Hamptons for $375k!

How the Upper .25% Live

I quickly browse a lot of real estate-related material, but when I came across "Hamptons" and "$375,000" in the same sentence, I slowed down.

If you don't know, the Hamptons in Long Island is (summer) home to Wall Street's -- and Manhattan's -- rich and famous, and home prices there routinely trip eight figures (as in $10M-plus). Or did.

Which was the import of the article ("The Hamptons Stress Test" - Vanity Fair). Not so surprisingly, Wall Street's crash has hit Long Island real estate; as a result, prices (and deals) have plummeted.

Still, "Hamptons" and "$375,000" simply don't go together.

The catch?

That's not a sale price. It's a rental price. For one month.

To be fair, the property (pictured at top) fronts the ocean, and the month in question is August.

"Small is Beautiful," Cont.

Bucking the Tide: Small Cities
Show Best '08 Appreciation

According to First American CoreLogic Inc., the 11 cities with the highest home price appreciation in 2008 are:

Cedar Rapids, Iowa: 8.83 percent
Binghamton, N.Y.: 7.78 percent
Amsterdam, N.Y.: 7.89 percent
Malone, N.Y.: 7.60 percent
Bay City, Mich.: 6.87 percent
College Station-Bryan: 6.78 percent
Rocky Mount, N.C.: 6.69 percent
Auburn, N.Y.: 6.51 percent
Lebanon, Pa.: 6.41 percent
Elmira, N.Y.: 6.28 percent
Johnstown, Pa.: 6.20 percent

Juxtapose that with a story in today's Wall Street Journal, "The Hamptons Half-Price Sale."

You'd guess that other locales favored by former "Masters of the Universe" -- such as Greenwich, CT and Palm Beach, FL -- aren't faring so well, either.