From Barron's Online A Nest for Hedgies and Rock Stars, LUXURY APARTMENTS AREN'T THE ONLY homes to weather the housing downturn. The market for single-family houses selling for $5 million and up looks as unperturbed as a socialite at tea time. Brokers in several of the country's most expensive districts tell an almost uniformly cheery story, one that seems to hint at a still surging wave of private capital looking for, well, a home."Our market is strong as can be, especially for homes $10 million and up," declares Jeff Hyland of Beverly Hills brokers Hilton & Hyland. "We've sold more this year than last year. The rich get richer." Even gargantuan houses are moving. Joshua Saslove of Aspen, Colo.-based Joshua & Co. expects little trouble selling the Hala Ranch, a 56,000-square-foot, 15-bedroom extravaganza built by Saudi Prince Bandar that Saslove has listed at $135 million. The broker says that 95% of his clients are buying second, third and fourth homes, not primary residences. He says he has sold seven homes for more than $5 million this year, up from five last year, and he sees no signs of a downturn. "Even though there's been economic challenge that we're aware of out there, our buyers here who've signed contracts have had the opportunity to change their minds and haven't done so," he says.

761 Bel-Air Road, Beverly Hills: At a cool $15 mil, a deal's set to close. Truly comprehensive data on transactions in the high-end housing market are nonexistent, but the sector is only a small part of the total housing market. Walt Molony of the National Association of Realtors figures homes selling for more than $1 million are less than 2% of the total. Gregory Heym, senior vice president of research at Manhattan-based Terra Holdings, says that while this sector's trends parallel some of those in the general market for houses, it's a slippery fish to weigh.

Posted 11/20/2006
By Peter Slatin and Andrew Bary