The rise of the millennial art collector, testing the waters in a new locale and vacationing closer to home are all trends luxury real estate agents are seeing from their clients moving into summer
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The official start to summer is just around the bend, and luxury agents are already seeing some clear trends emerge as the temperatures rise.
A slight slow down and signs of normalization have impacted the housing market at large and the luxury sector alike, but luxury agents still have plenty of clients — all with their own specific needs — to attend to.
Agents said those needs this summer include more things — and grander things — at home. Even while clients’ appetites in their homes have risen with the temperatures, luxury clients are slowing down a bit and making more measured moves. But that doesn’t mean they’re stopping altogether.
From fully furnished homes to taking more time with their home sale or purchase, these are the biggest trends to emerge in the luxury sector for summer 2022.
Fully outfitted homes
In a number of markets across the country, Stan Ponte, of Sotheby’s International Realty in New York City, said that he’s seeing buyers purchase homes fully furnished and then also making offers on a variety of other things that might appeal to them in the home.
“What we’ve been seeing, especially at the ultra-luxury level, is buyers literally buying everything,” Ponte said. “The furniture, the china, the curtains, the television on the wall, everything. So essentially, there’s a bit of a trend towards a turnkey purchase, where the old phrase used to be, ‘Just bring your toothbrush,’ and I think there’s a little bit of that.”
Sellers aren’t necessarily offering everything in the home from the get-go, Ponte explained, but more and more buyers are accounting for extras in the home with their offer price. And people who move during the summer are often on a tighter timeline due to school schedules or job offers, so they’re more likely to entertain these types of all-inclusive offers, because they make moving quickly a whole lot easier.
“If you’re being relocated from a house outside of Houston to live in an apartment in New York City, then it’s more likely that your house outside of Houston has furniture that may not match … or fit in the apartment,” Ponte said. “[And] this is not just a New York City phenomenon. This is happening across all of our Sotheby’s International Realty markets all over the country.”
Art investments
One thing Ponte clarified that is not typically wrapped up in these all-inclusive offers is artwork, which can be priceless to the beholder.
Tiffany Curry, of Tiffany Curry & Co. Realtors at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Houston, said that her millennial luxury buyers are investing in artwork and curating clean white spaces in their homes to display them. According to a 2021 report from Art Basel and UBS, millennial art collectors were the biggest spenders of fine art in 2020, with 30 percent having spent over $1 million on art.
“So now we’re starting to see that effect, to where they want nice clean bases so that they can hang their art,” Curry told Inman. “So now they’re investing in art rather than just the stock market. So they are being a lot more creative with their money. So in addition to tech and cryptocurrency and things like that, we are seeing people purchase art and they are putting it in their homes.”
Grand outdoor spaces
Building on the trend of making indoor-outdoor living a permanent fixture in the wake of the pandemic, Curry said that buyers are sparing no expense when it comes to creating elaborate outdoor spaces at home. That might include outdoor kitchens, large screened-in rooms, custom ceiling fans, or misters, among other features.
“[Buyers] are wanting a lot of space outdoors,” Curry said. “So they’re wanting outdoor kitchens, and then they’re wanting full outdoor living spaces where you can actually screen them.”
Some buyers are even creating outdoor spaces with retractable screens that can be operated by a remote, so that screens can be in use or not, depending on the need and the season.
“[Buyers] are wanting a lot of space outdoors,” Curry said. “So they’re wanting outdoor kitchens, and then they’re wanting full outdoor living spaces where you can actually screen them.”
Some buyers are even creating outdoor spaces with retractable screens that can be operated by a remote, so that screens can be in use or not, depending on the need and the season.
Some buyers are even creating outdoor spaces with retractable screens that can be operated by a remote, so that screens can be in use or not, depending on the need and the season.
May Luxury Sales Report