The rich keep buying real estate
The real estate section online of the Wall Street Journal had this recent article discussing the continued buying of real estate by the wealthy. This article is a great read by Lauren Baier Kim:
The Rich Keep Buying Despite Housing Slowdown
Your Average Joe may be hesitant about dipping his toe into today’s frigid housing market, but the wealthy aren’t — a Business Week article recently noted that “movie stars, hedge fund managers and corporate titans” are buying up real estate these days.
The credit crunch is making it harder for many of us trying to get the financing needed to purchase a home, but that’s not an issue for many luxury-home buyers — about a third of those who buy residences priced at more than $1 million pay cash, Business Week quotes Laurie Moore-Moore, founder of the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, located in Dallas, as saying.
Meanwhile, the New York Post reports that golfer Tiger Woods has just purchased a posh oceanfront estate in New York’s Hamptons for $65 million. The gated property boasts nearly six gated acres, a 13,200-square-foot home, a 7,500-square-foot guesthouse, a four-car garage with staff quarters, a seaside pool and a tennis court, the post says. Mr. Woods also owns a $40 million home on Jupiter Island, Fla., and is building a 16,500-square-foot palace with a theater and a swimming pool at the golf course he designed in Dubai, the post says.
Business Week notes that there’s a “shortage” of homes available for sale at $30 million and more in Beverly Hills, Calif., and that a hedge-fund manager just paid $49 million for Penthouse publisher Robert Guccione’s 29-room penthouse in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The same home sold for $29.9 million in 2003, during the housing boom, Business Week says.
Even if Wall Street woes hinder some U.S. luxury buyers, foreign buyers may pick up the slack, Business Week says. Still, the credit crunch isn’t likely to do too much harm to the über luxury-home market, says Rick Goodwin, publisher of Unique Homes magazine. “If they’ve got the money, it’s not going to be a hardship to fork over cash for a $10 million house,” he says.
Naples is evidence of this buying. Check out my earlier post of the recent $12 million sale here in Naples, Florida.