ARTICLE

Time to Storm the Castle?
by Nick Timiraos and James R. Hagerty

Daniel Horowitz is ready to bargain.

The 55-year-old trial lawyer is trying to sell a four-bedroom villa with marble imported from Italy, a winery and a fruit orchard on 14 acres in Lafayette, Calif. Mr. Horowitz already chopped the price to $3.2 million from $4 million, the amount he estimates having spent on the land and construction. “We thought it would sell right away,” he says. But it hasn’t, and he is willing to consider lower offers, he says.

Three years into the housing bust, steep discounts are emerging in the market for high-end homes, which had been the real-estate industry’s last redoubt until now. Despite the budding economic recovery, demand for pricey properties is falling as potential buyers struggle to come up with money for big down payments and find it difficult to qualify for large mortgages. With buyers dropping out and homes languishing on the market, sellers are beginning to capitulate, cutting prices to move their properties.

The result: Buyers with lots of cash, or access to it, can find great deals. Not all million-dollar homes are castles, especially in coastal markets. But price drops and relatively small bumps in budget are landing shoppers the kind of amenities—kingly bathrooms, stables, gates—that were once beyond reach. Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, says it is a “very good time to be a buyer at the high end.”

In some markets, houses that are more than twice the size of others are on the market for less than twice the cost. Shaun Rawls, a broker at Keller Williams Realty in Atlanta, points to two homes with similarly desirable locations in that city’s wealthy Buckhead district. The smaller home, with 3,060 square feet, is priced at $765,000, or $250 a square foot. The larger home, with 7,612 square feet, has an asking price of $1.2 million, or $158 per square foot.

Though larger homes often have lower square-footage costs than smaller homes, the gap today is often greater. In Mill Valley, Calif., a 1,127-square-foot three-bedroom listed at $898,000 just went under contract. Its per-square-foot cost: $797. A four-bedroom home five minutes away—and nearly three times the size at 3,077 square feet—is being listed at $1.5 million. Its square-foot cost: $486.

Similarly, in Scottsdale, Ariz., one four-bedroom home lists for $1.2 million while another lists for $1.48 million. That additional $280,000 buys a 5,400 square-foot home, 46% bigger than the cheaper house.

Room to Drop

The million-plus market seems ripe for falling prices. Until now it has been lower-end homes, which saw the sharpest run-up during the boom, that have borne the brunt of the housing bust. Though there aren’t national statistics that track the million-dollar market, local markets show that prices for top properties have room to drop. For example, the bottom third of the Los Angeles area market—currently homes under $300,000—has seen prices fall by 52.5% since the market peak in 2006, returning to April 2003 levels, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller indexes. Prices for the top third of the market—currently homes above $510,000—have fallen by 27.3% from the peak, to March 2004 levels. While prices at the bottom of the market gained 5% over the last quarter of 2009 from the previous quarter, high-end home prices dropped 0.5%.

Home sales across the board remain sluggish. Sales of existing homes fell 0.6% last month to a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.02 million units, while new-home sales fell by 2.2% last month to lows last seen in 1963. But the mismatch of supply and demand is now widest in the seven-figure market. In the most coveted Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, for example, supplies are fairly tight up to about $900,000. But it is a buyer’s market between that level and $2 million, says James W. Nellis II of Re/Max Allegiance, a local broker.

That makes for some deep discounts. In Mill Valley, Calif., the price on one four-bedroom home was reduced March 11 to $2 million from $3 million. The house has 2,500 square feet of decks overlooking San Francisco Bay, says the listing agent, Suzy Doyle. On Ranch Gate Road in Chula Vista, Calif., a foreclosed home with six bedrooms is being offered at $675,000. In 2006, when it was new, the home sold for $1.3 million.

Few people consider million-dollar homes cheap, of course. Stretching to buy a big home comes with obvious risks. Prices may be falling, but no one knows where the bottom is. Marc Carpenter, a real-estate agent in San Diego, cautions buyers in that battered market that, “If you buy now, [you should] plan on prices reducing over time.”

Another potential pitfall is that higher-end houses are much harder to value than lower priced cookie-cutter dwellings. Often, high-end homes are unique, and the prices they fetch may have to do with such intangibles as an ocean view or an address with more snob appeal than those just blocks away. That makes it much harder for buyers to find comparable sales indicative of true market value.

Bargain hunters also need to be realistic. They aren’t likely to get a steal on the best-preserved homes in the nation’s top neighborhoods—places like Central Park West in Manhattan, Santa Barbara, Calif., or the exclusive parts of Boulder, Colo. Supply is permanently constrained in such areas because there is little room to build. And lots of people with money are eager to move in, so prices are likely to come down only slightly.

The best deals will be on high-end homes that might need work or aren’t in the most highly sought-after locations. That leaves plenty of coveted neighborhoods with good schools and amenities to choose from.
Despite the risks, the mortgage market might be suggesting that shoppers buy sooner rather than later. Many forecasters predict that interest rates will rise from today’s unusually low levels, in part because the Federal Reserve this month is ending its heavy purchases of mortgage securities. Even if waiting another year might bring lower prices, at least some of that advantage could be wiped out by an interest-rate spike.

