Summer Rentals

No doubt about it, Jerry Williams had the vacation from hell. His first experience at the Jersey shore could also be dubbed: what not to do when choosing a summer rental. Williams and three other teenagers from Churchville, Bucks County, paid $4,000 to rent a two-bedroom house in North Wildwood last summer. The house was being renovated when they first saw it in January. But the real estate agent promised work would be completed by May. They paid cash in advance. When the boys arrived around Memorial Day, "the place was a total mess," Williams said.

Since the Wengo sisters were girls, they have spent two weeks every summer together at the Jersey Shore - always renting a house in the same beach block for the same time in July. But for the first time in more than 60 years, the family's tradition of spending vacations cavorting together on the 48th Street beach will change. A rush on summer rentals - which some real-estate agents say started on New Year's Day and hasn't let up - left the Wengos and others scrambling this Presidents Day weekend to find properties to rent for their vacations.

Look out the window. The snow has melted. The birds are singing. The crocuses are popping their pretty little heads from beneath last fall's unraked leaves. Open the window and listen, above the noise of the street, past the kids whining your name from the soggy back yard. Can you hear it? It's the sound of waves crashing on a sandy beach. It's summertime at the Jersey Shore. From Long Beach Island to Cape May, real estate agents are reporting a brisk business in rentals - from 18 percent above last year in Avalon to 64 percent above in the Wildwoods.

WHERE IS the recession the Democrats are so loudly complaining about? Some pertinent facts: 1. It is next to impossible to get a room in Atlantic City for any weekend. 2. Ninety percent of the summer rentals at the shore have been taken. 3. Tickets to concerts, theaters and sporting events are at a premium. At restaurants, the lines are out the door. 4. The steel mills are booming, the casinos are packed, homes and cars are selling like there's no tomorrow. 5. A Bucks County friend sold 60 building lots ($200-400,000)

Atlantic City has its casinos. Ocean City has a kiddie magnet called a boardwalk. Cape May's Victoriana draws them in droves. Even Margate has an elephant named Lucy. But Ventnor? Sure, it shares the same 120-mile coastline with all those other Jersey Shore towns, from Sea Bright to Cape May Point, that have reputations for things other than being good places to park a beach blanket. But Ventnor appears to lack a certain name recognition. So local officials have hired consultants and mounted a campaign to give Ventnor an image of its own. The name "Ventnor" conjures up virtually no image now, according to Julie Mealo of the Ventnor Planning Board, who is spearheading the campaign.

In the old days, the trek to find that perfect Jersey Shore rental didn't start until Presidents Day weekend in February. Then, last New Year's Day - six weeks early - customers began clogging real estate offices, requesting tours and checking prices, and by mid-January, rental agents were reporting that 30 percent of their available properties were taken. This year, rental agents from Long Beach Island to Cape May say the search for summer rentals is already underway - more than 25 percent of their housing stock for next summer, mostly the high-end places on the beachfront or a beach block, is gone.

For Bob and Jean Bryant, it became a quest more important than finding the perfect Christmas tree or searching for that one elusive toy their granddaughter wanted to find under it. The Radnor, Pa., couple joined hundreds of others last month who delayed holiday dinners with friends, put off wrapping presents, and left shopping undone - all so they could find the perfect summer retreat in this town of 3,272 possible choices. And real estate professionals throughout other parts of Cape May County, as well as Atlantic and Ocean Counties, reported an unusually high number of people in December looking for summer rentals at the Jersey Shore.

It's almost time to come down to the shore to look into renting a place for your vacation . . . for next summer. Not that it's too late to find a place to stay this summer, but, according to the experts, last-minute renters don't have it easy. The traditional months for signing leases for shore rentals are January and February. And in the last few years, says Paul Leiser of Avalon Real Estate Agency in Avalon, the best digs have rented even earlier. That trend was launched by the ice storms in January and February of 1994, Leiser explained.

Don't be surprised this year if the guy who's been renting his beach house to you for the past several years suddenly tells you that it won't be available this summer. The new tax code contains a provision that takes away the incentive of rich people to rent their vacation homes. The law stipulates that people who make more than $100,000 a year lose all tax breaks associated with a vacation home if they rent it out for more than two weeks. "You see people taking homes off the rental market," said Jay Lamont, director of the Real Estate Institute at Temple University.

When I was growing up, a few miles up the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, this island was to me like the Seychelles, the Azores or all of the East Indies. Only a few miles out from the mainland village of Southport, it was as exotic as any island could be. It had alligators. It had palm trees growing wild in the woods. And there was a big, old lighthouse that, when you entered, became a dark echo chamber; exploring the lighthouse was like being inside a conch shell. Last year, for the first time in more than 20 years, I returned to Bald Head Island.

