Broker: Consumers more confident
Seacoast Online columnist Gina Carbone did an excellent piece on longtime friend and colleague Lauren Stone ... This article speaks volumes about the luxury seacoast real estate market and Lauren herself... enjoy! bf
This home at 7 Heather Drive in Rye recently sold for nearly $5 million.Bill Christo photography
Are you in the market for a 7,000-square-foot three-story home right on the Wentworth by the Sea Country Club golf course featuring, among other amenities:
Four bedrooms, eight baths, separate delivery entrance, golf cart with its own garage, an elevator, wine bar and wine cellar, wiring and design for a home theater, 230-gallon saltwater aquarium, exercise suite with an infrared sauna and steam room with a pedicure whirlpool shower, two coffee bars, including a built-in cappuccino maker, cutting-edge technology and geothermal systems, waterfront views from virtually every room ...
And a solid marble 75-inch round Jacuzzi whirlpool tub with three removable headrest pillows and chromatherapy lighting, positioned to view the master bedroom television and beyond to Whaleback Lighthouse?
Too bad! It's taken.
Lauren Stone of North Hampton, a broker with RE/MAX Coast to Coast, based in Portsmouth, sold the 2006 home at 7 Heather Drive for nearly $5 million.
It went on the market at the end of April for $5,377,000 and closed mid-October for $4,100,000 plus trade, including some existing furniture.
But Stone sees this not just as a sale for herself and her clients, but as a potential catalyst for selling more homes in the area. "I think 2010 is going to be a better year," she said. "I think consumer confidence is going up."
There haven't been many high-end sales for a couple of years on the Seacoast, Stone said. "People start to say 'What's wrong?' No one wants to be the first buyer in."
After a sale like the Rye home, she and her fellow brokers can now turn to potential buyers and ask how comfortable they would be spending, say, $3 million on a home nearby.
"It's the flock mentality," Stone said. "I think that kind of snowballs. When nothing's happening, nobody wants to jump in."
Stone has 25 years of experience, working with condos and homes from $200,000 up to $5 million in "nice locations on the Seacoast." Waterfront is preferred; "property that holds its value the longest is by the water."
By the end of 2009 Stone said she will have closed more than $16 million worth of property. That number is a bit lower than previous years, she said, because of the market and mortgage situation.
In 2008, more people realized if they didn't have enough credit or make enough at their jobs they couldn't get a mortgage, she said. Now that it's more difficult to buy, there are fewer qualified buyers.
It used to be that Stone would get 10 buyer calls on weekends; now she'll get one. "It's actually better because I already know they can buy," she said.
Today's buyers are more conservative and more knowledgeable about their options than the quick go-for-a-ride-and-buy-the-house clients of yore. They're looking longer and doing their due diligence.
There are several luxury homes for sale in the Wentworth Road area of Rye and New Castle. It's some of the most expensive property on the Seacoast, Stone said, and properties in that range usually take more than a year to sell. "People at this level have very specific needs," Stone said.
That the Heather Drive location sold so quickly speaks to its unique qualities.
The sellers are a couple with grown children who did a lot of entertaining at the home and are now going to spend more time traveling. But part of the sales agreement was to let them stay in the home until the summer, when the new owners will move in.
Stone said the buyers were looking for the perfect home for several years. They owned property at Lake Winnipesaukee and were drawn to the caliber of the Wentworth area, the proximity to shops and beaches and the high quality of life on the Seacoast.
"I think we're very lucky to be where we are. This is as good as it gets in New Hampshire," she said, adding the Granite State benefits from a lack of personal income and sales taxes, which is not the case in Massachusetts or Maine. "What you have to be aware of is when the right buyer comes along, work with them. ...; I think it's the right house, the right time, the right place."
This particular house is set up with the master bedroom, kitchen, dining and living room on the main floor; the exercise room and guest suites downstairs at ground level; and a giant office suite on the third floor, perfect for the previous owners who worked from home. It's wider than it is high, which Stone said added to its cost.
When Stone first saw this property, her reaction was "off the charts," she said. "For my job, this is as good as it gets." Especially the expansive "hers" dressing room, which Stone said "would befit Bette Davis if she were alive in 2009."
The previous owners told Stone if they didn't get the price and terms they wanted they wouldn't sell at all.
But when the new owners saw the property, she said, they knew they wouldn't get anything closer to their needs. Plus with the technological updates throughout the house they could set timers, operate gadgets and check on everything from Florida.
"A lot of people think New Hampshire doesn't have (this) level of sophistication," Stone said. "I think that's what helped this sell. It has everything cutting edge that's going on right now."
Stone said her biggest challenge as a broker is currently mortgage availability. But she's been hearing some good news from other brokers and if there's activity going on just before Christmas — usually a slow time — she expects it will be a good spring for Seacoast real estate.
"Every year they say 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling.' It's not," Stone said. "It's a good place to be."
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