In 1972, New York eye surgeon Robert Lateiner and his wife, Dorothy, bought a small corner lot in the town of Palm Beach for $25,000.They spent another $28,000 to build a small one-level, three-bedroom house with a swimming pool. That house now goes for more than $3 million.

It’s all part of an explosion which has seen Palm Beach housing prices rocket more than 20% a year over the past five years, easily making it one of the country’s most expensive residential areas.

Over the next six weeks, these ballooning Palm Beach prices will become apparent to many affluent New Yorkers, including a fair-sized contingent from Wall Street, who will be making their annual trip to sunny Palm Beach for a brief holiday vacation. As is usually the case, many will also look to buy a Palm Beach residence as a vacation home. They’re in for a shock. They’ll find the cost of Florida sunshine, especially in a luxury-type Palm Beach setting, is going through the roof.

Given the recent Florida hurricanes and the sizable damage there, one might expect to find a plethora of bargains. “Forget it; there are no bargains in the town of Palm Beach,” says real estate broker Grace Brown of the Corcoran Group, who notes that the market, like Manhattan, remains strong because of solid demand and the lack of sufficient inventory. Likewise, prices are skyrocketing, she said.

She went on to point out that any Palm Beach dweller who may have wanted out because of the hurricanes and put their apartment on the market at some enticing price has likely long since sold it.

Paul Genes, vice president of Barclay’s International, figures Palm Beach housing prices this year are approximating their 22% annual gains of the past 60 months. “There has been no letup in demand and nothing has happened, hurricanes included, to break that five-year trend,” he says.

If anything, he notes, hurricanes have heightened demand because many Palm Beach residents, suddenly hit with a wave of disruptive construction activity, are seeking additional residences until their renovations – which may take months to finish – are completed. In effect, he adds, “you’ve got in-town buyers competing with out-of-town buyers, which in itself is pushing prices higher for a diminishing supply of stock.” (Reports have it there’s a minimum eight month wait for contractors because of the extensive hurricane damage.)

Mr. Jeans figures apartment prices in the town of Palm Beach, versus those, say, in West Palm Beach and South Palm Beach, average roughly $400,000 for one bedroom, $600,000 for two bedrooms and $1.2 million for three bedrooms.

One of Palm Beach’s busiest real estate brokers – who probably has one of the area’s biggest cell phone bills – is Nancy Stamatakis of A Shapiro /Pertnoy Co. Her view of the Palm Beach scene captures the thinking of many Palm Beach brokers. “If you buy right, the worst that can happen to you if you find that Palm Beach is not your cup of tea, is that you’ll make $100,000 on the apartment purchase the first year and probably another $100,000 the second year.”

Speaking of Palm Beach, the Breakers Resort, one of the city’s ritziest hotels and a popular vacation spot for New Yorkers, has initiated a new holiday reservation policy amid talk in real estate circles that it could be experiencing financial problems (which it denies).The policy calls for hotel guests to pay their entire holiday lodging bill in advance and the payment is totally non-refundable regardless of sickness, death, or hurricanes. “We’re just guarding against last-minute cancellations,” a spokesperson said.

The Breakers is the only hotel in Palm Beach with such a policy and hotel specialists said they knew of no other prominent hotel in the country with such a rigid reservation program.

One final note: The crime rate, according to one Florida law enforcement official, is rising in both Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, a development which the police are said to be muzzling.

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Street scuttlebutt: Keeping in mind that Wall Street is a sewer of gossip, here’s some hot buzz making the rounds.

* Muriel Siebert, 72, the first woman member of the New York Stock Exchange and head of her own discount brokerage firm, Muriel Siebert & Co., is said to be thinking of retiring and selling part or all of her firm.

* Top management of Raymond James Financial, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based brokerage chain operating in the Midwest and Southeast that generated nearly $1.5 billion in sales last year, is said to be amenable to the possible sale of the firm. Rumblings in Florida have it that the brokerage could be sold to an insurance company.

The usually publicity-hungry Ms. Siebert didn’t respond to several calls seeking comment. Raymond James officials didn’t get back to me by press time.