|
Local real estate firm finds niche in high-end homes
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
In July, Chris Anderson and Laurie Minges Thornhill left I’On Realty in Mount Pleasant to form a new real estate company. Donivon Glassburn joined them, and the three created Places, a firm focusing on the Lowcountry’s more exclusive residential real estate properties.
The firm’s 60 home listings total $85 million. Prices range from $830,000 to $3 million, with the average sale at roughly $1.2 million. Many of the homes are waterfront and marsh-front properties.
Most properties are in the East Cooper area, where real estate companies have more than 200 homes on the market priced at more than $1 million, Anderson said.
“We’ve found our niche as a boutique real estate company serving the high-end market,” Anderson said, adding that such a market had been underserved.
Underserved or not, the Lowcountry’s luxury home market has been sizzling. During 2005, nearly 480 homes priced at $1 million and up were sold, compared with 300 such homes in 2004, according to the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors.
Because Places targets homebuyers with deep pockets, the firm avoids mass advertising, relying instead on small social gatherings and word-of-mouth referrals.
Working closely with select prospective homebuyers enables the firm’s 10 agents to devote more time to each client and meet each client’s particular needs, Thornhill explained.
In doing so, agents establish relationships with clients.
“Buyers do become friends,” Thornhill said.
Anderson, Thornhill and Glassburn note that retiring, well-heeled baby boomers are, increasingly, eyeing the Charleston area as a place for a new home.
The East Cooper area, particularly Mount Pleasant, is becoming more popular with high-end homebuyers, who come from as far away as California, the Northeast, Illinois and Florida, Thornhill said.
“They go to the peninsula to look at some of the old homes, and then they discover Mount Pleasant,” Thornhill said.
What attracts them to Mount Pleasant is the quality of the homes—they tend to be newer and require less maintenance—the comparable, if not less expensive, prices and the convenient location to downtown Charleston, a convenience enhanced by the new Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, said
Thornhill.
In addition to single-family homes, Places sells luxury condominiums. The Anson House on Concord Street offers 31 luxury condominiums with views of Charleston Harbor and the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge. Condo prices range from $815,000 to $6 million.
Although Places’ home listings consist mainly of East Cooper properties, the firm sees Johns Island as the next area of growth for the upscale home market. Included in Places’ listings is a 5-bedroom Johns Island home on a 3-acre property. Price: $999,900.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version