Pro golfer Jim Furyk is taking another swing at selling his lovely home in Lahaina, HI. The Maui mansion is available for $4.7 million.
The spectacular island getaway has come on and off the market for over a decade, with an asking price of as much as $7.5 million back in 2008.
Over the years, that has been whittled down, to $6.9 million in 2012 and then two years later, to $5.9 million. In 2016, the home was listed for $5.49 million. Last summer, the price dropped to $4.7 million. It was relisted this week at that same amount.
Even with the multiple price cuts, the golfer could still come out on top. Furyk, 50, bought the tropical property in 1999 for $940,000 and subsequently added a two-bedroom, two-bathroom guesthouse.
Set on 2.53 landscaped acres, the secluded retreat offers an infinity pool plus awe-inspiring views of Molokai and the Pacific Ocean.
Living room with beams and stone fireplace
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Dining space
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Gourmet kitchen
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Bedroom that opens outside
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Covered outdoor space
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Infinity pool
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Built in 2001, the main house includes three bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, and 4,090 square feet of living space.
The open floor plan offers two master suites, an open gourmet kitchen, a great room with living and dining areas, and an office. The interior has wood beams, walls of windows that open onto the outdoor patio, and a hand-laid rock fireplace.
The property also features an office, a workout room, and a seamless indoor-outdoor lifestyle. The outdoor space has a covered barbecue area and fireplace, plus a pool and spa.
Most of the rooms offer easy access to the outside, and the grounds include a motor court with a porte-cochère, as well as a three-car garage.
Given its owner, it’s not surprising that the home overlooks the fairways of the PGA championship Plantation Golf Course, also the site of Furyk’s victory at the Mercedes-Benz Championship in 2001. Born in Pennsylvania, he resides in Florida.
Furyk currently tees it up on thePGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. He’s won 17 PGA Tour events and has one major championship win—the 2003 U.S. Open. He also holds the record for the lowest round score in PGA Tour history, earning him the nickname “Mr. 58.”
Robert Myers with Coldwell Banker Island Prop-KP holds the listing.
Millennials, long viewed as perennial home renters who were reluctant or unable to buy, are now emerging as a driving force in the U.S. housing market’s recent recovery.
Demand from millennials, who today range from their mid-20s to late 30s, has been increasingly important to the housing market since at least the middle of the last decade. But more recently, these new homeowners have been pushing aside older generations to become an even bigger influence.
Millennials reached a housing milestone early last year when the group first accounted for more than half of all new home loans, and they consistently held above that level in the first months of this year, the most recent period for which data are available, according to Realtor.com. The generation made up 38% of home buyers in the year that ended July 2019, up from 32% in 2015, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The group last year also surpassed baby boomers as the biggest living adult generation in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center. The largest cohort of millennial births was in 1990, Pew said, meaning that group turns 30 sometime this year.
“We anticipate as they turn 31 and 32, we’ll just see homebuying demand grow,” said Odeta Kushi, deputy chief economist at First American Financial Corp. Millennials could be responsible for at least 15 million home sales in the next decade, the firm said.
That raised questions about how millennials would build nest eggs, because homeownership has commonly been viewed as a pillar of wealth creation. Now, brokers and economists say millennials’ homebuying interest was simply delayed. Older millennials are marrying and having children later in life than previous generations, after finishing their education and building up savings.
That growing demand is compounded by younger millennials, who are now entering their 30s and starting to buy homes more actively. That is more in line with the ages at which many baby boomers and Generation X, the group born before millennials, began buying homes.
“Millennials, they’re roaring into homebuying age,” said Rick Arvielo, chief executive of mortgage lender New American Funding. “What the industry’s been talking about for a decade is whether they’re going to follow their predecessor generations in terms of their desire to own homes,” he said, adding, “Yeah, they do—they have the same desires.”
Younger buyers were a big reason why home sales continued on the path to recovery in July. Sales of previously owned homes surged almost 25% in July to their highest seasonally adjusted annual rate since December 2006.
