House Porn
I didn’t have television for years. Then my clients started talking about this ‘HGTV’ and all these programs about flipping houses and million dollar listings. So, I signed up for cable and of course like many of you, my brain has turned to mush. I have NOT however gotten addicted to house porn, watching all the home shows, and cruising various websites to view dream homes I could never buy in Manhattan, Hawaii, Mexico, etc. Why? Because I live and breath ‘looking at homes’ seven days a week! I do have agent friends all over the country and I love talking to them about their markets and sales prices and the crazy stories that often go with multi-million dollar properties.
NYC is all abuzz this past month after the biggest transaction so far this year closed at 220 Central Park South. The buyer purchased two floors in the building for a mere $157.5 million. It is right in the center of what is known there as ‘Billionaires Row’, where insanely high glass residential towers have been erected on and around Central Park. On the West Coast where my granddaughter is now apprenticing at a real estate firm in Los Angeles, there have been some multi-million dollar mansions trade hands. Barron Hilton’s (as in hotels, and now deceased) Bel-Air estate closed escrow for $61.5 million. It was designed by an architect who worked for Fran Sinatra and Lucille Ball, and had 13,000 sq. ft, 13 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms and was known for it’s famous Moderne-inspired swimming pool with a blue, gold and yellow tiled pool depicting the 12 signs of the Zodiac.
The highest sale reported so far this year by the Wasatch Front Regional MLS is in Park City in the Colony Project at White Pine. This subdivision is the most expensive place to live in Utah. The buyer paid $14.1 million for a three level (9282 Sq. Ft. per floor) 14 bedroom, 21 bath home with an 18 car garage on just over five acres. And of course, the luxury home has all the bells and whistles you’d expect in a millionaire’s home: multiple bars, a movie theater, sauna, spa, gym and a 3,000 bottle wine cellar. The highest listed home on our MLS is the $69.2 million Deer Hollow Ranch in New Harmony, Utah. The mansion sits on 800 acres and touts a dozen reservoirs of water and plenty of water rights. The Tudor style home was built in 1985 with 11 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms.
Now that you’ve picked your jaw off your chest, the flip side of this is my poor buyer who wants to purchase their first home and doesn’t bring home a lot of money each month. Right now, the WFRMLS reports only TWO homes listed under $250,000 in the entire Salt Lake County area, eight homes listed between $251,000 to $300,000. Given that home prices have gone up a minimum of 20% over the last year I’m afraid if we don’t fine something soon he will be priced out of the market…forever!