July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Home sales in the Hamptons, the oceanside summer getaway for Wall Street financiers and celebrities, plunged 58 percent in the second quarter as the recession sapped demand for second homes.

Across 11 Eastern Long Island markets, 175 properties sold in the three months ending June 30, marking the second biggest decline in records dating to 1982, broker Town & Country Real Estate said. Median prices dropped 4.4 percent to $950,000.

“When times get tough, the thing you do is cut out the non-essentials,” Town & Country President Judi Desiderio said in an interview. “We’re a luxury item.”

New York City unemployment climbed to 8.7 percent in May as Wall Street losses and asset writedowns topped $1.47 trillion worldwide. City Comptroller William Thompson expects the number of unemployed New Yorkers to hit a 15-year high in 2010, he said yesterday.

Prospective Hamptons buyers who own Manhattan property are also being hit with falling home values. Apartment prices dropped last quarter for the first time since 2002, falling 18.5 percent from a year earlier, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

More than half the Hamptons homes sold in the second quarter cost less than $1 million and 35 properties went for less than $500,000, the broker said. Just 12 properties worth $5 million or more sold, a 61 percent drop.

Southampton

The dollar value of all transactions plummeted by 62 percent from a year ago to $287.7 million.

In Southampton Village, the median sales price declined 48 percent to $1.88 million and transactions declined 32 percent. In Sag Harbor Village, the median price slid 46 percent to $605,000.

Amagansett’s median rose 3.4 percent to almost $2.1 million. East Hampton Village saw a median price increase of 52 percent to $2.4 million. The number of homes sold for $2 million to $3.49 million doubled and the number sold for $1 million to $1.99 million fell 80 percent.

“Every sale you see made carried a discount,” Desiderio said. Sellers who wouldn’t drop their prices, didn’t find buyers, she said.

A nine-bedroom estate with 10 acres of land on Halsey Neck Lane in Southampton listed for sale at $38 million almost a year ago, according to StreetEasy.com, a real estate listing service.

The StreetEasy listing shows no price cut and no buyers for the three-story, 11-bath, 12,000-square-foot house.

A Sagaponack home on the market with seven bedrooms and a tennis court is listed for sale $7.5 million, the same price as it was 183 days ago, according to StreetEasy.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 14, 2009 11:32 EDT