Are They Priced NOT to Sell?

Why Some Supermansions Are Priced "Not" to Sell

It's the ultimate trophy property: A 29,000-square-foot spread on Biscayne Bay with 13 bedrooms, a gun room, fingertip identity-scanners, and, for privacy from gawkers on passing boats, a machine that shrouds the backyard in mist. Yet several years after putting the home on the market, no one has offered owner Thomas Kramer anything close to his current asking price of $50 million.

Still, he isn't entertaining a cut -- because showing it is entertaining enough. Sears Chairman Edward Lampert and singer Enrique Iglesias have visited, according to people who showed the house; director Michael Mann used the home to shoot scenes of the new movie version of "Miami Vice." "I've met unbelievable, interesting characters," says Mr. Kramer, a 48-year-old real-estate developer.

This is the real-estate world's expanding ubermarket, where prices start at $30 million and sellers are sometimes in it just for sport. These aren't mere mansions -- sorry, Cher, your $9.8 million joint wouldn't make the cut -- but modern-day San Simeons, largely insulated from the rest of the market. Currently about 60 of these mini-emirates are for sale in the U.S., according to databases and interviews with brokers. That's compared with a handful of $30-million-plus homes even a few years ago.

So who are these people, why aren't they in a rush to sell -- and what do their mid-eight-figure pads look like? We went on a cross-country tour of homes that have been on the market for close to a year or more and found sellers such as a former radio-station owner, a retired Seattle-area couple and plenty of people who made their money in the real-estate market. Our visits let us into to a private art wing with steel doors that drop from the ceiling, a 70-foot saltwater swimming pool and a sweeping vista over Michael Eisner's Aspen-area house way, waaaaay below.

We also found prices that didn't seem to compute. One home on Mercer Island, Wash., has a $40 million price tag, more than five times the high sales price on the Seattle-area island. A Los Angeles ranch compound, described in a marketing brochure as "gracious" and "breathtaking," had a guest cottage with a sagging roof and a mirrored disco ball in the screening room. And in Marin County, Calif., a historic home that had undergone a $32 million, nine-year renovation had a two-car garage.

More of these hyper-estates have come up for sale in recent years. On the west side of Los Angeles, there are more than a dozen homes on the market in the $30 million-plus range, up from about two in 2001, according to Cecelia Waeschle of Sotheby's International Realty in Malibu. In Manhattan there are around 20, compared with a handful in 2001, says Fox Residential Group. In Florida, two spec homes under construction are expected to come on the market at about $125 million each, while two in the Los Angeles area will have "for sale" signs of about $60 million.

Testing the MarketSome of these prices can be attributed to the past half-decade's real-estate boom; houses that might have been listed for a mere $25 million a few years ago could go for $50 million now, or more depending on the location. But there are other factors at play. Many megamansions are being built without buyers in mind. There's a sense that some homeowners are simply having fun testing the market -- naming their dream price in the hopes that a buyer will wander by and pay it one day, but without being particularly motivated to sell. In many cases, their houses have sat on the market for years, with owners holding prices firm, or even boosting them.

via The Wall Street Journal Online

More Luxury Homes info at www.ColoradoDreamHomes.net