Despite the snow - or maybe because of it - the number of Jersey Shore vacationers who have locked in their summer rentals may actually be up, say coastal real estate agents. Lousy weather "inspires more people to think about the summer and get going on finding a rental property for their vacation," theorized Deedra Bowen of Ocean City's Berger Realty, which has the keys to roughly 2,500 units. The resort has 15,000 rental units, more than any other Shore town. Weekly rates run from $1,500 several blocks from the water to $15,000 for multistory beachfront luxury, Jacuzzi included.

Forecasts of economic gloom don't faze Megan Eberz and her partners, owners of three restaurants at the Jersey Shore. The outlook for the Shore this summer is a bit sunnier than for other places, insisted Eberz, now busy making decisions about staffing and menus for the season. Colleagues in the real estate business - the front line of the tourism industry - report that summer rentals and lodging reservations are ahead of 2008 by as much as 10 percent in some locations, she said.

Forecasts of economic gloom don't faze Megan Eberz and her partners, owners of three restaurants at the Jersey Shore. The outlook for the Shore this summer is a bit sunnier than for other places, insisted Eberz, now busy making decisions about staffing and menus for the season. Colleagues in the real estate business - the front line of the tourism industry - report that summer rentals and lodging reservations are ahead of 2008 by as much as 10 percent in some locations, she said.

WHERE IS the recession the Democrats are so loudly complaining about? Some pertinent facts: 1. It is next to impossible to get a room in Atlantic City for any weekend. 2. Ninety percent of the summer rentals at the shore have been taken. 3. Tickets to concerts, theaters and sporting events are at a premium. At restaurants, the lines are out the door. 4. The steel mills are booming, the casinos are packed, homes and cars are selling like there's no tomorrow. 5. A Bucks County friend sold 60 building lots ($200-400,000)

Unlike politics and religion, the weather is supposed to be one of those "safe" topics. Unless, of course, you are at the Jersey Shore. The Shore has evolved into a place where the weather rules everything: the sink or swim of fledgling businesses, the skyrocketing prices of summer rentals - and whether beach towns attract enough crowds and revenue to cover the costs for more police, more maintenance, and more of everything else that is...

The notion of slipping into a bathing suit, lathering up with SPF 15 and propping open the beach umbrella is just absurd. The Margate sky on this mid-February Saturday afternoon is layered with dark gray clouds. The choppy, icy ocean is colorless and fierce. The sea breezes are painful. Summer is a lifetime away. Unless you're trying to rent a shore house. "I did know that I should have started earlier," said Tricia Donio, of Hammonton, N.J., as she inspected a two-bedroom apartment in Margate.

Ten best friends from high school and college, all age 19 but one, are renting a weary blue shore house here for the summer. What they are after is not the endless summer but the enduring friendship. Their goals are to create enough memories, to bond so tightly, that long after their high school years fade, after their lives spiral in different directions, they will always have Margate. "After high school, I thought we would all keep in touch, that we'd be friends forever," said Scott Steinberg, one of the guys, who attends college in South Carolina.

Atlantic City has its casinos. Ocean City has a kiddie magnet called a boardwalk. Cape May's Victoriana draws them in droves. Even Margate has an elephant named Lucy. But Ventnor? Sure, it shares the same 120-mile coastline with all those other Jersey Shore towns, from Sea Bright to Cape May Point, that have reputations for things other than being good places to park a beach blanket. But Ventnor appears to lack a certain name recognition. So local officials have hired consultants and mounted a campaign to give Ventnor an image of its own. The name "Ventnor" conjures up virtually no image now, according to Julie Mealo of the Ventnor Planning Board, who is spearheading the campaign.

It's almost time to come down to the shore to look into renting a place for your vacation . . . for next summer. Not that it's too late to find a place to stay this summer, but, according to the experts, last-minute renters don't have it easy. The traditional months for signing leases for shore rentals are January and February. And in the last few years, says Paul Leiser of Avalon Real Estate Agency in Avalon, the best digs have rented even earlier. That trend was launched by the ice storms in January and February of 1994, Leiser explained.

On Saturday, July 5, at 3 p.m., a car loaded with luggage pulled up in front of Avalon Real Estate Agency on Dune Drive. The driver got out of the car and walked into the office. "We'd like to talk about a rental," the driver told the receptionist. "Starting when?" the receptionist asked. "Starting today," the driver replied, looking outside at the luggage on the car roof. Paul E. Leiser, co-owner of Avalon, which handles summer rentals for more than 1,000 properties in the Shore communities of Avalon and Stone Harbor, said such last-minute scrambles for vacation homes - including the one he witnessed at his office that day - aren't all that rare.