More Seattle-area homes for ultra rich
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/...pensive11.html
Know someone in the market for a nice home?
How about a Mercer Island abode whose listing declares it: "The signature of a Patrician!"
At $40 million, it's the most expensive home on the market in King County and would be the priciest ever sold in the county.
"A commanding estate palatial in its carriage; global in its attitude. Rich architectural embellishments; the great hall evocative of the palaces of fairy tales."
If the marketing for a typical house registers at Nisqually level on the hyperbole scale, the highest of high-end homes are San Francisco 1906.
But is the description, courtesy of agent Wendy Lister of Coldwell Banker Bain Real Estate, really over the top? After all, the 22,779-square-foot Mercer Island house has four huge fireplaces, extensive marble (floors, free-standing master bathtub), an indoor pool surrounded by Egyptian-style columns, a gym, a wardrobe wing, a chandelier by Tacoma-born glass artist Dale Chihuly and a dock big enough for a 140-foot yacht.
Looking for something a little cheaper? A mere $34.5 million buys a 17,780-square-foot Mercer Island mansion with eight bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, 255 feet of shoreline along Lake Washington, a carriage house, a guest house, lights and cameras controlled remotely by computer, and a boulder wall that runs past the pool and hot tub into the family room.
Seattle-area real estate agents who specialize in high-end homes say there are plenty of buyers who can foot such a bill.
King County has seen 137 sales of homes valued at a minimum of $5 million since 1990 -- 60 percent of those since the start of 2004, according to county Department of Assessments data.
Now, 51 homes countywide are on the block and listed at $5 million-plus, including 15 priced at $10 million or more and four going for at least $20 million.
Increasing home market values in general partially explain the growing number of high-end sales and listings. Another reason is that the Seattle area in recent years has produced many high-income residents who have built big homes with luxurious features in exclusive locations.
"There is a lot of new money here," said Breffni McGeough, a Windermere Real Estate agent whose listings include a $31 million house on Mercer Island.
"The new world is starting here. Look at Microsoft, Starbucks, Boeing," he said. "If somebody does get a good idea in a garage in Texas, they'll bring it here."
Many of the county's most expensive houses never have hit the market. The county has 306 houses that the assessor's department values at more than $5 million and 48 above $10 million, led by Bill and Melinda Gates' $135 million estate in Medina.
Many of these owners will eventually sell, Coldwell Banker Bain agent Kris Robbs said. "Families will change. The kids will grow."
She represents the $34.5 million Mercer Island home. "Their family has changed -- ages, etc. -- and they're ready to make a change," she said.
Seattle was "a huge bargain" as recently as four years ago, when high-end condominiums in downtown Seattle were selling for $400 a square foot, McGeough said. These days, luxury condos regularly top $1,000 a square foot; condominiums in Seattle's Four Seasons Private Residences are fetching more than $2,000 -- $2 million to $10 million per unit.
Paul Zumwalt, owners representative for the Four Seasons developer, The Seattle Hotel Group LLC, said he wasn't sure the project said anything in particular about the Seattle market, since his development has just 36 homes -- 23 of which have sold.
But it does fit a nationwide re-emergence of downtown living as a fashionable choice, Zumwalt said. Most Four Seasons buyers are from the Seattle area, and are moving out of large single-family homes, he said.
Sales of mega-mansions and Four Seasons units do not depend on the forces that move the rest of the market, said Matthew Gardner, a local land-use economist who works with developers.
"These people are less likely to be concerned about other macroeconomic factors," he said. "If they want to buy it, they're going to buy it."
But this doesn't mean a $40 million house sells in two days with a bidding war. In fact, Lister's Mercer Island house has been on the market for two years.
"That's nothing," Lister said. It can take a day or years, she said.
McGeough said he has listed high-end homes for as long as five years. "You never have people taking numbers to buy 8- and 10-million-dollar properties," he said. "That doesn't mean it's overpriced."
In fact, McGeough increases the listing prices of most of his unsold properties each year, assuming that property values in general are rising. Most of his sellers have several homes and can afford to wait.
Robbs listed the $34.5 million mansion at the end of February.
"I think we had eight or nine showings in the first couple months that were local people who have been looking and certainly could have afforded it," she said. "Since then we get one here, one there."
Robbs hopes to sell the home within a year.
"I've had quite a few homes that are between $5 million and $10 million, and those often take that long to sell," she said. "This is not something that we can really predict, because there's really no history to look at."
Many agents specialize in high-end homes. Robbs is listing four houses starting at $1.78 million, plus a $549,000 condo and a $785,000 lot. Of Lister's 35 current home listings, 25 are priced above $2 million and 10 are above $5 million (and one just misses at $4.98 million). McGeough has 16 listings, with 12 over $1.3 million, and eight rentals priced from $4,000 to $8,000 a month.
All of the agents see high-end real estate in the Seattle area as a market with room to grow.
"We are cheap compared to a lot of the major cities," McGeough said, citing London, Shanghai and Moscow as examples.
Seattle certainly remains a bargain compared with London, Gardner said. "Central London's about $5,000 a square foot. It's the most expensive real estate in the world."
Manhattan has a condo listed for sale at $70 million. The Hala Ranch in Aspen, Colo., made news recently when it hit the market at $135 million.
That 95-acre property includes a 56,000-square-foot main house, multiple secondary buildings, a wastewater treatment plant, a heated stable and a garage with a car wash and gasoline pumps.
Lister predicted that increases in high-end prices and inventory over the next decades will be just as startling as those in the past 10 years.
"It's just the beginning of a new era," she said.
Oh, and that $40 million house? With 20 percent down and a 6.5 percent interest rate, it would cost just $202,261 a month -- if you're interested.
WANT TO SEE A MEGA-MANSION?
If you're interested in checking out some of the highest-end homes on the Seattle-area market, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that any Web site that accesses listings from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service has house photos and descriptions. But there are no open houses, and no lock boxes that any real estate agent can open.
"In the upper end, you really don't want to let people come through just for the fun of it," said Kris Robbs, a Coldwell Banker Bain agent who is selling a $34.5 million home on Mercer Island.
Agents have to arrange a showing a day or two in advance, and those who want to see the house have to prove they can actually afford it, Robbs said. "We need a letter from their banker, their financial adviser, their attorney -- somebody who's credible."
Robbs is there for all showings and has hosted invitation-only open houses for brokers, staffed with security.
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