The real estate market is not dead in the Virgin Islands. Even though the inventory of houses for sale on St. John is near a record high, a review of transactions reveals a surprise.
So far this year, 19 houses have gone to closing, including the all-time most expensive property. David Mugar’s Peter Bay home went for $14 million. For comparison’s sake, we’ll ignore that transaction and, to try to keep looking at apples and apples we’ll ignore the highest priced transaction in 2006. The result: the average 2007 home’s sale price was $1.590 $1.7 million. Here’s the surprise. That’s more than 20% higher than the average for all of 2006. But – and there’s always a ‘but’ – that average price is well below the median asking price of $2.2 million but is even with the average price of all listed homes, $1.6 million.
The sales history, as published on the Islandia Web site, also shows there were 19 residences sold this year, compared to 33 all of last year. So, after 50% of the year has passed, the number of deals closed is 60% of the 2006 total.
The picture is not so positive for land and condos. Lot sales are down sharply, with the average sale price of $308,000 being 31% below the average land deal a year ago. The average condo sale price is off 15% from 2006.
There’s still plenty of choices for would be buyers; 126 homes on the Multiple Listing Service, of which 6 are reported as "sale pending." Two oceanfront properties, under construction at John’s Folly, are priced near $9 million each. One (pictured above) has 6 bedrooms and two pools, the other has seven bedrooms and one pool. John’s Folly is on the southeastern corner of St. John. The property listings say the houses will be complete this fall. And believe this – or don’t: Property taxes for these 8-thousand square feet behemoths are estimated to be about $70,000 a year.
The listing that says it will be completed this fall will be completed this fall. You can believe it if I say it in my listing.
Christie
Nice job with this Frank. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, STJ will remain a strong real estate market and will become an even more popular destination as lodging, housing, education, retail, marine facilities and infrastructure improve.
Frank,
It would be informative to see a comparison of original listing prices of properties when listed and what they sold for. I believe a house in Chocolate Hole orginally listed for over 3 million and settled in the lower 2’s. Just wondering why properties are listed so high and then drop such large percentages. It’s obvious the market doesn’t bear some of these inflated prices.
I wish property would drop like that in the DC area.
Liza … I’d be happy to report the info.
Is there a real estate salesperson who’d like to share that info with me, in whole or in part, publicly or confidentially?
Frank
The St. John MLS Sales History, including asking price & selling price, can be found on http://www.cruzbayrealty.com
Thank you for the information, but that doesn’t include the original listing price. I’m curious to know what percentage drop between the ORIGINAL listing/asking price vs. selling price. Not the last listing price & selling price.