In a blog post the other day - $$/sf sales this year – I talked about the value to buyers of a spectacular view, citing 3 homes that recently sold in Skyline CC - “all 3 had one thing in common, ‘take your breath away’ city views from way high up in Skyline. Without the views, my guess is they’d have sold for 20 – 25% less”
And, conveniently, today I came across an archived article from 2010 at WSJ.com that addresses the value of views to well off 2nd home buyers. And it goes without saying that many of our high-end Catalina Foothills home buyers are 2nd home or retirement home buyers.
Rich Just Want a Room (or 20) with a View
When the wealthy buy a primary residence, their top three priorities are fairly predictable.
“Reputation of the area” is first, which translates to the “right address.” West Palm Beach, Fla.? Wrong address. Palm Beach, Fla.? Right address.
According to the annual Wealth Report from real-estate brokerage Knight Frank and Citi Private Bank Wealth Report, the second priority for rich primary home buyers is security and the third is design. Size ranks fourth, while price ranks seventh and proximity to schools is last.
When it comes to buying a vacation home, however, the priorities of rich real-estate buyers gets scrambled. Their first priority? View. Second is climate and third is reputation of the area. Price ranked fifth (slightly higher than the primary-home ranking) and proximity to schools again ranked last.
This is a report by a real-estate firm, so not surprisingly, the survey found that the wealthy are bullish on buying real estate. And more wealthy investors in their survey cited property as a “good investment” this year than any other investment class. Half said residential real estate would be the best-performing property asset class in 2010.
In other words, add large grain of salt.
Still, the fact that “view” ranked above climate, reputation, price and size for vacation homes bears considering. What the wealthy want from a vacation home is to get away from it all. A giant window overlooking the waves or sunset or white-capped mountain tops can help wipe away a lot of stress. Who cares about the address?
Maybe high-end home builders should focus less on creating non-view homes in the same high-end neighborhoods (i.e., Aspen, Colo., Palm Beach, etc.) and more on selling homes in lesser locales with great views.
How do you rank “view” in your second-home priorities?
…………………………………….
You can remodel the kitchen and the baths, get rid of the fuzzy carpets and the popcorn ceilings, but you can’t remodel the view.
see TheFoothillsToday.com
to find your very own Catalina Foothills Home
