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The Hamptons town that has every price point in it, from bayfront cottages to the estate section, across roughly 140 square miles.
Southampton is the westernmost and largest of the Hamptons towns, covering roughly 140 square miles of land on the South Fork, and it holds seven incorporated villages and sixteen hamlets inside its borders. It is also where the Hamptons began: a group of English colonists from Lynn, Massachusetts landed at Conscience Point on North Sea Harbor on June 12, 1640 and founded the first permanent English settlement in New York State. Anyone searching Southampton homes for sale should know that the name is doing several jobs at once. There is the Town of Southampton, the incorporated Village of Southampton inside it, and the everyday use of Southampton to mean the village and the streets around it. The distinction is worth thousands of dollars a year in taxes and, at the top of the market, millions in price.
The numbers show it plainly. In 2025 recorded sales data shows a median sale price of $1,875,000 across the Southampton area, which takes in North Sea but not the village, on 177 sales worth $439 million. Inside the incorporated village the median was $4,337,500 on 100 sales. Same name, more than twice the price, separated by a village line most buyers cannot place. The town-wide picture is the reason to shop it properly rather than fixating on one hamlet: the western end of the town produces the only markets in the Hamptons with medians below two million, with Westhampton at $1,625,026 on 309 sales and Hampton Bays at $885,000 on 190 sales, the only market on the East End still under a million.
There is one Southampton-specific cost every buyer needs to understand before making an offer, and almost no competing page explains it. The Town of Southampton levies a Peconic Bay Region transfer tax of 2.5 percent, made up of a 2 percent Community Preservation Fund tax and a 0.5 percent Community Housing Fund tax, and by statute it is paid by the buyer at closing. There are exemptions on the first $400,000 of an improved residential parcel and the first $100,000 of vacant land, but those exemptions disappear entirely once the price passes $2,000,000. In practice that means a buyer of a $4 million house in this town pays roughly $100,000 in transfer tax on top of everything else, and a first-time buyer may qualify for an exemption. Confirm the current rate, exemptions, and who pays with your attorney and title company, because the terms have changed twice in recent years.
Working a town this varied takes someone transacting across all of it. The CeeJackTeam has covered the East End since 2006, from Westhampton to Montauk. Cee Scott Brown and Jack Pearson, with Partner Agent Denise Wilder, bring over 60 years of combined experience and over $1.5 billion in sales volume, and have been named Top Producer 13 years in a row, with a place on the Top Producer Presidents Council for 10 of those years. Since joining Compass in 2020 the team has closed 425+ deals. The office at 84 Main Street in Sag Harbor is itself in the Town of Southampton, which makes this the team's own town in a technical sense as well as a practical one. Whether you are looking at a first house in the western hamlets, a bayfront in North Sea, or an estate inside the village, the useful first conversation is about which Southampton you actually want. Responsive, respectful, real.
The Southampton area recorded a median of $1,875,000 in 2025 against $4,337,500 inside the village, and the town's western hamlets produce the only Hamptons markets with medians below two million: Westhampton at $1,625,026 and Hampton Bays at $885,000. If you want a Hamptons address at a price that exists, it is in this town somewhere.
Every Price Point in the Hamptons Is in This Town.
The Southampton area recorded a median of $1,875,000 in 2025 against $4,337,500 inside the village, and the town's western hamlets produce the only Hamptons markets with medians below two million: Westhampton at $1,625,026 and Hampton Bays at $885,000. If you want a Hamptons address at a price that exists, it is in this town somewhere.
The Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund is funded by a transfer tax on East End sales, and it has bought and protected farmland, woods, and shoreline across the town for nearly thirty years. In the first quarter of 2026 alone the fund and its companion housing fund took in over $45 million regionally. It is a cost at closing and it is also the reason the views have held.
Two Percent of Every Sale Buys Land Nobody Builds On.
The Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund is funded by a transfer tax on East End sales, and it has bought and protected farmland, woods, and shoreline across the town for nearly thirty years. In the first quarter of 2026 alone the fund and its companion housing fund took in over $45 million regionally. It is a cost at closing and it is also the reason the views have held.
English colonists from Lynn, Massachusetts landed at Conscience Point on North Sea Harbor on June 12, 1640 and founded the first permanent English settlement in New York State. The landing site is now a national wildlife refuge in North Sea, and the Shinnecock Nation, whose reservation adjoins the village and Shinnecock Hills, met those settlers and taught them to farm here.
