Practitioners Say Luxury Market Is Up

The luxury home market is picking up, according to real estate practitioners all over the country.

This trend is strictly anecdotal – no hard data yet. In fact, the National Association of REALTORS® say sales of homes priced above $2 million fell 39.1 percent in August compared to the previous year.

But Barbara Feldman, vice president with Saunders & Associates in Long Island, N.Y.’s community of Bridgehampton, says, "We've seen a significant upturn in activity in the last four to six weeks.”

And Charleston, S.C., associate Pat Broghamer with RE/MAX Advanced Realty, says buyers are “making investments in beach homes.”

Kevin Schmidtchen, an associate with Sotheby's International Realty in Santa Barbara, Calif., echoes the sentiment: "We've started to see a fair amount more pending and closed sales here in just the last two to three months."

Source: Investor’s Business Daily, Kathleen Doler (10/15/2009)