What Drives Homes To The Luxury Status?
A common dream in the world of real estate is to buy a home in the “fixer upper” stage, make a number of improvements, and then to sell the house for a substantial increased margin. Even better is if you are able to break through the price ceiling and bring the home to a classification that is in an even higher tier of homes than it started off in. So how exactly can you go about this?
First, it’s important to define what we mean by luxury status. For the purposes of this article we’re going to define luxury homes as those with a price tag of $1,000,000 or greater. Luxury home prices can far exceed this price tag depending on where they are located. Especially those homes in and around major cities such as New York and Los Angeles can easily be in the tens or even hundreds of millions under the right circumstances. So what is it that these homes have that make them so much more desirable to those who can afford a higher price tag? Let’s discuss a few of the factors that really set these houses apart.
As With All Things Real Estate, Location is #1
Luxury homes are always going to have an absolutely prime location. That can mean a number of things though. On the one hand there is convenience. Being located within a stone’s through of the buyer’s office, the city’s downtown district, grocery stores, etc. is on thing, and this is often desirable if the home is to be someone’s primary residence.
Then there is neighborhood. Being in a good neighborhood is another factor that is commonly characteristic of luxury homes. Many buyers will want to buy into a community where they are surrounded by like-minded folks, and what better way to find such folks than to live near others who can afford such a high price tag house? Riff-raff like myself certainly wouldn’t be able to afford a $10,000,000 million dollar home, so I’m immediately sure to be excluded as their neighbor.
Then there is the ultimate factor when it comes to location – seclusion. Seclusion is where the ultimate in luxury homes comes in, and it is quite often paired with miraculous surroundings of nature. These types of homes are where the ultra-wealthy like to vacation. They want to get away from all of the people and the recognition, and they’re willing to pay top dollar to do so.
Everything Else Falls In Place
If you have such a desirable location to warrant such a high price tag, what are they odds you’re then not going to build a house that justifies the price? Pretty slim, to say the least. What comes with this high price tag is often a non-contemporary design, or something that was built by or under consultation of an architect. These homes stand apart from the crowd. They make a statement, and the owner gets to choose the statement it makes.
Of course, then the owner starts to install the smaller, more superficial items that really make a home seam desirable. Jacuzzis, saunas, enormous wine cellars, the works. If you can dream it, you’ll find it in a luxury home.
What often gets missed in the public eye is that these seemingly luxurious attributes of a house are really not what luxury are all about in the first place. Being in the right place is 90% of the game, and the rest is just gravy.
leave a comment