With tonight's presidential debate focusing on the economy, our friends at Estately found it appropriate to compare Mitt Romney's five homes (two of which he recently sold) to Barack Obama's one home.
Romney's property portfolio value totals $32 million, 20 times that of Obama's which was valued at $1.6 million.
For comparison's sake, the average American has a home worth $221,800.
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A stunning mansion known as the Ellen Biddle Shipman Residence has just hit the market for $48.75 million.
The home, on E. 50th Street and Beekman Place, has unmatched views of the East River. The home is available through Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens.
Shipman was a prominent garden designer whose clientele included Robert T, Vanderbilt, J.S. Rockefeller, E.I. Du Pont, Mrs. M.T. Mellon, Theodore Roosevelt's son Kermit, and Vincent Astor.
The home has six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, and five fireplaces.
The man who bought two combined East Village penthouses connected by a 1,000 pound slide will host a final party before the slide is removed, The New York Post reported.
Daniel Gieschen, a Canadian who amassed his wealth by selling a software company, is the owner of the joined apartments located in the East Village's A Building on East 13th Street, Curbed New York reports. He paid $3.3 million for the residence.
The listing broker Elizabeth Kee of the real estate group CORE tells the Post that Gieschen will invite all of his friends over for one final party, before donating the slide to a children's museum or a charity.
The stainless steel slide runs from the upper apartment into the living and dining room areas of the lower floor. There's also a staircase for those who would rather not shoot down the 18-foot-high space.
The original owner Phil Galfond, a 27-year-old professional poker player, spent close to $300,000 combining the two luxury apartments and building and installing the slide by crane. The slide was made by Natural Structures of Oregon at the behest of Turett Collaborative Architects in New York. Galfond also added a game room and a terrace putting green, according to Curbed.
Galfond originally listed the bi-level pad back in February for $3.99 million, before settling for the final sale price of $3.3 million this month.
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From fast food chains to beverages, the food industry can be pretty lucrative.
In-N-Out Burger owner Lynsi Martinez just dropped $17.4 million on a Los Angeles estate, and we decided to track down other food and restaurant execs homes as well.
Source: Curbed
Source: Curbed
Source: Curbed
A big, beautiful Tuscon style home in Los Angeles, California was recently listed for $29.95 million. The home sits on Holmby Hills, one of the most prestigious roads in the city.
The home spans 18,000 square feet, has seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, a movie theater, and a wine cellar.
The Mediterranean home was previously featured in Architectural Digest.
A nearly 17,000-square-foot mansion in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota is on the market for $12 million.
That price tag sounds awfully hefty for that area of the country, but you get a lake, ample living space, and a brand new kitchen.
The home has a basketball court, a tennis court, and a 10 car garage on its 78 acres. It has eight bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, a sauna, and a 500 gallon aquarium inside.
An ultimate selling point in any Manhattan apartment or condo is the view.
So it's no surprise that a new Extell Development tower on 57th Street, rises, residents—especially celebrities—are selling their apartments inside the once-flashy Park Imperial building, The Real Deal is reporting.
Celebrities such as the former "Law & Order SVU" star Christopher Meloni, Deepak Chopra, and Diddy have all listed their apartments in the past year.
The Park Imperial, located at 230 West 56th Street, once had views of the city and the Hudson River, but now at every exposure the views have been compromised, Susan Barkin, an agent who has done deals in the building, told TRD.
Meloni listed his and 60th-floor apartment for $12 million, with a bonus of a 2013 Porsche Panamera to any buyer who could sign a contract by June 1. Now, the place is on the market for $9.95 million. Chopra is trying to sell his 2-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom apartment for $3.6 million. And Diddy just listed his converted-one bedroom on the 66th floor for $8.5 million.
Even though the views have been hindered, the strength of the luxury market is driving buyers into the building, TRD noted. This year, two penthouses at the Park Imperial sold for $8.79 million and $7.89 million, respectively. The buyers remain anonymous.
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Potential buyers are fighting over a tiny apartment in London that measures just 10' X 8,' according to CNN Money.
The apartment—if you can call it that—was originally on sale for $145,000. More than 100 people have viewed the apartment, and a dozen offers have been made on the tiny pad. The high bid is believed to be $280,000, from an investor from Greece. But brokers believe the final selling price might reach $500,000. according to CNN Money.
In CNN Money's video 6-foot-1 reporter laid down in the apartment and stretched the entire length of where the bed would fit. He also couldn't reach from side to side with out hitting the walls.
What's all the fuss about? Location. Location. Location.
The tiny apartment is near the famed Harrod's Department store in London, on Brompton Road.
Small apartments are all the rage in New York City right now, as well. Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently announced the plan for 300-square-foot apartments, dubbed "micro apartments."
Take a look at just how small the London pad is:
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A picturesque home on a country road in Healdsburg, Calif. is on sale for $11.5 million.
The country manor has three bedrooms and five bathrooms, and sits on 50 acres of residential vineyards.
The listing describes the home as having a "soft rustic warmth with modern style."
Tom Gores, owner of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and founder of global private equity firm Platinum Equity, has listed his $10.75 million Beverly Hills mansion, according to Trulia.
The 11,000-square-foot home has six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, and sits in a private gated community.
Trulia is reporting that Gores, who appeared on the Forbes’ 2012 billionaires list with a net worth of $2.5 billion, is leaving his current abode for an upgraded "massive, billionaire-worthy home" in the Holmby Hills area of Beverly Hills.
Ultra-luxury New York apartment building One57 topped out in June, and now buyers are being offered a preview of their views at the still-under-construction highrise, according to The Real Deal.
The 1,005-foot-tall building will be New York's tallest residential building when it opens in 2013.
