Housing market decline hits Ichiro's mansion
ISSAQUAH, Wash. -- The decline in the local housing market isn't just hitting the modest homes. The pool of high-end home buyers is shrinking as well.
Former Mariners' pitcher Jamie Moyer just put his Magnolia mansion up for sale at $8.9 million. The seven-bedroom Tudor is one of the most expensive listings in Seattle, and about $6 million more than the Moyers paid.
Ichiro Suzuki didn't field many offers for his original asking price of $3.2 million for his Issaquah mansion. The M's star built a bigger home on Lake Sammamish and left this Issaquah home three years ago.
The new number is now down to $1.75 million, and there are people in town coughing up that kind of cash without a jumbo loan.
"We're actually seeing a disproportionate number of higher end properties sell for cash," said real estate broker John Wellman. "They're reallocating assets out of portfolios into hard real estate and paying cash for those properties and we're talking four to six million dollars."
But realtor Andrea Iverson says there's fewer high-end buyers, and the new price on this historic home reflects that.
"This is currently at $3.9 million," she said of a big estate in Magnolia. "We started a year and a half ago at $5.6 (million) and in response to the market, have continued to drop the price -- at this point it's almost a million dollars under the assessed value."
No baseball players were here, but there was a president. Franklin Roosevelt's son-in-law rented this estate when he was publisher of the Seattle P-I.
Roosevelt sat by the fireplace during the 30s when the national banking system was tottering. And now in this embroiled economy, the current owners of this historic home are forced to reduce their price.
But they didn't do so bad. They bought it in 1944 for $25,000.
Former Mariners' pitcher Jamie Moyer just put his Magnolia mansion up for sale at $8.9 million. The seven-bedroom Tudor is one of the most expensive listings in Seattle, and about $6 million more than the Moyers paid.
Ichiro Suzuki didn't field many offers for his original asking price of $3.2 million for his Issaquah mansion. The M's star built a bigger home on Lake Sammamish and left this Issaquah home three years ago.
The new number is now down to $1.75 million, and there are people in town coughing up that kind of cash without a jumbo loan.
"We're actually seeing a disproportionate number of higher end properties sell for cash," said real estate broker John Wellman. "They're reallocating assets out of portfolios into hard real estate and paying cash for those properties and we're talking four to six million dollars."
But realtor Andrea Iverson says there's fewer high-end buyers, and the new price on this historic home reflects that.
"This is currently at $3.9 million," she said of a big estate in Magnolia. "We started a year and a half ago at $5.6 (million) and in response to the market, have continued to drop the price -- at this point it's almost a million dollars under the assessed value."
No baseball players were here, but there was a president. Franklin Roosevelt's son-in-law rented this estate when he was publisher of the Seattle P-I.
Roosevelt sat by the fireplace during the 30s when the national banking system was tottering. And now in this embroiled economy, the current owners of this historic home are forced to reduce their price.
But they didn't do so bad. They bought it in 1944 for $25,000.