A onetime tented summer camp in Montauk is fast becoming a billion-dollar land tract.
The formerly lesser-known Montauk Shores, a collection of pre-fab dwellings — or as some might have it, trailers — in this once blue-collar community on Long Island’s East End has for years been known for its paradoxical nature. It’s the site of mobile homes, some of which not only belong to billionaires, but can also sell for millions of dollars.
And 2023 saw this oceanfront community reach new heights. Since 2022, the average sale price — already in the million-dollar range — jumped by more than double.
It all began early this year. In February, The Post reported that a trailer sold off-market there for a record-breaking $3.75 million. Not surprisingly, Montauk Shores homeowners seem smitten with Gold Rush fever. Another home popped up six months after with the asking price of $4.4 million. A month after that, in September, another home there listed, asking $3.6 million. By the end of November, another residence there hit the market for $3.95 million, with listings portal Out East noting it last traded hands in May 2022 for $975,000. That latter property is listed by Betsy Cronley of the Corcoran Group, who’s also repping a two-bedroom, one-bathroom listing elsewhere in Montauk Shores for $998,000.
These prices may not weigh as much as others when compared to the famously expensive Hamptons residential market, but they’re significant for this condominium of far more simple homes.
Montauk Shores, which took over the campsite on Deforest Road at Ditch Plains in 1976, became the first mobile home park condominium in New York State. But, with prices now in the multiple millions, this land parcel adds up to some of the most expensive real estate Long Island has seen — as much as $5,000 per square foot is mooted if the trend continues.
Montauk Shores’ sizzling scene has caveats and the main price driver is that old trope, “location, location, location” is key to fetching these high prices. Oceanfront in Montauk Shores carries a big premium; off-shore, not so much.
As for closed sales, the sharp increase in average price in 2023 is due to transactions for homes on Deforest, the prime street facing the ocean — but it’s pushing up prices across the board.
According to data from Corcoran, the average 2020 Montauk Shores closing price was $917,000, when six units sold. In 2021, another six units were sold and the price jumped to $1.18 million. In 2022, with the pandemic beginning to recede, only three homes found new owners, and the average price dipped slightly to $1.11 million.
However, three sales also closed in 2023 — and the average price has leapt to a jaw-dropping $2.5 million.
