Deed Analysis, March 17

1465 Noyac Path
Sag Harbor, $2,400,000

This new house is located north of the highway between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor. It is a 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom traditional.

The house includes many design features and finishes common in large homes built in the Hamptons today. These include a large double-height great room, eat-in chef’s kitchen, extensive paneling and moldings, en-suite bedrooms with master suites on both floors, finished basement with gym, home theater and wine room. Exterior features include a gunite pool and attached garage.

The seller purchased this 1.6-acre lot in 2006 near the market top for $670,000. Without consideration of transaction costs, and assuming costs of $13,000 for pool, landscape, patio and driveway, this sale was profitable for the seller if construction of the house cost less than $1,600,00, or about $266 per square foot. This is a low cost for quality construction in the Hamptons, where the ordinary retail cost of standard construction is about $300 per square foot.

While the builder may have been a victim of poor market timing, the previous owner of the land did very well. She bought the lot in 1995 for $50,000 and her sale in 2006 for $670,000 represented a giant return of more than 26 percent per year.

8 Koral Drive, Shinnecock Hills $1,090,000

This 2,200-square-foot farmhouse was built in 2002. The corner lot it sits on is fairly small at .36 acre. It is located south of the highway between the Southampton Village center and Southampton College.

The house has four bedrooms, three baths and an open living/dining/kitchen area with fieldstone fireplace. The backyard has an attractive patio and heated pool. Additionally, the house offers a view of a nearby canal.

During the height of the recession, an interesting trend was the sale of farmhouses, perhaps because of the feeling of stability and security they impart. As we leave the recession behind, it will be interesting to see if farmhouses continue their popularity. It is hard to imagine the classic American farmhouse design ever becoming undesirable.

85 Waters Edge 
Springs, $1,600,000

This unique contemporary was built in 1979. It is both pyramidal and hexagonal in shape, with large curtain walls of glass enclosing a double-height living and dining room. The house is located on a high bluff in Barnes Landing and the lot and glass walls overlook Gardiner’s Bay.

Today there are numerous regulations governing the construction of homes within a few hundred feet of a bluff. As a pre-existing home, this house’s chief virtue is that it is a substantial size at 3,300 square feet. Obtaining a permit to build a similarly-sized house today would take significant expenditures of money, as well as time, as it typically takes about one year to get through the permit process in East Hampton.