This From Bloomberg

I guess the housing slump isn't over quite yet:

Hamptons, N.Y. Home Sales Plunge 67% in First Quarter (Update1)
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By Oshrat Carmiel

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Home sales in the Hamptons, the New York oceanside communities favored by financiers and celebrities, plunged 67 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier as Wall Street job cuts and investment losses stifled demand for second homes.

Across 11 eastern Long Island towns, 96 homes sold in the three months ended March 31, marking the biggest percentage drop in at least 27 years, property broker Town & Country Real Estate said. It was the biggest percentage drop in their records, which date to 1982. In the same quarter of 2008, 287 homes sold.

“We are a luxury item, and people don’t want to spend money,” said Judi Desiderio, president of Town & Country. “I don’t think anybody was thinking about buying a second home if they’re watching the stock market fall off a cliff.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 40 percent in the year through March. Banks and securities firms have eliminated more than 180,000 jobs in the Americas, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while mortgage-related asset writedowns and losses now top $1.29 trillion. Wall Street bonuses declined 44 percent in 2008, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

“We’ve always been umbilically connected to Wall Street,” said Desiderio, who estimated that 50 percent of Hamptons buyers work in the securities industry and that 70 percent of sales are bought as second homes.

Prices Plummet

The median sales price fell 28 percent from the year earlier to $698,461, Town & Country said. The decline was largely due to fewer sales of $5 million or more.

The total value of all real estate sold in the Hamptons in the first quarter fell 78 percent to $140.2 million.

In Southampton Village, home to the most expensive property sale in 2008 at $60 million, transactions declined 85 percent in the quarter to just three houses. The total value of all homes sold in the village was $2.8 million, a 98 percent decline from the year earlier, when $166.3 million in property changed hands.

In East Hampton Village sales fell 81 percent, also to three houses. The total value of all homes sold there was $4.1 million, a 95 percent decline.

“Those are your iron-clad, been-there-for-over-a-hundred- years, been-used-by-the-Kennedys areas,” said Desiderio. “It’s the blue-chip, best-of-the-best. I would never expect that.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net.