First-time buyers accounted for 34% of sales in July, up from 32% a year earlier, NAR said.
Low interest rates, and a desire for more space as the coronavirus pandemic leads people to spend more time at home, are boosting demand for homeownership among Americans of all ages. Many millennials have additional motivations, especially parents of young or growing families.
Sandra Martinez-Gonzalez, who is 32 years old and lives in Las Vegas, used to think she didn’t want to own a home. She preferred the freedom to pick up and move. But when she started looking for a new place to rent at the beginning of the year, she realized buying would be cheaper than renting in her neighborhood.
Ms. Martinez-Gonzalez and her husband moved into their first home with their 2-year-old daughter in July. “It feels amazing,” she said, citing the bigger space and a home office. “Now that we have a home it kind of feels like: Why didn’t we do this sooner?”
A strong housing market can be a positive sign for the economy, as home purchases can lead to increased spending on furniture, appliances and renovations. Home builders have also expanded activity in response to the demand. Some equity analysts have pointed to a strengthening housing market as a reason for the U.S. stock market’s resurgence, despite high unemployment and concerns about the continuing pandemic.
For those who remain employed, ultralow interest rates offer an additional incentive to buy, as they can reduce monthly payments and make homeownership more affordable. The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 2.99% last week, near record lows, said mortgage-finance giant Freddie Mac.
Still, housing prices have risen relative to incomes in the past decade, making a down payment a big hurdle for many millennials, especially those with student-loan debt. In the year that ended in July 2019, more than one in five buyers in their 20s and 30s used a gift from family or friends for their down payment, according to the NAR.
Some millennials are willing to move out of state to become homeowners. Rachelle Nelson and Phillip Nelson opted to build up savings rather than buy a house when they got married in 2013. Then home prices in Fort Collins, Colo., became too high for them to afford, said Ms. Nelson, who is 28. When Mr. Nelson got a new job in June, they started shopping in Cheyenne, Wyo.
They closed on a two-story home in Cheyenne last month. “We had been wanting to buy for a long time,” Ms. Nelson said. “With his new job that he got, it was what we needed in order to actually go forward.”
Looks like supermodel Cindy Crawford and her businessman husband, Rande Gerber, are cashing in on yet another real estate investment.
The couple have placed an updated midcentury modern Beverly Hills home on the market for $15,995,000, Variety reported.
A sale would be a quick turnaround—they purchased the property in 2017 for $11.63 million.
Built in 1959, the classic home has been completely “restored and remodeled to perfection,” according to the listing details.
Cindy Crawford’s Beverly Hills home
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Remodeled midcentury modern abode
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The living room opens to the patio.
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Eye-catching fireplace
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Open kitchen
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Family room
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Media room
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Outdoor living space with fire pit
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Located in the trendy Trousdale Estates area of 90210, the residence is set behind lush foliage, gates, and a motor court.
You enter into a high-ceilinged space that features walls of glass, an open plan, walls for art, and a large double living room with a bar. An updated gourmet kitchen features a center island, an open family room, and a media room.
Along with five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms, the master suite opens out to the pool and includes a luxurious, spalike bath.
The home sits on almost an acre, and the outdoor spaces are include a living area, a fire pit, and a swimmer’s pool. Delightfully decorated with overhead lanterns, it looks like a perfect place for a party under the stars.
Although perfectly private, the property is located just minutes from downtown Beverly Hills.
Perhaps the avid golfers are choosing to spend more time at their desert getaway in La Quinta, CA. They picked up a luxury abode in the golf community for $5.4 million. The fully furnished retreat offers 6,000 square feet, four bedrooms, and a pool.
The pair also profited from the reported sale of one of the Malibu beach houses they own, for $45 million in 2018. They continue to own an oceanfront abode next door.
Kurt Rappaport with Westside Estate Agency holds the listing.
A waterfront estate on the north shore of Lake Tahoe has splashed onto the market for $44 million, making it this week’s most expensive new listing.
Part of the affluent community of Incline Village, NV, it’s far and away the most expensive listing in town. There are 209 homes on the market in Incline Village, with a median list price of $1.2 million.
