The amount of money that you’ll have to shell out for truly luxurious real estate depends largely on where you happen to be. This should be a surprise for very few — as the old saying goes, location is everything when it comes to property.
For the second year in a row, the most expensive location in the world is the city of Monte Carlo. The average price for housing in the city is around $4,420 per square foot. This comes as no surprise to the publisher of globalpropertyguide.com, the firm that provided the report. Monte Carlo is a favorite location of the rich because it is one of the best tax shelters in the world. When you add in the fact that the city is small and space is limited, the exorbitant prices make much more sense.
Still, the fact that the average price of housing in Monte Carlo is more than that of the second and third cities on the list combined (an average of $1,937 per square foot for Moscow and $1,928 per square foot for London) is an impressive achievement. Also surprising is the fact that New York dropped from the second spot to the sixth spot in the course of a year. This is primarily due to growth in the Asian real estate markets.
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Over the past few years, home prices have dropped significantly from their peak (as much as 40% in some locations). As the economy continues to get better, opportunistic investors and families seeking a second home have begun taking advantage of these bargain prices and affordable current mortgage rates. According to Craig Summerall of Lexington SC Real Estate and Irmo Real Estate “We’ve seen an up-tick in buying in just the last couple of months.” In Greenwich, CT, for example, realty brokers say that the final months of 2009 were close to record-setting in terms of sales volume, as borrowers took advantage of current mortgage rates in Connecticut. 
For investors and homeowners alike, it is important to emphasize that the economy is still in a state of recovery and that it is going to take some time for property values to increase. Nevertheless, it is also important to stress that the demand for homes in some of the country’s most prized locations is on the rise and that these low prices and low mortgage rates will not last forever. While the median price for a home in the Hamptons is currently $1.5 million, keep in mind that this represents a drop off of 30% from the peak sales prices of 2007.
“In Boston area we have seen an uptick of Luxury Home sales recently. It appears the price drops are bringing in some new buyers to the market” says a broker from Bushari Group Real Estate who specializes in Boston Luxury real Estate.
Whether you want to realize your dream of being able to say “I’ve got a little place by the beach” as a second home or are looking to make an investment for the long term, now is the perfect time to tap into the slowly rebounding luxury home market and take advantage of low current mortgage rates and record-low prices in some of the most lavish localities in the United States.
