Luxury Real Estate's Board of Regents Had Record-Breaking Sales in 2005

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Luxury Real Estate's Board of Regents Had Record-Breaking Sales in 2005  

The Board of Regents, the exclusive affiliation of luxury brokers and the governing body of the Luxury Real Estate network, has experienced record-breaking sales for 2005.

Collectively, the Board of Regents, which is comprised of 78 brokerage firms representing 425 offices from around the world, has reported a gross sales volume of $42 billion for last year. This is a 25% increase over 2004, also a record-breaking year for the Regents affiliation.

Luxury Real Estate selects only one Regent per market on the criteria of longstanding excellence in the real estate profession. Considered experts in their markets, Regent members have been interviewed multiple times by various national publications about the subject of the real estate bubble. While most acknowledge that the frenzy of the last two years is unlikely to continue, all are predicting 2006 will continue to be a healthy market with a slight correction in prices and a longer listing period.

Ignacio Vega of Village Associates Real Estate of Orinda, California reports, “I believe we are going to have a balanced market in 2006. The demand has softened a bit already and the listing time has extended to 35 days. The last two years have been a terrible time for buyers. 2006 will finally give them some time to think about a purchase and allow them to negotiate a bit better.”

The second home market appears to be particularly well positioned against a downturn as baby boomers vie for vacation homes. According to Brian Hazen, of Coates, Reid & Waldron in Aspen, Colorado, “2006 is going to be all about inventory. There was a tremendous amount of sales last year that reduced our listing inventory so I think repeating our 2005 sales numbers will be difficult, but clearly the buying activity is still very strong.” After 29 years in the business, Hazen reported his personal best in 2005.

A sampling of Regents who reported an increase above 25% in 2005 include Bahamas Realty of Nassau, Bahamas (100%), Exclusive Mountain Retreats of Breckenridge, Colorado (41%), Kurfiss Real Estate of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (39%), Gustave White Sotheby’s Int’l Realty of Newport, Rhode Island (35%) and Preferred Properties of St. Helena, California (30%).

The Luxury Real Estate membership is made up of more than 776 boutique and specialty real estate brokerage firms from around the world which consistently sell in the top 10% of their markets. LuxuryRealEstate.com has been named “Best of the Web” by Forbes magazine for five consecutive years and currently provides access to more than 35,000 for-sale properties from around the world, with an average list price of $2,212,000.

For more information, please visit www.Regents.com or call 800-488-4066.