Property takes a holiday as the long weekend looms
Schedule auctions are down but there’s still reasons for the market to be cheerful
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There’s nothing like a long weekend to put a dampener on the property market. Auction activity is set to drop dramatically over the King’s birthday weekend to almost half the number from last week.
Data from CoreLogic shows that 1,327 homes are scheduled for auction across the capitals this weekend, down -44.2 percent on the previous week. Research analyst for CoreLogic Australia, Caitlin Foo says the fall in numbers is most evident in Melbourne where auctions have hovered over 1,000 homes for the past five weeks. This weekend, figures have fallen by -56.7 percent to just 480 homes.
In Sydney, there are 537 homes scheduled to go under the hammer, down -40.3 percent on the previous weekend when 899 homes were auctioned. It’s a slightly less significant story in the smaller capitals with 130 homes set for auction in Brisbane (down from 141 the previous week), 99 in Adelaide (down from 152) and Canberra at 65 (down from 68).
While it’s a slower week for the market, the numbers are still far better than they were this time last year, indicating a consistent sense of confidence in residential property.
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The 25-room mansion was built for an heiress and later belonged to a socialite and architect on the Empire State Building.
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A 110-year-old Colorado estate that has hosted Frank Sinatra and Lyndon B. Johnson just slashed $10 million off its price tag.
The 12,000-square-foot manor house—with 25 rooms—and its five accessory dwelling in the alpines of Evergreen was relisted on Friday asking $16.8 million, down from its initial $26.8 million price in 2023.
The sellers, Richard and Pamela Bard, who paid $1.3 million for the “legacy property” named Greystone Estate in 1992, have shopped it around on and off for the past 20 years, according to agent Jessica Northrop at Compass Real Estate.
Richard Bard, CEO of his own private equity firm, has “hosted many corporate events and retreats where important business is discussed but they are also able to relax,” Northrop said. “Greystone has a special way of making people feel at ease.”
Bard said “it’s not a casual effort” to sell. He said it’s difficult to find a buyer with the facilities to “take care of it.”
The Bards intend to move closer to their children in Denver.
Before the Bards, Greystone Estate had several eras—as a summer house, a guest ranch and a business base—since it was built in 1915 by Genevieve Phipps, an industrialist’s daughter.
Phipps, who spent her inheritance on the land, built the 54-acre summer escape with the “elegance and feel of a fine Adirondack mansion combined with a mountain rustic style,” according to an online record of the estate’s history.
Its heyday, arguably in the 1940s to 1980s, saw Sinatra, Johnson and Groucho Marx come through its doors, when its owner William Sandifer, a socialite and one the Empire State Building’s architects, operated a guest ranch out of the place.
The Bards, who used a carriage house on the property as their company headquarters, completed Greystone’s full modernization in 1997. They also opened up the living and dining areas to receive more light, raised the ceiling on the upper level and combined several rooms to create a primary suite.
They replaced an outdoor pavilion and its helipad with something more suitable for their daughter’s wedding in 2001, according to Northrop.
The main 25-room manor includes a wine cellar, bar, gym and library.
The additional structures, which include a cottage, a log cabin, a pool house, a carriage house and a pavilion and guest house, surround the pool area and overlook acres of aspen groves and mountains.
Rising along the line where eastern and western Europe divide, a forested mountain range is home to shepherds, villages and plenty of bears.
The 25-room mansion was built for an heiress and later belonged to a socialite and architect on the Empire State Building.