This 1.2-acre property with 150 feet of lake frontage last changed hands in 1997 for $6.8 million. The buyer was listed as Spirit of the Lake LLC, an entity connected to Madylon and Dean Meiling, who own the Nevada-based company Chemeon Surface Technology.
On the market for just nine days, the stone, glass, and wood structure is already in “contingency” status—which means an offer is in place.
The listing notes the lakefront retreat features “almost 12,000 square feet of custom designed craftsmanship, with exquisite ‘Tahoe Blue’ lake views from almost every room.”
Walls of glass
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Great room
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Casual dining area and kitchen
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Formal dining room
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Bar
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Office with fireplace
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Home theater
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Bedroom
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Lake and dock
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Built in 2006, the home features iron gates and a heated, tree-lined driveway.
The great room has a beamed, 35-foot ceiling and a wall of glass facing the lake. The open and airy space includes seating areas, a fireplace, grand piano, and chandeliers.
A professionally equipped kitchen comes with an island and butler’s pantry and is adjacent to a casual eating area. The kitchen also opens out to a patio for lakeside meals. In addition, the home features a formal dining room.
The home has four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and three half-baths. On the second level, the master suite includes a sitting area and a fireplace. Luxe spaces include an office, library, and wet bar. Other high-end amenities include a home theater, exercise room, 1,200-plus-bottle wine cellar, and an elevator.
The grounds include perennial gardens, a year-round stream, as well as a boat dock. And you’ll never be without a place to park with a seven-car garage.
In a boon for a buyer in a hurry, the property is being offered fully furnished, including the Yamaha grand piano, a shared pier, and a Cobalt boat.
Tracey A. Cutler with Windermere Prestige Properties holds the listing.
The famed Los Angeles boathouses don’t look like much from the street. But once you step into one of the seven wood-frame homes that float over a canyon in the Hollywood Hills, you begin to understand why they’re in high demand.
Need further proof of their desirability? The most recent transaction involved a boathouse that listed for $920,000 and sailed into contract in less than t10 days.
If you watch “The Kominsky Method” on Netflix, you’ll recognize a boathouse as the home of the drama coach Sandy Kominsky, played by Michael Douglas. And that starring role isn’t the only claim to fame for these homes, built in 1958.
“The boathouses were built by Harry Gesner, known to many as the ‘most interesting architect in the world,’ because he only took interest in projects that were one of a kind,” explains the co-listing agent, Jessica Koltsov of The Agency.
“Gesner was approached by a man who had bought several of these hillside lots in the late 1950s. He was asked if he could make anything of them, because everyone had said these lots were ‘unbuildable.'”
Not one to shy away from a challenge, Gesner came up with a winning concept.
As Koltsov told us, “He flew out a team of Norwegian shipbuilders to help construct the uniquely shaped boathouses, with an aim to maximize the lot size they were on and create a unique design. Today, the row of boathouses are recognizable as an architectural landmark in Los Angeles.”
The boathouse with the “smile” is the one that was for sale.
Street view
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Great room
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Gesner’s design genius isn’t limited to these seven distinctive dwellings. It’s also on display in the internationally famous Malibu Wave House, which may have inspired the design for the famed Sydney Opera House.
But hiring the Norwegian shipbuilders to realize his nautical design concept was a true stroke of genius.
In addition to their shipbuilding skills, the artisans had expertise in building what are known as stave churches—wooden structures that employ timber framing. The wood framing and shiplap are among the homes’ most prominent features.
Canyon view
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None of the boathouses are large— they all have one or two bedrooms and a single bath. And because of the unusual size of the lots they sit upon, there isn’t much room for any additions.
The boathouse that recently went under contract has two bedrooms and measures in at a petite 1,136 square feet.
Master bedroom
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Second bedroom
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Bathroom
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Before listing the home, the owner, Emmy award-winning stylist Oakley Stevenson, took the time to update it. She paid $735,000 for the boathouse when she bought it, back in 2015.
