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by The KCM Crew on October 8, 2010 ·
The news about the housing market still seems to be dominated by stories of pending disaster. Headlines report that some believe that there is a 25% chance of a ‘double-dip’ in home prices. We can understand the concern. The last Existing Home Sales Report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) showed that sales were down 19% from the same time last year. Obviously, the real estate market is still struggling. (More …)
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More than 100 years ago, one Sarasota family’s dream of a water-oriented, outdoor lifestyle on then remote Bay Island was realized by barging in a tiny wood frame bungalow from Tampa. Now a similar dream has led a young Sarasota family to build a grand new home on the property surrounding that historic 1905 cottage.
Bay Island is a sliver of land separated by a canal from northern Siesta Key; today, you drive over the North Bridge to Bay Island and then cross another bridge to Siesta proper. But a century ago, visitors—who included celebrities and U.S. presidents, most friends of John Ringling—arrived by boat at Bay Island’s Hamilton Hotel and then traveled across the bridge by horse and cart to Siesta’s beaches. (More …)
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Click the image to see full size chart in printable format.
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Click the image to see full size chart in printable format.
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This presentation from LuxuryPortfolio.com show updated statistics from the second quarter of 2010.
Click the image to see full size chart in printable format.
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By Kathleen Carlin-Russell
There are more millionaires in America now than there were a year ago. In the New York area alone, there are now 667,200 high-net-worth individuals (people with a net worth of more than $1 million, excluding real estate), according to the 2010 U.S. Metro Wealth Index released last week by consulting firm Capegemini. That number put New York at the top of the list, which showed HNWI in the 10 largest U.S. metro areas monitored grew by 17.5 percent in 2009 — the highest rate of growth in more than four years. (More …)
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by Steve Harney on June 4, 2010
There is no longer any question that luxury homes are beginning to sell. The high-net-worth client has marked 2010 as the year to again start purchasing real estate and their desire is turning into sales. Financing is beginning to open up in the ‘jumbo’ market and prices are starting to reflect true values as upper end foreclosures are starting to mount. What does this market have in store for us as we move forward in 2010? That will be determined by supply and demand.
DEMAND
Obviously, demand is increasing. The Wall street Journal reported:
“After a near-disastrous 2009, the luxury market appears to be making a comeback, driven by growing buyer confidence, improved financing conditions and more-realistic seller pricing. Despite the housing downturn, attractively priced homes in some of the nation’s most coveted neighborhoods are selling, sometimes fast and sometimes with multiple offers. Nationwide, sales of homes selling for $2 million to $5 million in the first quarter totaled 2,461, up 32% from a year before, says CoreLogic.” (More …)
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By Lauren Beale
RISMEDIA, April 10, 2010—(MCT)—Billionaire tax cheat Leona Helmsley loved a good bargain. So, were she still around, the late hotelier might appreciate recent happenings at her Greenwich, Conn., estate known as Dunnellen Hall.
The 14-bedroom, 13 1/2-bathroom mansion, which came on the market priced at $125 million two years ago, has been reduced to $60 million. That’s a 52% price chop for the 21,897-square-foot Jacobean manor on 40 rolling acres. The home comes with a 52-foot indoor swimming pool, a walled courtyard featuring a 70-foot reflecting pool and a roof terrace with Long Island Sound views.
The Southern California real estate landscape, likewise, has been littered with its share of high-profile price drops. Nicolas Cage’s 11,817-square-foot English Tudor in Bel-Air has been reduced 50% to $17.5 million from $35 million when it first hit the market in 2006. Les Baux de Palm Springs, home of Suzanne Somers and Alan Hamel, started at $35 million more than two years ago and was eventually slashed to a reported $12.9 million—a 63% reduction.
When the housing bubble popped, the most dramatic declines hit the mid-priced and low-end markets, where home sellers had to compete with cheap foreclosures. Now, even the wealthy are facing the new reality as some luxury homes’ prices have dropped—and dropped again—over the last few years and agents are begging sellers to be realistic in setting an asking price. (More …)
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February 17, 2010The whole town is talking about those luxury apartments at Riviera Dunes up in Palmetto that have been reduced to prices that are truly startling – they now start at $140,000 for a 2,000-square-foot unit that was originally priced at almost half a million. Are they any good? What’s the catch? And what does this mean for the future?Riviera Dunes is a very elaborate high-end development on the eastern edge of Palmetto that includes private homes, a big marina, and three large apartment complexes, the one in question being called Bel Mare. It was built at exactly the wrong time and has been purchased out of foreclosure by a company that specializes in turning these sort of situations around. Apparently they purchased 53 units for an average price of $120,000 and are now selling them at greatly deflated prices. (More …)