The Most Expensive Birmingham Home Sale For 2018

The Most Expensive Birmingham Home Sale Is Nothing Like New Yorks

Have you heard about the recent sale in New York that set the record for the highest sale in U.S. history? Ken Griffin, who is a billionaire hedge fund manager, purchased a 23,000 square foot penthouse in Central Park for $238,000,000. That’s a little over $10,000 per square foot!

While the most expensive Birmingham home sale prices are nowhere near those in New York I started thinking about what the highest priced home in this area was last year. According to the Greater Alabama MLS, a home located on Balmoral Road in Mountain Brook sold in December of 2018 for $4,000,000. It was sold by Jane Huston Crommelin with Ray and Poynor. To put it in perspective, you could purchase almost sixty of these homes for what Mr. Griffin paid for his.

Local records show that it has approximately 5,500 square feet which works out to approximately $727 per square foot, quite a bit less than the New York sale.

Top 10 Home Sales In The Birmingham Area

Looking back at area sales in the past 10 years last years sale ranks as the 2nd most expensive, with the highest one taking place in 2015 in the Shoal Creek development, which I reported on several years ago. Here’s a list of those sales:

1.Shoal Creek: $4,800,000 in 2017
2.Mountain Brook: $4,000,000 in 2018
3.Mountain Brook: $3,800,000 in 2013
4.Vestavia Hills: $3,500,000 in 2015
5.Vestavia Hills: $3,500,000 in 2014
6.Wilsonville: $3,224,681 in 2011
7.Mountain Brook: $3,125,000 in 2009
8.Birmingham-Redmont: $3,100,000 in 2016
9.Mountain Brook: $2,900,000 in 2010
10.Mountain Brook: $2,600,000 in 2012

The Shoal Creek home was a foreclosure that was originally listed for $17.9 million, however, this proved to be too high, especially for when it was listed shortly after the real estate collapse. It remained on the market for seven years before closing at a fraction of the original list price.

As you might expect homes in the upper price brackets represent a totally different market and it behaves quite differently than the lower price ranges. For example, at the current time, we are seeing around 4-6 months worth of inventory for the lower price ranges, however for homes over $1 million it creeps up to over 9 months, but them drops off again above two million, probably because of the smaller number of listings in this range.

In the past, this was not so true for days on market but lately, it seems to have changed. Greater Alabama MLS data shows that homes in all price ranges are selling for between 60-70 days if priced correctly. Because there are fewer homes selling for over one million there are fewer comps and pricing these homes is even more tricky. They can easily stay on the market much longer if they are overpriced.

Takeaways For Agents Pricing High Dollar Homes

1) Don’t let the seller dictate the price- It’s easy to get caught up in trying to please the client, however, the market will be the ultimate test. Just because the owner wants a certain price doesn’t mean buyers will pay that price or that the property will appraise.
2) Don’t confuse cost with value- Some sellers believe that all the money they have spent on their home should add equal value, but this is not always true. The cost of many home improvements does not always add dollar for dollar value to the sale price.
3) Don’t get caught up in the hype of a seller’s market- This may be true for lower-priced homes but those over one million dollars typically take longer to sell due to limited buyers, which helps contribute to more inventory. Price to the market because that will ultimately be what dictates what it will eventually sell for.
4) Don’t fall victim to aspirational pricing- Don’t price your home way out of the market. Rather than list your home for a ridiculous price that will never sell, choose a reasonable price based on market data. If you do this you’ll have a better chance of selling your home in a reasonable amount of time.
5) Make sure the physical data you have on the property is correct- I see this problem with all property types. Having the wrong square footage leads to possible over pricing. If you overestimate the square footage you can overprice the home causing it to stay on the market longer than normal. This leads to buyers perceiving a problem, and so on, you get the picture.

Question

Do you have any additional questions about recent high priced sales in the Birmingham area? How about pricing high dollar homes? If so feel free to contact me and as always thanks for reading.

If you liked this post subscribe by email (or RSS feed).