Two things prompted my to write this post about high-end real estate sales in Lake Norman: A series of national articles about ‘affluent' or ‘wealthy' home buyers and several recent Lake Norman sales of homes over $3 million. Since there have been NO sales in the greater Lake Norman area of homes over $3 million since 5/14/07, the points in the three articles I read made some sense:
‘Wealthy Homeowners Take Advantage of Market' by Blanche Evans of Realty Times (4/17/08) is an analysis of ‘The Annual Survey Of Affluence and Wealth in America' from American Express and the Harrison Group. (Participants were divided into three groups: the upper-middle class $100,000 - $149,000; the affluent $150,000 - $249,000; and the supper affluent $250,000 +). The bottom line of this report? 40% of the nations wealthy plan to buy real estate in 2008. ‘The wealthy view real estate as diversification and % believe real estate values will rebound'.
‘Wealthy see buying opportunites in sluggish real-estate' by Amy Hoak of MarketWatch also uses the American Express/Harrison Group survey as the foundation of her article. Of the highest income earners, she writes that ‘40% said they are in the market to acquire real estate this year.' However this figure drops to 17% of their upper-middle class participants.
'If Trump and Buffett can do it, so can you' by Bernice Ross is the second of a two-part series she wrote about ‘reluctant buyers' which was published by Inman News. ‘Its no secret that people like Warren Buffett and Donald Trump are actively involved in purchasing as much real estate as possible...The smartest people in the real estate business are contrarians. They sell when prices increase and buy when prices are going down.'
Here in our Lake Norman Area, $2,000,000 is probably where our true luxury home market begins. However, I found it very interesting that there had been no sales over $2,950,000 since May of 2007...until this month. Showings of the highest priced homes have picked up and two Lake Norman estates recently went "under contract": 20940 Bethelwood Lane (list price is $5,750,000) and 17216 Connor Quay Ct. (Listing price is $3,830,000).
It is hard to know if this is a true sign that luxury home buyers are returning to Lake Norman but it certainly indicates that there are some positive moves in that direction.
*Thank you to Chris Lowery of www.Open2View.com for the photograph!
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I Love hearing good news. I am starting to believe that people really like buying nice stuff,I do.