Where the Hamptons Actually Started.
English colonists from Lynn, Massachusetts landed at Conscience Point on North Sea Harbor on June 12, 1640 and founded the first permanent English settlement in New York State. The landing site is now a national wildlife refuge in North Sea, and the Shinnecock Nation, whose reservation adjoins the village and Shinnecock Hills, met those settlers and taught them to farm here.
Four courses sit within the boundaries of the small Tuckahoe school district alone: Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, which was founded in 1891 and hosted the U.S. Open in June 2026 for the sixth time, the National Golf Links of America, Sebonack, and Southampton Golf Club. All are private and are noted here as geography rather than as amenities.
A Density of Historic Golf With Few Equals.
Four courses sit within the boundaries of the small Tuckahoe school district alone: Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, which was founded in 1891 and hosted the U.S. Open in June 2026 for the sixth time, the National Golf Links of America, Sebonack, and Southampton Golf Club. All are private and are noted here as geography rather than as amenities.
Long before the abstract expressionists reached Springs, the painter William Merritt Chase ran the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art from 1891 to 1902, one of the first plein-air schools in the country. The shingled cottages built for it still stand as private homes in what is called the Art Village, designated a Hamlet Heritage Resource Area by the Town in 2012, and Chase's own 1892 house by McKim, Mead and White is on the National Register.
The Original Hamptons Art Colony.
Long before the abstract expressionists reached Springs, the painter William Merritt Chase ran the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art from 1891 to 1902, one of the first plein-air schools in the country. The shingled cottages built for it still stand as private homes in what is called the Art Village, designated a Hamlet Heritage Resource Area by the Town in 2012, and Chase's own 1892 house by McKim, Mead and White is on the National Register.
The town runs from the Atlantic up to Great Peconic Bay, which means bayfront at a fraction of oceanfront pricing. North Sea sits on North Sea Harbor and Little Peconic Bay, Shinnecock Hills fronts Shinnecock Bay, and the Town's beach permit covers ocean and bay access points from Westhampton to Sagaponack on a single sticker. Village beaches are a separate system.
Bay Water on the North, Ocean on the South.
The town runs from the Atlantic up to Great Peconic Bay, which means bayfront at a fraction of oceanfront pricing. North Sea sits on North Sea Harbor and Little Peconic Bay, Shinnecock Hills fronts Shinnecock Bay, and the Town's beach permit covers ocean and bay access points from Westhampton to Sagaponack on a single sticker. Village beaches are a separate system.
North Sea is the bayside hamlet immediately northwest of Southampton Village, and it is where the town's history actually starts. Conscience Point, where the 1640 colonists came ashore, sits on North Sea Harbor and is now a national wildlife refuge. The hamlet wraps around North Sea Harbor and Little Peconic Bay, with Big Fresh Pond and Little Fresh Pond inland, and the housing is a mix of older cottages, ranches, mid-century houses, and substantial newer construction, on lots that are generally larger and wooded compared with the village. Bayfront and pond-front properties are the premium here, and they trade at a fraction of what ocean frontage costs a few miles south. Practically, North Sea gives you a Southampton address and the Southampton school district while sitting minutes from both the village and Sag Harbor.
Shinnecock Hills is the rolling, glacially shaped area just west of Southampton Village, north of Montauk Highway roughly between Tuckahoe Lane and St. Andrews Road, and it is the most architecturally interesting pocket in the town outside the estate section. Farmers once grazed cattle on these hills. From 1891 to 1902 William Merritt Chase directed the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art here, and the shingled Colonial Revival and early Arts and Crafts cottages built for the school, several designed by his former students Grosvenor Atterbury and Katharine Budd, still stand as private houses in what is known as the Art Village, designated a Hamlet Heritage Resource Area by the Town in 2012. Chase's own 1892 house and studio on Canoe Place Road, designed by McKim, Mead and White, has been on the National Register since 1983. The rest of the housing stock ranges from modest older houses to large modern builds, with bay-facing properties at the top. Most of Shinnecock Hills sits in the Tuckahoe school district rather than Southampton's.
