"That meant quality of construction, charm and style, location for investment and possible rental or resale value, condition of property, room for a pool or one already in place, close to a village so they could stroll in and not have to drive—and above all, value," she says.

Keber's clients finally purchased a three-bedroom, three-bath home with mature landscaping and a heated gunite pool for $1.1 million in March 2010. With an apartment in the city, they now claim the 2,036-square-foot cottage in Sag Harbor Village as their primary residence. "This was a phenomenal buy by all accounts, and the comparables prove this," says Keber. "Small houses with this much charm and in this condition with a pool in the village of Sag Harbor are indeed very difficult to come by."

If you have vision, then luck might be on your side. Domestic diva Katie Brown, known for breathing new life into unlikely spaces, recently picked up a "dump" on Cranberry Hole Road in Amagansett for $500,000 (see where Brown likes to chow down in "Style Setters," pg. 84). Lori Barbaria of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate closed the deal: "It was basically abandoned and not taken care of, so the property looked scraggly," Barbaria says. "But it has new bathrooms and fantastic bones, with a beamed ceiling and a fireplace in the main living room. It's like a Tribeca loft. Katie's basically going to do a gut-reno on it."

The sale of a small modern house on Shore Lane in Amagansett meant a brush with fame for Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Martin Ligorner, who recalls a memorable moment after the $1.15 million sale to a German couple: "They presented us with a gift, which I gave to my wife and partner to open. It was a DVD of Death of a Salesman. We looked at each other with expressions of 'Huh? Why this?'"

Upon further inspection, they noticed their client had signed the cover. "He was the movie's director, Volker Schlöndorff," says Ligorner. "At the end of the DVD, there he was in background scenes with Dustin Hoffman and Arthur Miller. You just never know!"