John Rebchook is a former Rocky Mountain News reporter with more than 30 years of experience in writing and communications... 
An aerial view of William Dean Singleton's estate in Cherry Hills that was placed under contract in late October and set to close in December.
Dean Singleton, publisher of the Denver Post, has a buyer for his Cherry Hills mansion.
Singleton’s home, priced at $2.5 million – a $4 million drop from when he first put it on the market in 2006 at $6.5 million – was placed under contact just before Halloween, his broker Edie Marks of Kentwood Real Estate, said today.
A separate report released today by the Kentwood Real Estate showed that the closings of luxury homes in the Denver area fell by almost 50 percent from October 2010, by far the biggest percentage drop from the identical month last year.
The report, however, showed that overall, home buying activity for houses priced at least $1 million was fairly steady in the first 10 months of the year, when compared to January 2010 to October 2010.
So far this year, there have been $492.7 million in luxury home sales, down 2.9 percent from the $507.4 million last year. And the number of sales in the price range dropped a mere 0.6 percent -325 vs 327.
“If you look at the first 10 months of 2011 on a year-over-year basis, it looks pretty stable, pretty flat,” Niederman said.
Edie Marks may be bucking the trend of slow sales in the luxury housing market. She recently put Dean Singleton's Cherry Hills estate under contract.
In October, there were only 21 sales, 48.8 percent fewer than the 41 in October 2010 in the counties of Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Elbert and Jefferson.
However, October 2010 was a surprisingly brisk market for luxury home sales. A year ago, some brokers said it was because lenders were starting to loosen the string on jumbo loans in October of last year.
In any case, “one month does not make a market,” Niederman said. “The overall trend in this market seems to be stable.” And not all of the metrics were bad. For example, the most expensive home to sell this year fetched $8.2 million, 17.1 percent more than the top sale of $7 million in 2010.
Singleton’s sale, however, doesn’t count toward October’s tally.
“It’s scheduled to close in early December, Dec. 8, I believe,” Marks said.
One of her clients is buying the home. The home sits on 2.3 acres has seven bedrooms, nine bathrooms and 11,939 square feet of finished space.
“We didn’t get the price he wanted, but Dean said he wanted it sold, so we sold it,” Marks said. Singleton recently moved into a penthouse unit in One Lincoln Park in downtown Denver. Marks said she cannot release the price the buyer paid for Singleton’s estate.
Despite the report from Kentwood, Marks said she is experiencing a brisk high-end market.
“Everything I have is just flying off the shelf,” Marks said. “Just this morning I wrote a contract for a $1.75 million home in Hilltop. The buyer told me what I’ve been telling you for months – he said he wanted to own something tangible, so he is putting his home into a house. He said he is tired of all of the volatility in the stock market.”
That house had been listed for $1.895 million, she said. It is scheduled to close in November, while a number of other houses she has under contract, priced to the $300,000s to more than $2 million, are closing in December.
“I am going to have the most amazing December,” Marks said.
Does she think it will continue to 2012?
“God only knows.”
Month Sales 2010 Sales 2011 Dollar Volume 2010 Dollar Volume 2011
January 12 24 $18.3 million $35.7 million
February 25 20 $36.6 million $28.0 million
March 26 25 $45.9 million $37.6 million
April 38 45 $51.4 million $64.1 million
May 34 38 $50.6 million $54.4 million
June 47 46 $84.3 million $72.1 million
July 35 47 $48.2 million $76.1 million
August 39 28 $56.3 million $43.1 million
September 28 33 $52.9 million $49.1 million
October 41 21 $62.3 million $30.2 million
Source: Kentwood Real Estate
Despite the report from Kentwood, Marks said she is experiencing a brisk high-end market.
“Everything I have is just flying off the shelf,” Marks said.
I’m sure snow shovels in Florida would “fly off the shelves” if they sold for a 65% off original list price like Dean Singleton’s house.
Go Edie! I hope the gyrations of the equity markets do entice people to reallocate some money into real estate.
Jeff-
The gyrations in the stock market might be the biggest reason $1+M home sales are down 50% from last year when the stock market went up 30% after the Fed started QE2. There is a definite correlation between stock prices and high end home sales. Extreme stock market volatility will cause the stock market to fall in the long run and become very negative for real estate prices. Be careful what you wish for.