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.
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 manor on 40 rolling acres.
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. The 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.
The high end market here on the peninsula has seen larger than 50% drops in prices over the past few years so now generally sellers are getting the big picture and pricing their homes closer to value which is lessening days on market and even causing some bidding wars in Carmel by the Sea.
KRXA Radio Show #160 April 30, 2010
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