Developer Extell sent over a photo of the view of Central Park from the 86th floor of the building, where apartments are selling for tens of millions of dollars. We're drooling.
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The founder of Yotel, British entrepreneur Simon Woodroffe, has found a way to make an 860-square-foot apartment feel like an entire home using stage tricks, moving walls, and multi-purpose furniture.
London's Channel 4 News explored the flat with Woodroffe, who showed how the living room could become the master bedroom with a click of a button. And how a desk becomes the guest bedroom.
Woodroffe spent $200,000 creating the Yo! Home prototype, but it's unclear what it would cost for actual residents to buy or rent the apartment.
This "apartment of the future" is just the latest micro-apartment we've seen. New York City recently announced plans for 300-square-foot apartments, and an 8-by-10 foot pad in London is receiving offers for $280,000. Space is very valuable and expensive, as Woodroffe explained in his interview.
He said, "History will judge us of living in an absolutely primitive age compared to what it's going to be compared with the future of these types of home. People are going to say 'remember when they only had one space and it couldn't move around?'"
Leslie Alexander, the owner of the Houston Rockets, has purchased the $42 million penthouse inside of the new 18 Gramercy Park building, the New York Post is reporting.
18 Gramercy Park, which is still under construction, is a new condominium complex that is being converted from a hotel by Arthur and William Lie Zeckendorf of 15 Central Park West.
The penthouse is a five-bedroom duplex condo. Alexander's new home has four terraces and a pool. His purchase also gets him a key to the exclusive Gramercy Park.
Alexander used the same broker he used to sell his $31.5 million penthouse at Superior Ink, Melanie Lazenby of Prudential Douglas Elliman. When they sold the pad, it set a record condo price for downtown Manhattan.
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The late Gianni Versace and his family have an impressive real estate portfolio.
In June, Versace's Miami mansion hit the market for $125 million, making it one of the most expensive homes for sale in America. Now, his brother Santo has listed his Milan apartment for $63.8 million, according to Curbed.
The home spans more than 22,000 square feet across four floors, and was built in 1954.
The former Beverly Hills home of Elvis Presley and his wife Priscilla has hit the market for $12.995 million, according to Trulia.
The home has four bedrooms, five bathrooms, and spans 5,367 square feet.
The gated house sits on 1.18 acres of land, with stunning views of Los Angeles from the backyard.
Designer Tory Burch's old Meadow Lane neighbors in the Hamptons are absolutely furious with the fashion mogul, according to The New York Post.
Earlier this month, Burch unloaded her Hamptons estate, which she bought from her ex-husband in 2008, for $11 million. She originally bought the place for $22.5 million.
Now, neighbors are afraid the sale is going to severely damage market value on the street.
Meadow Lane's residents are no stranger to the spotlight. They include David Koch, Calvin Klein, Leon Black, Ambassador Clifford Sobel, and Rachael Ray. Their homes range in value from $30 to $50 million, according to The Post.
An anonymous source told The Post, "it has sparked a lot of worry if this will affect the market and their own homes, but also a lot of speculation as to why she sold it off so cheaply.”
The home sits on 4.5 acres, has six bedrooms, and eight bathrooms, but is considered a tear-down after some water damage it suffered.
The home reportedly sold to a mystery buyer who plans on building a 7,100-square-foot home designed by Daniel Romualdez.
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Most multimillion-dollar mansions are so unique that it's pretty much impossible to have a formulaic pricing strategy when listing them.
According to Candace Jackson of The Wall Street Journal:
Pricing homes at the extreme high end of the market is a somewhat subjective, and often irrational, process. Because there are so few similar properties for sale, and the homes are often unique, it's difficult to set a standard for a pricing scale, brokers say. For a home priced above $30 million, a "reasonable" price may be in the eye of the beholder."
Most of these homes are custom-made, have had millions of dollars of renovations put into them, and can have over-the-top amenities. They are hard to appraise since they are so unique and rare, making pricing essentially a crapshoot after the value of the land is accessed.
The hard-to-value mansions have led to an interesting trend: some homes that aren't selling actually get a price increase rather than a deduction.
Jackson notes that according to Zillow, 436 New York area listings over $1 million had raised their prices in the past 12 months, compared with 266 for the same period two years earlier.
Raising the price creates a mystery factor among potential buyers, who inquire to find out what changed about the listing to warrant the higher price.
"In the end, sanity usually wins the day and the price comes back down to reality," Donna Olshan, a New York-based broker told The WSJ. "You can't trick the market."
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A TriBeCa penthouse towering 30 stories high is on sale for $16.5 million.
This unique property is in the prestigious PH200 building on Chambers Street.
The apartment has four bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, and spans 4,700 square feet.
The condo has three exposures; to the west there are views of the Hudson River, to the east the owners will have views of lower Manhattan, and to the north views there are views of Midtown.
An European-inspired home on the North Shore of Chicago is on sale for $4.2 million.
The 10,000-square-foot home exudes elegance and is truly unlike any other mansion we've seen before.
The home, in Glencoe, has five bedrooms, five full bathrooms, and three half bathrooms.
The Park Avenue apartment of esteemed "60 Minutes" journalist Mike Wallace, who passed away this past April, has hit the market for $20 million, according to The New York Times.
Wallace's wife, Mary Yates, died in September, just a few months after her husband, and the couple's heirs have listed the home.
Wallace is known for his 21 Emmy awards, including one that he won for an interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006.
The home has four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms. It takes up the 15th and 16th floors of the co-op at 730 Park Ave.
High ceilings, a library, expansive terraces, and crown moldings add to the home's allure.
A 20-foot gallery and a 33-foot living room with a wood burning fireplace make the home perfect for entertaining.
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