The luxury home is the top-priced residence on the market in St. John’s right now, but worth every penny, according to real estate agent Nicole Squires of Coldwell Banker, who provided a showing this week.
As you walk into the front entrance, the view is of a double staircase, with modern lighting hanging from the 20-foot-high ceiling of the foyer. A large, formal dining room is visible deeper inside, leading to a raised deck that offers a clear view of Virginia Lake — an oasis in the midst of the provincial capital.
“The land alone has got a lot of value to it,” Squires said, after a period of silent wandering in and out of bright rooms in the 25-year-old home — a custom kitchen, sitting rooms, office, six bedrooms, five full bathrooms.
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“It’s a big home, but it’s functional and it’s warm. It’s inviting,” she said.
The house boasts 11,000 square feet of space. Compare that with the roughly 3,700 square feet of the featured home in the Health Care Foundation’s recently launched Hospital Home Lottery, at 56 Parsonage Dr.
And while the lottery home has an indoor skating rink, the prime property on Regent Street offers a climate-controled wine cellar with tasting room, now with roughly 5,000 bottles. A workout gym, swimming pool, TV room and one of the guest rooms are on the same floor.
If comparing “dream homes,” it’s worth noting the last home featured in the Canadian Hard of Hearing Foundation’s Ultimate Dream Home lottery and its attached land were valued at roughly $569,000, or about a quarter of the price on the property now for sale at King William Estates.
“There’s only so many people in this price range,” Squires acknowledged, when asked about potential buyers.
Even so, and while the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is taking a well-publicized hit with the downturn in oil prices, the home for sale has drawn “four or five” tours within the few months it has been on the market.
“The markets do affect those houses. The reaction time is not as quick, when the market makes an adjustment. A lot of the middle market gets hit when the market gets saturated, overbuilt, too much product on the market or if there’s adjustments in the rules of financing … and interest rates come into play,” said realtor Tim Crosbie, who spoke on behalf of the home’s owners, who shall remain nameless.
Crosbie said an “affordability factor” comes into play.
“You don’t see that as much in the upper market,” he said.
What the majority of people will deal with in the coming year was laid out this week by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) in its forecast for 2015. Essentially, demand for homes and home sales are expected to remain flat.
“I would say that we’re expecting relatively similar activity (overall, year over year). So it’s very dependent right now on the commodity price environment — obviously oil, mining being the two big drivers of our economy,” said Chris Janes, a CMHC market analyst. “So depending on what happens with global commodity prices, I would say it would be the same, and if oil continues to go lower … we could see a year a little slower than what we saw last year.”
St. John’s benefits from employment growth, population growth and income growth.
“Those, from our perspective, are the three key drivers of the housing market that we look at and we see those remaining relatively stable, despite the commodity price environment and despite the potential, obviously, for layoffs with the province now, depending on what happens with the budget at the end of March,” Janes said.
“It could have a slight impact on the housing market, if people are out of work for an extended period of time and have a mortgage to pay and get squeezed on that end of it,” he said. “But that’s typically not the case here. We tend to be fairly prudent in our habits and we don’t have a very significant incidence of people defaulting on their mortgages.”
The luxury home is the top-priced residence on the market in St. John’s right now, but worth every penny, according to real estate agent Nicole Squires of Coldwell Banker, who provided a showing this week.
As you walk into the front entrance, the view is of a double staircase, with modern lighting hanging from the 20-foot-high ceiling of the foyer. A large, formal dining room is visible deeper inside, leading to a raised deck that offers a clear view of Virginia Lake — an oasis in the midst of the provincial capital.
“The land alone has got a lot of value to it,” Squires said, after a period of silent wandering in and out of bright rooms in the 25-year-old home — a custom kitchen, sitting rooms, office, six bedrooms, five full bathrooms.
Related stories:
City puts 20 properties with overdue taxes up for grabs
“It’s a big home, but it’s functional and it’s warm. It’s inviting,” she said.
The house boasts 11,000 square feet of space. Compare that with the roughly 3,700 square feet of the featured home in the Health Care Foundation’s recently launched Hospital Home Lottery, at 56 Parsonage Dr.
And while the lottery home has an indoor skating rink, the prime property on Regent Street offers a climate-controled wine cellar with tasting room, now with roughly 5,000 bottles. A workout gym, swimming pool, TV room and one of the guest rooms are on the same floor.
If comparing “dream homes,” it’s worth noting the last home featured in the Canadian Hard of Hearing Foundation’s Ultimate Dream Home lottery and its attached land were valued at roughly $569,000, or about a quarter of the price on the property now for sale at King William Estates.
“There’s only so many people in this price range,” Squires acknowledged, when asked about potential buyers.
Even so, and while the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is taking a well-publicized hit with the downturn in oil prices, the home for sale has drawn “four or five” tours within the few months it has been on the market.
“The markets do affect those houses. The reaction time is not as quick, when the market makes an adjustment. A lot of the middle market gets hit when the market gets saturated, overbuilt, too much product on the market or if there’s adjustments in the rules of financing … and interest rates come into play,” said realtor Tim Crosbie, who spoke on behalf of the home’s owners, who shall remain nameless.
Crosbie said an “affordability factor” comes into play.
“You don’t see that as much in the upper market,” he said.
What the majority of people will deal with in the coming year was laid out this week by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) in its forecast for 2015. Essentially, demand for homes and home sales are expected to remain flat.
“I would say that we’re expecting relatively similar activity (overall, year over year). So it’s very dependent right now on the commodity price environment — obviously oil, mining being the two big drivers of our economy,” said Chris Janes, a CMHC market analyst. “So depending on what happens with global commodity prices, I would say it would be the same, and if oil continues to go lower … we could see a year a little slower than what we saw last year.”
St. John’s benefits from employment growth, population growth and income growth.
“Those, from our perspective, are the three key drivers of the housing market that we look at and we see those remaining relatively stable, despite the commodity price environment and despite the potential, obviously, for layoffs with the province now, depending on what happens with the budget at the end of March,” Janes said.
“It could have a slight impact on the housing market, if people are out of work for an extended period of time and have a mortgage to pay and get squeezed on that end of it,” he said. “But that’s typically not the case here. We tend to be fairly prudent in our habits and we don’t have a very significant incidence of people defaulting on their mortgages.”
