Getting your player ready...
Well-heeled buyers – including the one who snapped up Carmelo Anthony’s former home for $6.1 million – bought 70 seven-figure Denver-area homes in June, a whopping 59 percent more than the 44 luxury homes that traded hands in May.
While more expensive homes do tend to rise in June from May for seasonal reasons, 59 percent is an especially large percentage increase. In 2010, for example, the month-to-month increase jumped by 44 percent.
Year-over-year, the number of million-plus homes that sold last month changed little from June 2010, showed the analysis of Metrolist data by independent broker Gary Bauer.
Dollar value drops
However, the dollar value – for June – as well as for the first half the year, was below last year’s tally, sellers this year have been more willing to slash prices to unload their homes than they were in 2010.
In June, a total of $104.2 million in luxury homes sold, down 7.2 percent from June 2010. And in the first six months of the year, $407 million homes at $1 million and above closed, down less than 2 percent from the same period in 2010.
Some 66 of the luxury homes were single-family detached homes, and four were condos. For the single-family homes, 20 were in Boulder County, 14 were in Denver, 11 were each in Arapahoe and Douglas counties, seven were in Jefferson. Adams, Clear Creek and Elbert counties each had one home sale priced at above $1 million.
All told, million-plus home sales in June accounted for about 10 percent of the total $1.08 billion in sales last month.
Carmelo’s sale big part of the June market
The 21,000-square-foot Anthony home in Littleton – the most expensive to trade hands last month – sold for almost half the $12 million he paid in 2007, and 36 percent less than his previous asking price of $9.5 million. Anthony, of course, has signed a $65 million contract with the New York Knicks, so he can afford the hit on his pocketbook.
Still, the former Denver Nugget’s home accounted for 6.2 percent of all the sales of single-family homes priced at $1 million or above in June, and 3.9 percent of all of the homes in that lofty range.
“Considering the fact that the rest of the market was a great market in June, I wasn’t surprised by how well the million-dollar plus market did,” Bauer said. “If anything, it was a little better than I expected. It shows that in the high-end market, we still have a market out there.”
Edie sees unprecedented price cutting
Edie Marks, a broker with the Kentwood Co., well-known for selling 7- and even 8-figure homes, said Bauer’s data reflects what she is seeing on the street.
She said she has never seen such aggressive price-cutting at the high-end in her 34 years as a Denver Realtor.
“Five minutes before you called me, I dropped the price of a listing,” Marks said. “It was originally priced at $6.5 million, when it was being listed by another broker. Guess what it’s new price is?”
The answer: $2.5 million.
Marks had taken the listing of the 10,000-square-foot Cherry Hills home about a year ago, and most recently, had it priced at $2.9 million, before today’s $400,000 cut in the asking price.
“Back in 2006, the home would have sold for $6.5 million,” Marks said. “It’s on 2.5 beautiful acres with mountain views. It has a beautiful swimming pool and hot tub. It has elevators to all three floors. The gates around the property along cost $300,000! I tell you, I never thought I would see anything like this.”
Marks said that many more rich people are looking at homes, and she is hoping they will translate into closings later this year.
All of the rich kicking the tires on homes, are looking for bargains, she said.
“For buyers, whatever they pay is absolutely the most they will pay,” she said. “For sellers, it is far less than what they wanted to receive.”
Also, sellers must have their homes in immaculate shape, she said.
“Properties not in top condition will not sell for anything near the asking price,” Marks said. “Some sellers are not willing to spend the money on deferred maintenance or to fix the water features (such as fountains in these mansions.) But it ends up costing them three times as much when they don’t sell.”
