Published by Merrill Lynch Private Banking and Investment Group, Oct. 25, 2012 An exclusive city-by-city analysis of the high-end residential real estate market suggests that those waiting for a meaningful recovery to set in need wait no longer. Click for Report pdf Resort Report Mixed Excerpt: Venerable high-end resort towns, while too small to be included in Merrill Lynch's survey of Zillow data, share the same long-term appeal of properties in Manhattan or San Francisco: a natural supply limit. As Michael Feder, president and CEO of research and analysis firm Radar Logic Inc., puts it, "They aren't making new oceanfront property in the Hamptons anymore." That's not to say such areas weren't hit hard during the crisis. "Prices in Aspen, Colo., dropped 25% to 40% after 2008", says Tim Estin, a broker at Coldwell Banker Mason Morse Real Estate in Aspen, Colo., and the publisher of The Estin Report, a monthly and quarterly analysis of the Aspen/Snowmass home market. Since then, the recovery has been a bit all over the map, Estin says. The total amount of money spent on Aspen homes surged 20% year over year in 2011, then retreated 37% year over year in the first half of 2012, then surged 55% this past summer. A lot of this has to do with the degree to which a very few number of very expensive homes can skew the market in an area like Aspen. For example, through the first half of 2011, 12 properties sold for more than $10 million, whereas during the same period this year, there were just five transactions of that magnitude. But perhaps a more telling statistic is the total number of units sold. That number — which was up 26% for the summer of 2012 vs. the summer of 2011 — suggests to Estin that while some high-end buyers may still be putting their vacation dreams on hold amid lingering uncertainties about the economy, more are recognizing that now may represent "an unprecedented opportunity" to acquire properties at prices not seen in nearly a decade. Read More
