This is obviously very different than what I normally post but I just couldn’t resist. I find it to be quite interesting and I hope you will too.

The World’s Richest Man’s New Mansion

Francesca Levy, 07.29.10, 07:16 PM EDT

What you need to know about Carlos Slim Helu’s record-breaking purchase.

If you stand on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and look across the street, you’ll have a small chance of glimpsing the world’s richest person.

On Thursday Mexican telecommunications tycoon Carlos Slim Helu, who is worth $53.5 billion, bought the Duke-Semans mansion, a beaux-arts townhouse directly across from the Met, for $44 million, public records show. That record-breaking price is the most paid for any New York home in nearly two years

The mansion’s seller, Tamir Sapir, famously ascended from taxi driver to billionaire by trading in oil and then investing in real estate. He bought the property from the descendants of its original owner, tobacco mogul Benjamin N. Duke, in 2006, paying $40 million. That leaves him with a 10% profit–healthy, in a sluggish market.

Here’s what’s important to know about the sale, the home and how this transaction will change luxury real estate.

The Duke-Semans is one of a kind.
Location is critical in ultra-high end Manhattan real estate, and the Duke-Semans has a great one: The corner of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street, on New York’s vaunted “Museum Mile.” But staking a claim to the right street (Fifth Avenue is the Holy Grail) isn’t enough to qualify for greatness. Buyers measure prestige in feet–as in, how many of them a building occupies on a coveted block.

The Duke-Semans has everything going for it: It stretches up 82nd street for 100 feet (a luxurious distance, in this part of Manhattan), then turns the corner, occupying 27 feet on Fifth Avenue. The combination of its unusual length, Fifth Avenue visibility, and corner location can’t be found in any other building. That uniqueness is what allowed Broker Paula Del Nunzio, of the firm Brown Harris Stevens, to originally price the home at $50 million.

But it might be a fixer-upper.
Samir reportedly intended to renovate the 19,500-square-foot house in the four years he owned it, but never did. Although the exterior is breathtaking, the house needs some work on the inside–a fact that helps explain Helu’s 12% discount off the asking price.

There’s more evidence to suggest the mansion boasts a less-than-sparkling interior: Brown Harris Stevens only provided press and prospective buyers with detail shots of ornate moldings and period elegance, not the sweeping shots of ballrooms, stairways and terraces that are typical for these kinds of sales. The home may be in need of major work.

It was snapped up quickly.
Brown Harris Stevens put the Duke-Semans on the market in January. If it were a normal home, stagnating on the market for nearly seven months would bode very poorly for a sale. But in the rarified world of luxury real estate, where homes fetch $10 million or more, it’s expected that properties may languish on the market for two or three years. Only a few thousand people in the world can afford homes like this, so sellers expect to wait. The fact that the turnaround was comparatively quick indicates wise pricing, and perhaps growing demand in the luxury market.

It’s so inedible that someone can posses such luxury. Let me know if you’ve enjoyed the variety of this article and if you would like for me to continue posting this type of articles once in a while.

Resource: Forbes.com

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