Luxury home sales soar 50%

Highlights:

• Well-heeled buyers snapped up 50% more luxury homes in March.
• The most expensive sale last month was for $7 million.
• Total dollar volume is up 46.4%

This 19,555-square-foot home in Cherry Hills Village last month sold for $7 million.

Luxury home sales in the Denver area soared by 50 percent in March, compared with March 2012, according to a report released today by Kentwood Real Estate.

The report shows that 48 single-family homes priced at $1 million or more, closed last month, compared with 32 a year earlier.

The total dollar volume was $76.114 million, 46.4 percent higher than the $51.994 million in March 2012, according to the analysis, which used Metrolist data for sales in the “core” counties of Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Elbert and Jefferson counties.

“It was an awesome month,” said Sandy Weigand, a top broker in the Kentwood-DTC office.

“It was a good month for closings, and not just under contracts.”

Weigand said she thinks well-heeled buyers increasingly are becoming comfortable with the idea of buying their dream home.

“I think people are finally saying, “Enough is enough,” Weigand said. “There is a lot of pent-up demand. People are feeling more secure in their jobs right now and big companies and corporations are making money again.”

Also, buyers want to take advantage of historically low interest rates, she said.

“A lot of buyers are paying cash and putting loans on their homes later,” Weigand said. “However, the $2 million to $3 million buyers are not going to buy their new home until they sell their less expensive home and have the cash to move up”

However, with an increase in homes priced in the $1 million range, “It has a good snowball effect on homes in the $2 million to $3 million range.”

Indeed, Weigand said she is starting to see bidding wars for the home in the $1 million to $2 million range, although they are not as fierce as in the lower price range.

While the overall market is suffering from the lowest inventory of unsold homes on record, it is not as pronounced at the high end, she said.

Another look at what $7 million buys in today’s market.

“It was my listing that bought it, although we had one other party interested in buying it that came very close to putting it under contract,” Weigand said.

Weigand decline to name the buyer.

Public records, however, show it was bought by Dale Francescon, an owner of Denver-based Century Communities, one of the largest home building companies in the area.

In 2010, his brother, Rob, paid $7 million for a nearby home that previously had been owned by Mike Shanahan, the former coach for the Denver Broncos.

Weigand said custom home builders are not yet constructing spec homes in that lofty price range.

“What I am seeing is that some customer builders who own lots are now placing signs on their property saying they will do build-to-suits,” she said. “That is a move in the right direction.”

Kentwood reported there are 523 single-family homes priced at $1 million or more are currently on the market. Of those, 125, or 23.9 percent, are under contract.