Here in the Hamptons, news has spread like wildfire of the Shinnecock Nation descending upon Coopers Beach in Southampton, demanding their native right to access our local beach. Around the same time, 16 people were arrested at three incidents in East Hampton and Southampton during an “Occupy the Hamptons” and “tax the rich” protest that made up about 250 people.
It is not only the disenfranchised among us that are feeling the pain of the widening gap between the ultrarich and everyone else. Those who sit below the top 1%, the ones who are wealthy enough to purchase a home and take the time to enjoy the Hamptons, but perhaps not by private plane or chopper, are sitting cross-eyed looking at home sale prices.
“The prices seem crazy; I want to figure out if they are crazy in the context of the market or on the nose,” said one prospective homebuyer preparing to put in an offer on a Hamptons home.
Hamptons real estate market activity has returned to normal market levels, but pricing remains at all-time highs. With inflation and the price of consumer goods feeling out of control, there is little hope that today’s sellers will be willing to take much of a haircut when negotiating their home sale prices. June 2022 saw a 0% median discount of home sales, only one of two months since the start of the pandemic that sellers didn’t have to budge.
In fact, almost any agent you ask will agree that the majority of Hamptons homeowners do not have to sell so until they receive an offer to their satisfaction, they won’t transact. The market is feeling this difference of opinion today more than ever.
Real estate has everything to do with money and with our monetary system under constant manipulation (bank borrowing rates have increased, but savings product rates have not), a large majority of Hamptonites are feeling that their hard work is not translating well into the dollars and cents that they need in order to either rent or buy a home here.
“I’ve found that once someone understands the reasoning behind something, people become more hopeful and then they know: now, there is something you can do about it,” said one New Yorker who purchased a Hamptons home in 2021.
“You can learn how to take care of your money in the digital age,” he stated. You can learn how to become your own sovereign, which includes protecting the value of your hard work in a way that the government and banks do not. Bitcoin provides a very good solution for people who are looking around, priced out of the real estate market, but with some savings to protect.
This new Hamptons homeowner, a Bitcoiner, was able to purchase a Hamptons home with cash in 2021 through his own Bitcoin journey to self-sovereignty, which started in 2015. Today, he still holds all of his money in Bitcoin.
He still needs to use an FDIC insured bank for only one reason – the Internal Revenue Service does not yet accept Bitcoin as payment. Bitcoin is beneficial not only in terms of controlling one’s own money, but it also acts as property that cannot be confiscated or frozen.
Apparently there are a lot of benefits to becoming one’s own sovereign, which is what Bitcoin offers to Americans who see through the Federal Reserve’s efforts to debase the US dollar. Yes, Bitcoin is volatile right now, but that is because the adoption of Bitcoin is tied to freedoms and, as we well know, freedom is volatile not just here in New York, but also on a global scale.
Real estate is subject to being confiscated or limited, either physically or through policy, as we saw happen to the Shinnecock a long time ago and people like Sarabelle Prince, the mother of East Hampton Town Trustee Ben Dollinger, who is going into year 3 of a State permitted non-paying tenant, Lynn Matsuoka, and plenty others. Now, we find that Bitcoin is being adopted globally faster than the rate of internet adoption in the 1990s, while the local real estate market slows down.
For those in a position to own a home in the Hamptons, securing your new title through untouchable blockchain technology is now available in New York.
Adrianna Nava is the founder of Hamptons Market Data and licensed associate real estate broker with Compass.
