ITS THE "WILD WILD WEST" IN THE HAMPTONS RIGHT NOW!!!

Is anyone else out there having difficulty with other agents/brokers right now?

A very good friend of mine, who works for the same company as I did for many years, called me the other day and asked me if I was finding that things had changed in our community. She was asking specifically if I had been having difficulties with fellow agents, such as "pocketing" a listing or losing a listing to another broker, while you had the listing!

At first I was surprised by her question; not because things are going so smoothly right now in our area, but because she is the last person that I ever expected to hear this kind of problem from. I will call her Grace.

Grace has been in real estate almost as long as I have (about 15 years) and we have never been competitors because she has her own, well established base of clients and customers and I have an entirely different one. This is possible because we deal with second home buyers and sellers and they come from Manhattan, New Jersey, Connecticut, Upper New York State, Massachusetts and a large number of Europeans and Eastern Europeans. There is a huge base to choose from and overlapping client/customer rosters were infrequent here in the past.

Suddenly, there has been a severe decline in buyers, just as in most other markets across the nation. It happened later here than in other areas simply because we are not dealing with primary homeowners or buyers. Because of the huge growth in sales here, we have had a comparable increase in agents.

From 800 agents in 12-13 small brokerages in the 90's and early 2000's, we now have over 2000 agents in 4 giant brokerages. In addition to the new agents flooding our small community, we have watched as 2 large conglomerates absorbed the smaller "Boutique" brokerages.....a "thing of the future" we were told as it was unfolding. One agency has 2 offices in each of the 5 Hamptons,simply because of the merging of companies here.

ALL THE WHILE, THE HIGH-END OF THE MARKET REMAINS STRONG!

So what we have here in the Hamptons now is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Agents literally trip over one another when showing properties. Every one of them are now trying to do rentals. Summer rentals have gained in strength because of the slow down in sales---buyers who want to wait to buy are renting for summer, winter and year round; it is like someone flipped the switch from buying to renting. When the Bear Sterns buy-out was reported, the steady stream of buyers slowed to a trickle.

And all those new agents? Well, there is pandemonium when dealing with a "new" personality that has emerged. Instead of a low key approach where everyone has the patience to wait while a house that is listed with one broker either sells or becomes an open listing, there is an onslaught of agents vying for those high-end listings that might give them an edge in their marketing efforts. Landing a "big one" has become the focus of almost every agent.

Grace almost lost her $18Mil listing to another broker before the ink was dry on her agreement with the seller...well maybe not that soon but the owner was bombarded by at least 12 other agents while the exclusive agreement was in effect and Grace was livid. She was fortunate enough to have a loyal client who did inform her of the "pitch hits" from other agents.

There is a trend now for some agents that do get a high end listing, to "pocket" them. They don't even market them; they then sell the listings themselves, leaving the owner in the dark about the fact that the property never hit the market! It is impossible for me to know if they actually did this with out the knowledge of the owner, but what would you think if you suddenly heard of a $60Mil ocean front sale that you never even knew was on the market?

It feels like the "Wild-Wild West" here in the Hamptons at the moment. It feels like lawlessness is a way of life now, at least here in the Hamptons. As sellers decide NOT to put their homes on the market because it is such a bad time to do that, the problems multiply. I have had similar bad experiences with another agent or two recently and I feel better now that I know that I am not alone, now that I heard from Grace!

Is anyone else out there feeling this change in attitude? Or is this just another Hamptons anomaly?