It now features new bamboo floors throughout, new drywall and structural beams, a reconstructed deck, and a new roof. She also decked out the bonus studio space.
Perhaps another reason it went under contract so quickly was the sub-million-dollar list price. The price was still steep, but any time a home in this trendy Los Angeles neighborhood goes on the market for under $1 million, buyers are eager to climb aboard. This boathouse was listed by Koltsov and her colleague at The Agency, Jonathan Ruiz.
This gorgeous desert dwelling used to sit in the middle of nowhere. Built in 1928, La Casita de Maria in Paradise Valley, AZ, was one of the first structures erected in a town now known for its multimillion-dollar mansions.
Now, after an award-winning restoration and remodel, this beautiful complex of adobe buildings is on the market for $4,695,000. Nestled into a “desert botanical garden,” the nearly century-old home is a shining example of a mindful historic restoration.
Listing agent Scott Jarson says the home is no longer lonely. It’s now surrounded by a number of mansions as well as world-class shopping, dining, and resorts.
The gated compound on an acre lot offers spectacular mountain views. Inside, many of its original details—honeycomb fireplaces, exposed brick, and beamed ceilings—have been preserved.
Those vintage elements are now accompanied by resort-worthy amenities. There’s a huge pool, outdoor living spaces, and a newly added industrial kitchen. However, none of the recent additions competes with the home’s desert frontier spirit.
The kitchen features retractable glass doors, which open to the inviting backyard. There’s also a “bunkhouse” wing for big sleepovers, complete with a sitting area and bath. All together there are six fireplaces, multiple patios, and views of Camelback Mountain, the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, and Piestwa Peak.
In all, the remodeled compound boasts a five-bedroom main house, one-bedroom guesthouse, roof deck, and three-car garage with shop.
Courtyard
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Living room
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Kitchen
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Dining room
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Family room
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Bedroom
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Bunkhouse
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Bunk bed
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Outdoor dining
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Patio
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Cheery cactus prints and upcycled antiques like an armoire transformed into a darling bunk bed are just a few of the surprises in this adorable adobe.
A touch of eccentric charm was exactly what this desert delight needed to achieve perfect balance.
“This is one of those homes that everyone dreams of, myself included,” says Jarson. “It’s a house that many local people drive by and often imagine a life in. It’s like a portal to another time—now thoughtfully and carefully updated with every modern amenity included.”
Mortgage rates are still near record lows, but that isn’t making owning a home cheaper for home buyers any longer.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 2.91% for the week ending Aug. 27, dropping eight basis points from the week prior, Freddie Mac reported Thursday.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage also fell eight basis points to an average of 2.46%. The 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage remained at 2.91% on average.
Low mortgage rates have provided incentives to would-be buyers, prompting home sales to hit volumes last seen prior to the Great Recession. But today’s home buyers aren’t necessarily scoring a deal when compared with last year’s cohort of buyers.
This time last year, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.58%. But someone who buys the typical listing today will be paying $14 higher monthly mortgage payments than someone who purchased a property last summer, according to data from Realtor.com.
“Lower mortgage rates can’t completely offset higher costs,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.
(Realtor.com is operated by News Corp subsidiary Move Inc., and MarketWatch is a unit of Dow Jones, which is also a subsidiary of News Corp.)
When rates drop, affordability improves for a period of time. But as history has shown, low rates eventually coax more people into the housing market. That creates competition for homes, which drives prices upward.
Currently, median listing prices are 10.3% higher than a year ago, according to Realtor.com. Meanwhile, the low supply of homes for sale has meant that properties are coming off the market in record time. That increases the likelihood that a given buyer will face a bidding war, which can increase how much they must spend to get the keys to their dream home.
Ultimately, today’s home buyers may discover that low mortgage rates are a double-edged sword.
One piece of good news for buyers though: While rates remain incredibly low, refinancing is becoming less attractive to existing homeowners, Hale said. “This may paradoxically help buyers as they won’t have to compete with as many refinance applicants for lender attention,” she said.
