Wall Street’s lavish holiday gift to its top employees — more than $100 billion in year-end bonuses — is turning out to be a boon for the Hamptons real estate market.

Summer is still six months off, but the housing market in the Hamptons, New York City’s choice vacation playground for the famous, the infamous, the up-and-comers, and the wannabees is already humming.

That’s what I get from one of the Hamptons’ leading real estate brokers, Diane Saatchi. It took me four phone calls to snare her. You’re almost impossible to get, I told her. “I can’t help it,” she said. “Business is booming and I’m wildly busy, both in sales and rentals.”

Aside from the bonuses, also goosing the Hamptons housing market are an improving New York City economy, the surge in stock prices, a spell of unusually warm winter weather, and the falling greenback.

“It’s like June in January,” said Ms. Saatchi, a senior vice president at the large brokerage, the Corcoran Group.

She figures sales and rental activity is about on par with last year, which she described as a very good year. She further estimates sale prices are about flat to up 10% from a year ago.

As for existing inventories, Ms. Saatchi said that there’s a bit more available than last year in the middle market (between $1 million and $7 million), and roughly the same in the low-end (less than $1 million), and the high-end (more than $7 million).

Interestingly, she said, while there’s an abundant supply of sales and rentals, “many of the most desirable and luxurious rentals in the high-end are already gone and the amount of money being spent on renovations is unbelievable.”

She also notes that because of the especially strong sales demand, notably at the highend, many prospective buyers of Hamptons homes are being forced to downgrade their expectations of what they can get for their money. For example, she points out, some buyers with budgets of say $5 million want to be on the ocean and insist on at least an acre of land. “I tell them fine,” Ms. Saatchi said, “they can have their ocean location for $5 million, or they can have their acre for $5 million, but they can’t have both.” Usually, she said, they settle for an ocean view and about a third of an acre.

Let’s say, though, you only want to rent. At the highend in rentals, Ms. Saatchi said, a month (July or August) will run around $200,000 in Southampton, Water Mill, Bridgehampton, or East Hampton, on or near the ocean with a tennis court and a pool. But you can also spend a lot more. For example, her priciest available Hamptons rental is a five-bedroom house near Westhampton, on the bay and with a dock, for $350,000 a month.

If you want to outdo the Joneses and make a memorable splash in the Hamptons, Ms. Saatchi’s most expensive house could fit the bill. It’s an eight-bedroom, 20,000-square-foot house located in Bridgehampton on about 60 acres with three ponds, swimming pools, an 18-hole golf course, and a guesthouse. The asking price is $75 million.

Ms. Saatchi wouldn’t identify the owner, who is understood to be Cheryl Gordon, the widow of the real estate developer, Edward Gordon. One plus if you’re interested: The house has been on the market three years, so maybe the price is flexible.

If that’s too steep for you, Linda Wachner’s 8,500 square-foot, oceanfront, eight-bedroom Southampton home on nearly five acres is on the market for just $35 million. Ms. Wachner, the former tough, fast-talking CEO of the Warnaco Group, currently spends a good deal of her time in Paris.

For those folks who feel $75 million and $35 million homes are way beyond their pocketbooks and want to do the Hamptons on the cheap, Ms. Saatchi suggests condominiums, which are mostly former motel units that have been renovated. Sporting a price tag of $165,000, they’re available in areas like Montauk and Hampton Bays.

“A high price or a cheap price, the sooner the purchase the better,” Ms. Saatchi said, “because 2007 is shaping up as a very good year for the Hamptons.”

dandordan@aol.com