Luxury Forecast: Partly Sunny
By Kathleen Carlin-RussellEditor in chief
We all know the forecast for the luxury home market truly depends on where you are. While recent broad-based housing reports have been stormy at best, there are bright spots in certain locales. One example, Manhattan, continues its historic resiliency with powerhouse brokerages such as Prudential Douglas Elliman and Brown Harris Stevens releasing reports this week that showed the NYC market has stabilized, noting that transactions were more than 80 percent higher overall than this time last year. This came on the heels of an earlier report showing that the high-end had a lot to do with that jump. Sales of units priced at $10 million or more have increased. To paraphrase many working in this level of the market, “there are no bargains here.”
New York wasn’t the only city enjoying a bit of fine weather in the first two quarters of the year, with the (literally) rainy Seattle market getting a boost. According to local reports, the sale of $1 million-plus properties in King County alone was up dramatically 
from last year, with more than 340 homes sold through May 2010 (compared to 214 during the same period in 2009). The top sale so far this year was a $11.3 million home in Hunts Point.
More good news could be filtering in on the real estate front, if the Senate follows the House and approves the extension of the homebuyer tax credit. The House voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill that would give buyers three more months to take advantage of the credit. And any encouragement to homebuyers is a good thing at this point.
Apparently, purveyors of luxury goods are feeling a little more confident as well, as the price of high-end products seems to be inching up for the first time since the financial crisis. After a dramatic drop off over the past couple years, we’ve heard about an uptick in spending, albeit from a smaller pool of wealthy consumers. In another report, caviar, fine wine, artwork and such will cost more now. That’s according to a recent Affluent Luxury Living Index report that notes some of the rich seem to be willing to spend again—more cautiously than in years past, of course—including expenditures for more bigger-ticket items like cars and jets.
An encouraging report, I hope that the trend continues.