Hampton Town numbers were also significantly up, with sales increasing from $144 million in the first quarter to $232 million in the second, or a 61 percent jump.
The number of homes sold went from 115 to 153, a 33 percent spike, and the median sale price hopped from $795,000 to $970,000.
“They should call it Hedgehampton out here,” said Prudential Douglas Elliman agent Lori Barbaria. “The market is holding because all of the hedge-funders are out here this summer — and they’re buying everything.”
Barbaria noted that a cadre of Russian businessmen have also been pouring money into the Hamptons real-estate market, easing an inventory glut that had weighed down sales in recent years.
“It’s not just the super-high end of the market,” she said. “Even the low end, which is $1 million and up, is doing well. If there’s a deal out there, it’s going to get sold.”
But Simpson warned that the sunny new figures don’t necessarily signal a permanent emergence from the flatlined stretches of 2008 and 2009.
“Right now, it’s moving in the right direction,” he said. “But that can change again.”