In Rental Market, Sellers Aren’t Getting Asking Price

This is the second article of a two-part series.

These days, while many people will rent a summer home in Long Beach from Memorial Day to Labor Day, few sellers are getting their asking price, according to Joyce Coletti, a longtime realtor with Prudential Douglas Elliman.

For a townhouse in the West End, Colettie said, the sellers were asking $39,000 for the summer but got $34,500. In another sale, for Memorial Day to Labor Day, the owners were asking $35,000 for a home with two bedrooms and 2 ½ baths, but received only $28,000.

In another oceanfront townhouse rental for July and August, the sellers received $25,000, even though the asking price was $33,000.

Coletti said many perspective buyers are playing a waiting game, being a little more reluctant to make an offer with the feeling that the price would come down in this market.

Also, sales are taking longer because owners want to make sure that the buyers have good credit under the current economic climate.

Miriam Gold, a realtor with said that because of bad credit some owners are more leery to rent. “And financing is difficult,” Gold added. “They require more of a down payment.”

Barbara Ruotolo, a realtor with Topper Real Estate, said she has seen an improvement with more activity on the rental market than two years ago, when the market was extremely sluggish during the economic downturn.

She said that if the home is priced right, it will have no problem selling.

“Sellers in Long Beach are lucky.,” Ruotolo said. “They didn’t take as much of a hit as the rest of the country [in the real estate market]. But they did take a hit.”

Long Beach historians said the city has a long history of summer rentals. Up until about the 1960s, the population would balloon to as high as 100,000 during the summer, mostly with people from Manhattan to Brooklyn, and homeowners would rent out every corner of their house to them.

Coletti said that since the city has instituted a “groupie law,” she will not rent to more than two people at a time.

“Many people used to chip in and rent a house,” Coletti said. “The city is very strict and we try to follow the law. I live in the West End and I don’t want any groupies living next to me.”

Mary York and her husband Patrick purchased a home on Alabama Street, off Park Avenue, about five or six years ago so the Westchester couple would have a weekend retreat. Since she retired from the Yonkers Public Library in September, she has been spending more time in her Long Beach home.

“We love it there in Long Beach,” York said. “There are a lot of street fairs. It’s a different way of life. We like to walk on the boardwalk, especially in the spring and the fall, to watch the waves. It’s very relaxing. Now that I’m retired, I hope to spend many weekdays there as well.”