So you want a rental in the Hamptons this summer (good choice!), but you don't know how to get started on your quest. NYC real estate website Brick Underground has put together a handy guide for the uninitiated and scared. When should you begin your hunt? Ideally in January, but if you haven't locked in a place yet, don't get too discouraged. Our snowy, cold winter means that fewer people have been looking than usual, so there is plenty of inventory left. Elliman agent Jordan Daniel says, "Any other year I would say the prime time is January or February. But there's still quite a bit left and a lot of owners who have normally rented out their homes still have places available."
Now what? You can look online at the big area site, hreo.com. You can also work with a broker—and unlike in the Big Smoke, out here, owners pay the broker's fee, not renters. So you can get plenty of help free of charge. It's a good idea to look in person, too: you're going to be paying a lot (although quite possibly less than you'd think—as Andrew Saunders points out, "The big misinterpretation of the Hamptons is that it's all about these headline-making $1 million-a-season transactions, but that doesn't represent the critical mass of rentals"), so you'll want to be sure location, layout, and amenities work for you. There are lots more interesting tips at the link below.
· Your Everything Guide to Finding a Long-Term Hamptons Rental This Summer [BU]