The Nation’s Most Expensive Second-Home Markets (2004)
NYT - 9/9/2005…another look back…
TOWN (ZIP CODE) / 2004 MEDIAN HOME PRICE
ASPEN, COLO. (81611) / $2.47 million
No surprise that this ritzy ski resort is the most expensive second-home market in the country. But there’s one surprising fact: $1 million won’t even buy a teardown anymore.
PALM BEACH, FLA. (33480) / $2.08 million
Ronald O. Perelman sold his home here last year for $70 million. But though prices are high, turnover of high-end homes in this old-line resort can be slow.
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. (92662) / $1.82 million
This ZIP code belongs to the city of Newport Beach but consists of tiny manmade Balboa Island. It’s nestled between the Balboa Peninsula and Pacific Coast Highway and has experienced a 40 percent rise in the median home price in the last year.
WATER MILL, N.Y. (11976) / $1.58 million
The median home price in this section of the Hamptons climbed 31 percent last year. Other Hamptons towns had even higher prices but have fewer sales last year.
MANTOLOKING. N.J. (08738) / $1.33 million
Wall Street types arrive by helicopter for weekends on this strip of high-end beach houses on the Jersey Shore. On the market right now is a five-bedroom bayfront house with sweeping views and a $6.25 million asking price.
NANTUCKET, MASS. (02554) / $1.15 million
No shock here. Once a whaling village, this 50-square-mile fishhook-shaped island off Cape Cod is dominated by the hyper-rich.
(Blogger’s note: As of January 2007, the median home price on Nantucket was $1,852,500, while the average price was $2,574,000…)
SULLIVAN’S ISLAND, S.C. (29482) / $1.1 million
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ”The Gold Bug” is based on Sullivan’s Island, which was an Army post through World War II. Median home prices jumped 51 percent last year.
HENDERSON, NEV. (89011) / $805,000
Including Lake Las Vegas, a 3,592-acre planned resort community just 17 miles from the Strip, this ZIP code was once a swampy canyon through which flowed sewage from southern Nevada. Now it has an artificial lake and faux-Tuscan villas.
PRINCEVILLE, HAWAII (96722) / $715,000
Once vast farmland, Princeville is now among the most exclusive planned developments on Kauai. The median price for single-family homes soared 42 percent through the end of last year.
OXFORD, MD. (21654) / $620,000
A wealthy Chesapeake Bay port in the 17th and 18th centuries, Oxford is now a peaceful and sophisticated waterfront town whose residents are seeing sharp increases in the values of their homes.
SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. (85262) / $528,000
The median home price was up 12 percent last year over 2003 in this northern swath of a resort community famed for its desert climate and its golf courses.
JAMESTOWN, R.I. (02835) / $473,000
Better-known Newport is just over the bridge from this island at the mouth of Narragansett Bay. Prices have been rising steadily — these days, even close to $600,000 doesn’t guarantee a view of the water.