Luxury Homes Fetching Multiple Bids

The housing recovery may be taking hold faster in luxury real estate. Several parts of the country are reporting bidding wars in wealthy pockets as buyers look to snag rising home prices and investors search for bargains. Property sales of $1 million and higher soared 7.2 percent in March compared to a year earlier, according to National Association of REALTORS®’ data. Paul Bishop, NAR’s vice president of research, told Bloomberg News that as the financial markets improve, demand for high-end homes is rising in the northeastern United States, such as in Boston and New York. Demand is also rising along the California coast and portions of the southern United States. "There's an added degree of confidence in the future and that prices are likely going to go up," says Joyce Rey, with Coldwell Banker Previews International in Beverly Hills. "There is a definite change in consumer attitude." Investors, looking to make a profit, are making purchases on high-end homes in many areas of the country in record numbers, with many of these speculative investors making cash-only deals. Still, many real estate professionals report the high-end bracket could be doing even better if the inventory of homes listed for sale wasn’t so tight. "We could have twice as many sales if we had more inventory," Syd Leibovitch, president of Rodeo Realty in Beverly Hills, told Bloomberg News. Source: “Luxury Homes are Selling for More than the Asking Prices in Many Parts of the Country,” Bloomberg News (May 27, 2012)