When I was growing up, my parents loved looking at homes for sale. It was almost like a hobby of theirs. They especially enjoyed “house shopping” on vacation. Whenever we were out sightseeing, if we came across a home for sale, they would stop and look. If there happened to be an open house going on, they were elated. They liked to play “guess how much this expensive home is listed for.”
As a kid, I never understood the appeal, and I I vowed to never waste good vacation time on such pursuits. Well, fast-forward a couple decades…
While we were in the Florida Panhandle last month, I saw this huge beach house under construction, and I just couldn’t help myself. Neither could Mr. Handsome. We took bets on what we thought its list price was, and let’s just say we were way off.
The home has 9 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, an elevator, and two gourmet kitchens, for a grand total of 11,000 square feet. It sits directly on the beach, which is nice, but it’s also a few doors down from a busy public beach and a four-story condo building geared towards families. The asking price is $22.5 million. I simply cannot understands who would buy this. Who needs 9 bedrooms? And two kitchens? Plus, the house is right on the main road. There is a mere 15-foot buffer between the side of the garage and the street.
I would think that someone with $22.5 million would want some privacy, like maybe their own island. At the very least, space for a gate and some tall shrubbery to keep the riffraff, like myself, out. You know, those of us whose houses cost 1/100th as much. Because with a sidewalk right out front, you would expect there would be more than a few gawkers walking by.
And if you were purchasing it as your private residence, why on Earth would you need 9 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms? I would also think that someone with such a nice home would want to entertain, but with only a three-car garage, a small driveway, and no street parking, that would be difficult.
But if it’s not designed to be a private residence, what is its purpose? We did the math, and based on area rental prices, paying $22.5 million on a home just to rent it out to vacationers wouldn’t work financially.
So I suppose now I am hooked on looking at expensive houses and guessing their value. Does anyone else do this, or am I the only one?
It’s probably meant to be a rental, the kind families rent for a reunion week at the beach, or the kind a sorority or a fraternity would rent. You’d get a lot of money per week for that house, and since it’s FL, you could rent it most if not all weeks of the year. You’d eventually recoup your investment but until then, you’d have all sorts of tax write-offs to your advantage, plus property value increase.
It’s probably been bought by an investor from another country. There’s a lot of money in the world, and the wealthy need a place to spend it, especially if they live in a country with harsh economic volatility. That’s what makes US properties so appealing by comparison. A lot of the luxury properties in NY, FL, and CA are owned by people not from this country. They wouldn’t care about frontage and privacy since they won’t be living there as a primary residence. It’s just another property in their holdings.
Real estate has gone sky-high in recent years. There’s an average-looking house in my neighborhood that was recently completed and sold for $1.4M. New construction is getting top dollar. So I’m not shocked by that $22.5M price tag for beachfront.
I LOVE playing this game, and I don’t wait til vacation to play it. I rationalize that it will help me someday in the future when figuring out how much my home is worth once it’s time to sell. But that’s what realtors are for lol! I have the Zillow app on my phone and I check it several times a week.
A couple newer homes in my neighborhood have gone for $2 million. Some have 5 or 6 bedrooms! I’m sure I could find some use for all those rooms if I had the money!
Could you imagine the amount of housework there would be on any given day? OOOF!
Your parents must be a fun couple. Sometimes I will go to a cape cod or a ranch style open house, because they are my favorite kind of houses. Jane
Maybe the house could be used for a B&B?
Ever look on Zillow Gone Wild?
I haven’t. Sounds interesting. What’s on there?
I’m also always really shocked when I see expensive homes right on busy roads. That’s something that would bother me, as I highly value privacy, but some people don’t care as much about it and don’t mind living in a fishbowl! I personally would far prefer a smaller but more private house that’s in a very quiet setting.
I completely agree, Ellyn. Those are my thoughts exactly. If I had $22 million, I would rather be somewhere away from the road with a gate.
Exactly!
Makes me think of the ” summer cottages” of the super wealthy in Newport. Years ago my husband had a conference in Boston and the kids and I did a day bus tour to Newport, Rhode Island on my birthday. It was very interesting but stressful as my youngest was maybe 4 and you have to be so careful in those huge mansions, can’t touch etc. Now they were quite the summer homes!
Sounds like a fun trip! But I bet that was stressful with a 4-year-old.
My friend’s family owned one of those huge mansions, but it was near Philadelphia, not Newport. A hundred years ago was a roaring time financially.