2017 saw the greatest discounts for multi-million dollar estates in the famously expensive Greenwich, Connecticut, with home prices seeing price cuts similar to those during the 2008 recession.
High end homes last quarter saw an average price cut of 13.5 percent, the highest discount since the last three months of 2008 when the housing market crashed.
This is good news for the market (though maybe not the sellers), as the lower prices have helped clear the backlog of luxury homes on the market, with three sales for more than $20 million in the fourth quarter where there was only one earlier in the year, and none for 2016.
“Sellers were unrealistic in their pricing and were chasing the market,” Scott Durkin, president of Douglas Elliman, said in an interview. “The real sellers, who wanted to sell, have negotiated down from their asking price.”
With consumers favoring cheaper homes closer to the town’s center, owners of the pricey properties are tired of waiting. The 19 luxury homes that sold in the quarter were on the market for an average of 310 days—double the time for similar properties just last year. Some sellers had their homes on the market for even longer.
This is good news for buyers in search of incredible luxury homes, as the owners are opting to lower the prices of their estates to unload them faster. Thomas Peterffy’s 80-acre property, for example, saw a price reduction from $65 million all the way down to $21 million after spending more than two years on the market.
Agents are now urging their buyers to make offers in the wake of these deep price cuts, because now more than ever sellers are willing to counter.
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