Tuckahoe is the area between Southampton Village and the Sunrise Highway corridor, and it is the most practical entry point to a Southampton address. The roads here run through wooded, gently rolling country with water views in places, and the housing is a mix of ranches, capes, mid-century houses, and newer construction on lots that are typically larger than village lots at considerably lower prices. Tuckahoe has its own school district, the Tuckahoe Common School District on Magee Street, which is one of the smallest in the state and covers roughly 11.5 square miles taking in Tuckahoe, the Art Village, parts of Shinnecock Hills, and a portion of the incorporated village. Four private golf courses sit inside those district boundaries. For buyers who want proximity to the village without village pricing or village taxes, this is usually the answer.
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Southampton Village is the incorporated village at the center of the town, with the deepest estate inventory in the Hamptons and the highest prices in this market. Water Mill sits east of the village, farmland and estates around Mecox Bay. Bridgehampton is the geographic middle of the South Fork, with horse country north of the highway and oceanfront south of it. Sagaponack is a small incorporated village of farm fields and oceanfront east of that. Sag Harbor, together with North Haven and Noyac, is the harbor village on the north side, and it straddles the East Hampton town line. Each has a full guide on this site.
The western half of the town is where Hamptons pricing becomes something other than theoretical, and it is worth knowing about even if your search starts further east. Hampton Bays, at the Shinnecock Canal, recorded a median of $885,000 in 2025 on 190 sales, the only market on the East End still below a million, with bay frontage, ocean beaches on Dune Road, and a working marina economy. The Westhampton area, which market reporting treats as including Westhampton Beach, Remsenburg, Quogue, Quiogue, and East Quogue, came in at $1,625,026 on 309 sales, the second highest sales count of any East End market. Quogue and Westhampton Beach are both incorporated villages with their own beaches and governments. If your budget is under two million and you want the Hamptons rather than an idea of it, this is where to look, and we can show you all of it.
Browse current Southampton homes for sale, from cottages and newer houses in Tuckahoe and Shinnecock Hills to bayfront in North Sea and estates inside the village.
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A genuine year-round restaurant scene.
Local delis serving the hamlets outside the main village.
Restaurants supporting year-round living.
Historic downtown area featuring dining options.
The largest retail core in the Hamptons, carrying national brands and galleries.
Larger-format shopping, hardware stores, and full supermarkets.
Practical local food and farm product shopping serving the hamlets.
A walkable downtown area.
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The Town of Southampton operates its own beach system under a single permit. Town ocean beaches include Ponquogue, Tiana, Sand Bar, and Pikes on Dune Road in the western half of the town, plus Flying Point in Water Mill, Mecox and W. Scott Cameron in Bridgehampton, and Sagg Main in Sagaponack. Bay beaches include Foster Memorial (locally known as Long Beach) in Noyac, Meschutt in Hampton Bays, and access points across North Sea and the Shinnecock shoreline. Both resident and non-resident permits are sold for the season, but the Town permit is not valid at Cooper's Beach or any other Southampton Village beach, which operate on a separate village permit. No permit is required to arrive on foot or by bicycle.
The town has bay frontage on Shinnecock Bay, North Sea Harbor, Little and Great Peconic Bay, and Mecox Bay, along with the Shinnecock Canal, which connects the bay to the Peconic system and supports a working commercial fishing fleet at Hampton Bays. This access to boating and water views makes bayfront property available at a fraction of oceanfront prices.
Southampton's cultural institutions are concentrated in and near the village, including the Southampton Arts Center on Jobs Lane, the Southampton History Museum at the Rogers Mansion, the Rogers Memorial Library, the Southampton Cultural Center, and Stony Brook University's Southampton campus with the Avram Theater. The Parrish Art Museum, based in Southampton Village for over a century, relocated to Water Mill in 2012 and holds significant works from the Shinnecock years, including paintings from Chase's summer school. The Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum, near the village, presents the Nation's own history and art.
Nearly thirty years of transfer tax revenue through the Community Preservation Fund has protected farmland, woodland, wetland, and shoreline across the town, preserving open fields between hamlets instead of new subdivisions. Key protected sites include Conscience Point National Wildlife Refuge in North Sea (marking the 1640 landing site), Sears Bellows and Hubbard County Parks in the western half of the town, the Long Pond Greenbelt running toward Sag Harbor, and trail networks through Shinnecock Hills and North Sea. Bridge Gardens in Bridgehampton, a Peconic Land Trust property, is open seasonally.
