By: Anne Bretts, Finance & Commerce
Posted: May 20, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Tom and Sheila Schmitt got an unusual autograph from former Minnesota Twin Brad Radke on March 17. That’s the date they closed on the purchase of Radke’s former home at 21510 Fairview St. in Greenwood. They paid $2.4 million, far below the original listing price and less than the $2.7 million the Radkes had paid in 2000.
Radke retired in 2006 and moved to Florida. The home went on the market in 2009 but didn’t move. Meredith Howell of the Meredith Howell group at Coldwell Banker Burnet’s Wayzata office got the new listing in October and suggested more aggressive pricing, which has been a tough adjustment for many of her clients, but one that is paying off in more sales this year.
“Slowly but surely, sellers are saying, ‘This is the new normal,’” she said.
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David and Valere Patterson closed on March 21 on their $1.5 million purchase of Unit 47, the only penthouse in 5000 France, a luxury retail and condominium development that opened in 2008 at France Avenue South and 50th Street West in Edina.
James Paddon, one of the original group of buyers, said he bought the condo and a smaller townhouse in Wayzata when he thought about retiring at 50 and living in the city. He kept his home and finally realized that was not ready to retire. “I’m simplifying my life,” he said. The condo sold in less than six months, and the townhouse even more quickly. “We had a brokers’ open house and within an hour it was locked up,” he said.
Pam Mason of Coldwell Banker Burnet, who handles all new sales for 5000 France, still has five units unsold. Mason says sales have been steady, drawing mostly local homeowners who already see the area as their neighborhood.
“I think it’s so incredibly well done, and it matches the lifestyle they have had in Edina,” Mason said of the building and its location.
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John Wanninger has been a busy man, selling seven luxury condominiums in the Residences at the Westin Galleria in Edina in the last two months. In one of the latest sales, Sheri and David Brinker closed on March 18 on Unit 1102, paying $1.26 million for a two-bedroom, three-bath home.
The Residences opened in 2008, with 82 condos on the floors above the 225-room Westin Hotel. The site, at the southwest corner of York Avenue South and 69th Street West, is next to the Galleria shopping mall.
Wanninger, who tracks the local real estate market, said he has seen a surge in home sales in Edina, which he pegs at 25 units (homes and condos) a week. A year ago that number was stuck in single digits.
There’s a bigger factor at work, however, at the Galleria. “We have buyers from all over the Midwest, and they’re people who don’t need to sell a home to move,” Wanninger said. “The recovery of the stock market has been a big factor. The majority of our clients are paying cash. They’re not just buying a home but adding an investment to their portfolios.”