Heiress trumps Donald's old place

The Life: New York is attracting headlines for big property sales.

The five-storey mansion in New York City has been sold for US$48 million (Dh176.3m). Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg News

London and Hong Kong make headlines for mind-boggling prices paid for homes these days, but don't count out New York City.

Q&A: Big Apple property prices.

Last Updated: May 20, 2011

Why are New York apartments attracting these ridiculous prices? Top units are a rarity and there are still a lot of rich people in the Big Apple. Historic properties are particularly prized.

I heard that "regular people" can't buy in some buildings? Many of the older buildings in Manhattan are organised as co-ops and buyers are carefully reviewed. The co-op boards wield tremendous power to decide who gets to live in the building. Rock stars and actors often don't make the cut – too nouveau riche. And that just adds to the status and prestige of owning in certain buildings.

I thought US property is still depressed? In many markets prices are still going down, especially where thousands of foreclosed and distressed properties are hitting the market. But in prime markets such as New York and Washington DC there are still buyers and prices have not fallen nearly as much.

Is New York like London where they are all international buyers? There is definitely an international influence. New York is one of the finance capitals of the world. Russian, Asian and Latin American buyers play a key role. But it's not nearly as noticeable as London, where more than 50 per cent of the most expensive homes are bought by overseas citizens. In New York it's more like 20 per cent.

The latest big bite out of the Big Apple was the US$48 million (Dh176.3m) paid for a five-storey, 10 metre-wide mansion, described as a "roomy" 1,100 square metres. The buyer was Johnson & Johnson heiress Libet Johnson, who is reportedly moving up from a four-bedroom apartment in the Trump International Hotel and Tower that she listed for $24m last month.

Her new home dates to 1881 and was once owned by Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt of the famous New York Vanderbilts. The sellers, who reportedly paid $11.5m for the mansion in 2001, initially put the house on the market in 2007 with an asking price of $62m, which, it turns out, was a tad unrealistic.

There's nothing shabby about the $48m price tag, but it is far from the record price paid for a townhouse in New York. That is believed to be the $53m paid in the heady days of 2006 by the investment banker J Christopher Flowers for the Harkness Mansion, a "neo-French Renaissance" townhouse built in 1896.

But the Vanderbilt sale is one more sign the wealthy are once again ready to open their wallets for New York property.

The Vanderbilt mansion deal follows on the heels of the March sale of a 560-sq-metre condominium in the refurbished Plaza Hotel for $48m to Igor Krutoy, the Russian composer. The price is believed to be the highest for a condominium in the city.

But that record may be about to fall. Two adjoining duplex apartments on Park Avenue owned by Courtney Sale Ross, widow of the media mogul Steve Ross, recently went on the market for $60m. Past residents in the building include John D Rockefeller, Vera Wang and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who lived there as a child, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Top 5: Most expensive homes for sale in US

1 Spelling Manor, Los Angeles, US$150m (Dh550.9m).

2 Tranquility, Zephyr Cove, Nevada, $100m.

3 Frank Woolworth Estate, Manhattan, $90m.

4 Versailles, Windermere, Florida,$75m.

5 Madison Ave. Townhouse, Manhattan, $72m.

But the highest New York prices do not match London, where Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov recently paid £136m (Dh806.1m) for a penthouse apartment at One Hyde Park.

The Quote: "Art for art's sake is a philosophy of the well-fed." Frank Lloyd Wright