The Town of Southampton is served by a large number of separate public school districts, which is the single most important thing to check before making an offer here. They are independent of one another, several run a single small school, and the boundaries follow neither the village lines nor the postal boundaries. Two houses on the same road can be in different districts, and in the eastern half of the town a house may be zoned to a district in a different hamlet entirely. Verify the district for a specific address before you rely on it, and do not assume the district matches the mailing address.
Southampton Union Free School District serves the incorporated village and much of the surrounding area including North Sea, running three schools covering elementary through high school with roughly 1,270 to 1,330 students. The Tuckahoe Common School District, headquartered on Magee Street, operates a single school and covers roughly 11.5 square miles taking in Tuckahoe, the Art Village, part of Shinnecock Hills, and a portion of the incorporated village, with around 250 to 310 students and a very low student-to-teacher ratio. Buyers looking in Shinnecock Hills in particular should note that most of it sits in Tuckahoe rather than Southampton, which is not what the address suggests.
Elsewhere in the town, Sag Harbor, Bridgehampton, and Sagaponack each have their own districts, described on their own pages, and the western half of the town is served by Hampton Bays, Westhampton Beach, Quogue, East Quogue, Remsenburg-Speonk, and the Eastport-South Manor district, which crosses into Brookhaven and Riverhead. Several of the smaller districts run one school and send their older students on to a neighboring high school under tuition arrangements rather than through district lines. The practical consequence is that school questions in this town cannot be answered by hamlet, only by address.
Independent options are spread across the town and just beyond it. Our Lady of the Hamptons Regional Catholic School is in Southampton Village. The Ross School operates an Upper School in East Hampton and a Lower School in Bridgehampton, and The Hayground School is in Bridgehampton. For higher education, Stony Brook University maintains its Southampton campus in the town, which also hosts public programming and the Avram Theater, and Suffolk County Community College's Eastern Campus is in Riverhead.
Settled June 12, 1640 by English colonists from Lynn, Massachusetts landing at Conscience Point on North Sea Harbor; the first permanent English settlement in New York State
Approximately 140 square miles of land, the largest of the Hamptons towns
Seven incorporated villages and sixteen hamlets, including the Village of Southampton, Sag Harbor, North Haven, Sagaponack, Quogue, Westhampton Beach, and West Hampton Dunes
Approximately $1,875,000 across the Southampton area including North Sea, on 177 sales (Suffolk Vision Inc. recorded sales, year-end 2025); the incorporated village was $4,337,500 on 100 sales
Hampton Bays recorded $885,000 on 190 sales, the only East End market below a million; the Westhampton area recorded $1,625,026 on 309 sales
A Peconic Bay Region transfer tax of 2.5 percent applies in this town, comprising the 2 percent Community Preservation Fund tax and the 0.5 percent Community Housing Fund tax. Exemptions apply below $2,000,000 only. Confirm with your attorney
Multiple independent districts, including Southampton, Tuckahoe, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, Sagaponack, Hampton Bays, and Westhampton Beach. District lines do not follow village or postal boundaries
Town ocean and bay beaches on a single Town of Southampton permit; Southampton Village beaches require a separate village permit
Southampton, Bridgehampton, and Hampton Bays stations on the LIRR Montauk Branch; Hampton Jitney service; Sunrise Highway, County Road 39, and Montauk Highway are the through roads
The median sale price across the Southampton area was $1,875,000 in 2025 on 177 closings worth about $439 million, according to recorded sales data for 2025. That figure covers the town area including North Sea but not the incorporated village, where the median was $4,337,500 on 100 closings. Both are correctly called Southampton, which is why the number you are quoted depends entirely on which geography someone means. Wider still, the town contains the two most attainable markets on the East End: the Westhampton area at $1,625,026 on 309 sales and Hampton Bays at $885,000 on 190 sales, the only East End market still below a million.
Southampton Village is an incorporated village of about 7.4 square miles; the Town of Southampton is the municipality of roughly 140 square miles that surrounds it. The town contains seven incorporated villages, including Southampton, Sag Harbor, North Haven, Sagaponack, Quogue, Westhampton Beach, and West Hampton Dunes, plus sixteen hamlets such as Bridgehampton, Water Mill, Noyac, Hampton Bays, North Sea, Shinnecock Hills, and Tuckahoe. The practical differences are real: village property owners pay a village tax on top of town and county taxes, fall under village zoning and village police, and use village beaches on a village permit that town residents outside the village must buy separately. A 11968 mailing address does not tell you whether a house is inside the village.
