Just a week after Morgan Stanley chief executive John J. Mack landed a record $40 million bonus, Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein came along with an even bigger bounty.

No doubt it will be a joyous holiday season for these two gentlemen, not to mention for real estate brokers in the tri-state area who are hoping some of Wall Street's tidings of comfort and joy rub off on them.

That's because those fat Wall Street bonuses often translate into fat commissions for real estate brokers and agents.

Linda Stein, a top earner at Prudential Douglas Elliman, a luxury property broker in Manhattan, said she's already seeing a number of Wall Street financiers window-shopping for real estate, particularly for properties in the $1.5 million to $5 million price range.

"We're seeing the lookers now," said Stein, who described this holiday season as "wildly busy."

"In the last five weeks, we have seen an enormous uptick in the market's appetite," she said. "Properties that haven't sold for six months or longer are starting to see bids or even multiple bids. Open houses are flooded." At 15 Central Park West, a luxury condominium building under construction with views overlooking Central Park, prices run north of $10 million, and practically all the units are gone, she said.

"Fifteen Central Park West is filled," Stein said. "It's not finished. It's still being constructed. But it's filled with hedge-fund types."

It is not just the Manhattan real estate market that gets a boost when Wall Street bonus time rolls around. Those dollars and cents trickle down to outlying suburbs as well, including places in New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut.

"We see a burst in activity in the region, not just Manhattan," said Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, a Manhattan-based real estate appraisal firm. "It is a false stereotype that everyone (who) works on Wall Street lives on Park Avenue."

Jack Turpin of Turpin Realtors, a brokerage in Far Hills that caters to the rich and richer in New Jersey, said a happy holiday season on Wall Street always means the same for Realtors, as investment bankers and financiers tend to spend their money on hard assets.

"It's interesting because we have several very big deals about to close," said Turpin, whose firm still holds the record for scoring the state's biggest residential sale ever in 2001, when a Goldman Sachs executive paid $37.3 million for a Somerset Hills mansion nestled on 750 acres. "Every year at bonus time, we have a flurry of activity."

Turpin said that while the general market has slowed down, he has seen "some very serious activity" in the luxury single-family home market, particularly for properties in the $6 million to $7 million price range.

"With so much money coming out in the form of bonuses this year, the people who are interested in putting it into real estate are getting tired of sitting on the sidelines," he said.

According to the New York state comptroller's office, Wall Street bonuses are expected to set a record of $23.9 billion in 2006, surpassing the record of $20.5 billion set a year earlier. That translates into an average bonus of $137,580 -- also a record.

The increase reflects a strong year for the securities industry, "with some of the largest firms having their best year ever," the comptroller's office said.

The biggest bonuses are being doled out by Goldman Sachs, the world's largest investment bank. The company reported a staggering profit last week of $9.4 billion and said it was dedicating $16.5 billion for salaries, bonuses and benefits at the end of the year.

And in another sign of improved fortunes, Wall Street added 7,200 jobs in the first 10 months of 2006, the largest headcount gain since 2000.

In New Jersey, communities along NJ Transit's rail lines, like Millburn, Summit, Madison and "everything in between," will probably get the biggest shot in the arm when the Wall Street crowd starts shopping for real estate, said Jeffrey Otteau of Otteau Valuation Group, a real estate consulting company in East Brunswick.

In addition, the vacation home market along the Jersey Shore, as well as the urban condominium market in places like Hoboken and Jersey City, will also ride the wave, he said.

Still, not every segment of the housing market is going to feel the surge, Otteau said.

"This year, the effects are likely to be greater because the bonus dollars are projected to be the largest ever. However, while this is good news, it will not have a dramatic effect on the overall housing market," Otteau said. "It will have an effect on some very specific submarkets, especially the luxury housing markets."

Still, because Wall Street bonus income has been strong for four successive years, it does help lay the groundwork for a change in buyer and seller psychology, Miller said.

"This is an important psychological boost, in the sense that you have had this continual good news coming from the region's leading economic force," he said.

Also helping to buoy buyer sentiment: Mortgage rates have been generally in decline or flat for the past six months, and the regional economy remains solid.

Miller said this year the surge in buying activity seems to be more broad based and seems to have taken hold much earlier than in the past.

Back in 2005, when Wall Street bonuses were equally strong, the money that trickled down into the real estate market tended to gravitate towards the ultra high-end -- $20 million-plus -- luxury housing market, and the buying activity didn't start until January.

But this year, "we started to see an uptick right after Thanksgiving and that was somewhat unusual," he said. "You see this momentum taking hold. It's not just Wall Street that is doing well. The overall economy is doing well. The Wall Street bonuses are a mood setter. It's a harbinger of better things."