Luxury Housing Booms On

Christie's Great Estates says the high-end home market continues to boom during the housing downturn because, like priceless art, luxury homes are put on a pedestal.

by Broderick Perkins
© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com

Deadline Newsroom - If you've forgotten what a housing boom looks like, check out the luxury home market.

The luxury home market includes the vacation home getaways of the rich and famous and continues, for the most part, to enjoy record-level sales and prices in many locations.

That's according to a survey by high-end real estate brokerage Christie's Great Estates.

Whether it's a $50 million, 30,000-square-foot, Italian villa in Beverly Hills or the $70 million Penthouse at The Pierre, with a 360-degree view of Manhattan, high-end homes are hot.

Christie's says the same desires that drive demand for fine art also put luxury homes on a pedestal. The emotional rush that comes with heightened visual appeal is simply priceless. Toss in a stellar location and luxury homes are the stuff of dreams.

In the fourth quarter 2007 survey of its regional markets Christies found

• Manhattan apartments achieved a record average price of more than $1.4 million for a 34 percent gain over the same period the previous year.

• Single-family luxury homes in Palm Beach, FL rose in price by nearly 16 percent to $5.3 million.

• And in California's Beverly Hills, properties that sell for $10 million or more are selling for more than they would a year ago, according to Jeffery Hyland of the Hilton & Hyland in Beverly Hills.

Hyland said that's because there's lots of cash, but too few luxury homes.

But all is not well in Tinsel Town.

Some celebrities are having problems unloading multi-million dollar estates.

Young Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne; former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash (Saul Hudson), Johnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon and Vidal Sassoon all have or had homes on the hard-to-sell list.

The toughest sell has been one of the nation's most expensive residential listings, Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar's 56,000 square foot, 96 acre Hala Ranch in Aspen, CO. Listed for a cool $135 million, it's been on the market for a year.

The New York Times recently featured the sprawling estate in a recent story.

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© 2008 DeadlineNews.Com

Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist of 30 years, is publisher and executive editor of San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service, and the new Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's new backshop. In both cases, it's where all the news really hits home.

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DeGeneres Dances Off With $4 Million Profit On California Home

by Broderick Perkins
© 2007 DeadlineNews.Com

Deadline Newsroom - Who says you can't make a profit on real estate in the current market?

Emmy Award-winning TV-talk show host Ellen DeGeneres likely performed her famous sneaker dance after recently selling her Southern California estate with a $4 million profit.

She purchased the home little more than a year ago -- stealing the wedding site of another celeb, Sandra Bullock, who has had her own home issues.

The comedian and actress had to settle on a $20 million offer rather than her $24 million asking price. But DeGeneres boogied off with a 27 percent profit on the Santa Barbara County property, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Fifteen months ago, she purchased the Montecito, CA property for nearly $16 million. The home is near Oprah Winfrey's 40-acre estate.

DeGeneres sold the home with the help of a comedic video home tour she hosted and aired on her daytime TV show and Web site. She also upgraded the interior and grounds during her ownership.

The property was listed by Suzanne Perkins with Sotheby's International Realty in Santa Barbara.

The four-acre compound built in 1926 includes a four-bedroom, two-story Spanish Colonial main home with a three-car garage and 5,000-bottle wine cellar. There's also a guest home, fruit trees, swimming pool, tennis court and 5,000 bottle wine cellar on the grounds.

The town of Montecito, where DeGeneres house is located, is in Santa Barbara County's posh South Coast region where single-family home sales were down 33 percent in October from a year earlier. But prices in the region rose 22 percent during the same period, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Brisk sales in California's high-end housing markets like Santa Barbara as well as Silicon Valley, San Francisco and other Southern California hot spots is what has kept the statewide median price from falling until recently.

California's single-family median price plunged 9.9 percent over the past year ending in October.

That's the largest year-to-year price decline since the California Association of Realtors has been keeping records. Sales are down more than 40 percent.

More California Market News That Really Hits Home!

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© 2007 DeadlineNews.Com

Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist of 30 years, is publisher and executive editor of San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service, and the new Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's new backshop. In both cases, it's where all the news really hits home.

---

DeadlineNews.Com's Editorial Content Is Intellectual Property • Unauthorized Use Is A Federal Crime

Read more!