If These Hamptons Walls Could Talk

Roland Ubaldo doesn't look like your typical real estate agent. Instead of the gold blazer preferred by the agents of Century 21, he wears the blue windbreaker popular with the law-enforcement set (in this case, the U.S. Marshal's Office).

Still, Ubaldo has a house for sale. And for $7 million, it will go to the first buyer. Advantages: It's 3,000 square feet, it's right on the beach in tony Montauk, Long Island, and its neighbors include Robert DeNiro and Ralph Lauren. Disadvantages: one big one—it was owned by Bernard and Ruth Madoff.

According to ABC News, which profiled the sale on air and online, the Montauk property is one of three that the government plans to sell to recoup some small sliver of the $65 billion Bernie Madoff stole from his investors. The network didn't have footage from inside the Manhattan penthouse or the Palm Beach house, but it did get a personal tour of the Montauk beach estate.

Montauk was the setting for Madoff's extravagant beach parties for employees of his investment firm, where Bernie and Ruth hosted lobster dinners and bonfires. The home's caretaker, Robert T. Schorr, said the Madoffs kept the property "immaculate" and that Ruth was in charge.

"She ran the show," Schorr said. "She's the one I did business with most of the time."

Video from ABC News has Ubaldo giving a tour of the living room, the kitchen, and the master bedroom. At first glance, it seems like the house has been stocked with secondhand furniture trucked in just to fill up the space. But ABC says the furniture was all the Madoffs' and that it's been tagged for auction.

"Understated elegance?" commented watchdog104 on the story on ABCNews.com. "How about nonexistent. It is obvious that they sold off/gave to the kids all their belongings and replaced it all with box-store junk! What a joke."

The joke might be on whoever spends $7 million on the property. Bloomberg reports that the market for high-end homes in Madoff's old neighborhood is flooded. Quoting a representative for New York-based listing service StreetEasy.com, Bloomberg reported that the "inventory of unsold homes above $7 million on the East End of Long Island is up 60 percent from last year," while the "number of Hamptons homes for $7 million or more that sold in the first eight months of this year decline 46 percent from a year earlier." Among those with a house for sale in that bracket is Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who has listed his East Hampton home for $7.2 million.