The Town of Southampton levies a Peconic Bay Region transfer tax of 2.5 percent, made up of a 2 percent Community Preservation Fund tax and a 0.5 percent Community Housing Fund tax added in 2023, and under New York Tax Law it is paid by the buyer when the deed is filed. Exemptions cover the first $400,000 of an improved residential parcel and the first $100,000 of vacant land, but those exemptions do not apply at all once the price exceeds $2,000,000. In practical terms, most Hamptons purchases in this town are above that threshold, so the tax is 2.5 percent of the full price, which is about $100,000 on a $4 million house. A first-time homebuyer exemption exists. The revenue funds land preservation and community housing across the East End. Rates and exemptions have changed twice in recent years, so confirm the current terms, and who pays them under your contract, with your attorney and title company before you sign.
The western half of the town, and it is not close. Hampton Bays recorded a median of $885,000 in 2025, the only East End market below a million, with bay frontage, ocean beaches on Dune Road, a walkable downtown, and a working marina economy at the Shinnecock Canal. The Westhampton area, including Westhampton Beach, Remsenburg, Quogue, Quiogue, and East Quogue, came in at $1,625,026 on 309 sales. Closer to Southampton Village, Tuckahoe and parts of Shinnecock Hills and North Sea offer larger, wooded lots at prices well below village levels while keeping you minutes from Main Street. What you trade going west is drive time to the eastern villages; what you get is a Hamptons address at a price that exists.
The Town of Southampton is served by a large number of independent public school districts, and the district lines follow neither the village boundaries nor the postal boundaries, so school questions here can only be answered by address. Southampton Union Free School District serves the incorporated village and much of the surrounding area including North Sea, with three schools covering elementary through high school and roughly 1,270 to 1,330 students. The Tuckahoe Common School District operates a single school on Magee Street and covers Tuckahoe, the Art Village, part of Shinnecock Hills, and a portion of the village. Most of Shinnecock Hills is in Tuckahoe rather than Southampton, which surprises buyers. Elsewhere the town includes the Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, Sagaponack, Hampton Bays, and Westhampton Beach districts among others. Verify the district for a specific address.
Yes, and there are two separate systems. The Town of Southampton issues one permit covering town ocean and bay beaches across the whole town, including Ponquogue, Tiana, and the Dune Road beaches in the west, Meschutt and Foster Memorial on the bays, and Flying Point in Water Mill, Mecox and W. Scott Cameron in Bridgehampton, and Sagg Main in Sagaponack. The Incorporated Village of Southampton issues a separate permit for Cooper's Beach and the other village beaches, and the Town permit is not valid at any of them. Which permit you qualify for, and at what price, depends on whether your address is inside a village, elsewhere in the town, or outside it. No permit is needed to arrive on foot or by bicycle. Sort it out before the season rather than during it.
The CeeJackTeam works the entire East End rather than one hamlet, which matters in a town where the same name covers an $885,000 median at one end and a $4.3 million median at the other. Cee Scott Brown and Jack Pearson, with Partner Agent Denise Wilder, bring over 60 years of combined experience and over $1.5 billion in sales volume, have been named Top Producer 13 years in a row, and have held a place on the Top Producer Presidents Council for 10 of those years. Since joining Compass in 2020 the team has closed 425+ deals from Westhampton to Montauk, which is the full width of this town and then some. The office at 84 Main Street in Sag Harbor sits inside the Town of Southampton. Cee came out of two decades in the New York art world and Jack out of luxury fashion retail, and the team also runs a dedicated rental operation, which is how many Southampton buyers begin. It also works from the Compass office in Southampton itself, so there is someone in the village rather than driving in for showings.
Southampton is not one market, and the useful first conversation is about which part of it fits your budget and how you plan to use the house. The CeeJackTeam has covered the East End since 2006, from the western hamlets through North Sea, Shinnecock Hills, and Tuckahoe to the estate section inside the village. For buyers, we will be straight about what your number actually reaches here, and we will make sure you have factored in the transfer tax before you write an offer rather than after. For sellers, we will price against closings in your hamlet rather than a town-wide median that could flatter or bury you. Call 516-457-7111 or email ceejackteam@compass.com to talk it through.
