Skip to main content
Palm Beach Daily News

Beyond the Hedges: Left Out In the Cold?

By: Darrell Hofheinz
Published: 3/8/2012Source: Palm Beach Daily News

Left out in the cold? — A number of theories are wafting around local real-estate circles to explain the slow sales over the past six months for Palm Beach properties changing hands for between $5 million and $10 million, a once-active category that is only now beginning to show signs of life.

The latest Evans Report sales analysis, for instance, noted that during 2011, sales recorded in that price segment dropped from 25 in 2010 to 19 in 2011. And during the final four months of the year just ended, only four homes sold for prices in that range, according to Palm Beach real estate attorney and property owner Les Evans’ quarterly report.

Since the first part of this year, the activity there has slowly gained traction, including last week’s $5.2 million sale of 319 El Vedado Road, listed by Corcoran Group with Fite Shavell & Associates representing the buyer. And just this week, a deal for Sotheby’s International Realty’s listing of a vacant lot at 657 Island Drive closed at $5 million.

The Palm Beach Multiple Listing Service this week also identifies several pending sales for homes priced in the middle of that range and listed by Corcoran, Sotheby’s and Lawrence Moens Associates, while two other sales are pending for properties listed at just under the $5 million price threshold by Fite Shavell.

Most theories about why buyers have been hesitant to plunk down substantial sums for homes seem to be psychology-based. Perhaps they’re feeling queasy from the up-and-down Republican primary season preceding November’s presidential election, the outcome of which remains far from clear.

Or maybe they’ve been hesitating because of a lingering uncertainty over the stock market, although the Wall Street rally has many real-estate brokers crossing their fingers, even with this week’s plunge. Add in worries about the general malaise of the U.S. economy and the global ramifications of the as-yet-unresolved European debt crisis — well, you get the idea.

And let’s not even talk about the credit crunch or all those hedge-funders whose discretionary incomes took such a wallop during the recession.

But Evans tosses out a more mundane explanation that has nothing to do with political battles or economic strife: the weather, specifically the remarkably mild winter that Northeasterners have enjoyed over the past few months. Some New Yorkers, if you recall, had endured more than 5 feet of snow by this time during last year’s bone-chilling winter.

“The weather has been so good up north,” Evans says, adding that buyers from that area, perhaps, just didn’t feel as urgent a need this season for a warm-weather retreat.

Let’s face it: It can be a lot more tempting to shell out millions for a Palm Beach house when your sidewalk is surrounded by massive mounds of freshly shoveled snow — and more is on the way.

RETURN TO PRESS PAGE