Interest rates play a huge role in affordability—and even more so in high-end markets. A $1.2 million home today might require a 25% down payment, says Lou Barnes, a mortgage banker in Boulder. At today’s rate of about 5.75% for a 30-year “jumbo” mortgage, that would mean a monthly payment of $5,252. But if rates were to rise to 6.5%, the monthly payment would rise to $5,688. The home’s price would have to fall $1.1 million to keep the monthly payment at a comparable $5,215.

On the demand side, the technicalities of the mortgage market are thinning the ranks of million-dollar home buyers more than usual. Most buyers need a mortgage and would much prefer a cheaper, mainstream one backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Housing Administration. But loans that meet the government’s criteria can be no larger than $417,000 in most of the U.S.; in higher-cost areas like New York and San Francisco, that limit stretches to $729,750.

Loans above those limits are considered jumbos. While rates on jumbos are way down from a high of about 7.9% in October 2008, they remain well above the 5.1% found on conventional loans guaranteed by Fannie or Freddie, according to HSH Associates. What’s more, lenders also require heftier down payments for jumbo loans—in some cases 25% or more of the home’s value.

The shrinking pool of potential buyers is giving people of means unusual bargaining power. The inventory of all listed homes in February was enough to last 8.6 months at the current sales rate, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade group. For those priced above $1 million, the supply was enough to last nearly 32 months.

Perfect Time to Buy

For these reasons, “this is the perfect time to buy,” says Eric Awad, a neurologist in Atlanta who thinks market conditions are forcing sellers of high-end homes to knuckle under. He and his wife, Nachwa Jarkas, an assistant professor at Emory University, are eager to trade up from their town home and buy a four-bedroom house in Atlanta’s posh Buckhead district. They are looking in the range of $1 million to $1.2 million, though Dr. Awad hopes to “knock the price down” below $1 million.

Like many potential buyers of high-end homes, the couple has a big hurdle to clear: Before buying, they need to sell their town home, which is on the market for $575,000, and they have no idea how long it will take for them to find a buyer. In this still-troubled real-estate market, success favors buyers who don’t have to sell first.

Link to Original Article

Contact Matt Desmond and Ryan Bolton

From the Santa Fe New Mexican :

The Club at Las Campanas has named James K. Muldowney as general manager and chief operating officer, effective Feb. 15.

The private club, which is undergoing a revival since a temporary shutdown in September, was developed as part of the housing subdivision northwest of Santa Fe.

Muldowney, 56, most recently served as executive placement partner with Master Club Advisors, a national private club management consulting and executive placement firm. The firm had been retained in October to help The Club at Las Campanas in its transition from a developer-owned club to one owned and controlled by its members.

An announcement said Muldowney “will be responsible for overall management of golf, tennis, equestrian, fitness/spa and dining operations; for staff selection and training; and for the continuing growth and improvement of all Club services and activities.”

Contact us for more information, including details statistics about Las Campanas.

Also chack out our website HomesinLasCampanas.com

We get asked that question a lot at here at HomesinSantaFeNM.com. And our most honest answer is “We’re not sure”. However, we are also positive that Las Campanas will recover and will remain a highly desirable place to live in the Santa Fe area.  With unparalled views and amenities, Las Campanas offers what no other Santa Fe subdivision does. The community will not only survive, it will also continue to thrive and prosper.

The Santa Fe New Mexican published the following article in Today’s (December 27th, 2009) newspaper.  It’s an interesting read, and it outlines the challenges that Las Campanas has faced. 

ARTICLE

Life isn’t supposed to be so trying at Las Campanas.

For nearly 20 years, the gated enclave west of the city limits has represented the pinnacle of genteel country living in Santa Fe. Its two Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses, soaring clubhouse, 20,000 square-foot spa and baronial equestrian center, nicknamed “the horse Hyatt,” set it apart from every other affluent neighborhood in town.

But with the developer now in default, nearly one-fourth of the land still unsold and a looming bill for a multimillion-dollar water system, Las Campanas is in the midst of a troubled transition, its fate now in the hands of residents whose confidence has been shaken by recent events and who are being asked for the first time to shoulder the entire cost of the development’s signature services and amenities.

“We are in a challenging new era, no question about it,” said Bob Buddendorf, a retired Dallas business executive who chairs the committee of residents that is assuming control of The Club at Las Campanas, which includes the golf courses, the clubhouse, food services, the spa and the equestrian center.

Heavily subsidized by the developer, Las Campanas has been struggling to find its own footing and reclaim its reputation as having one of the best clubs in the Southwest, said Mark Silbert, who is working with Buddendorf. After developer Lyle Anderson lost control to Lloyd’s Banking Group in 2008, Silbert said, key personnel were let go, the quality of the food service slipped and building maintenance was deferred. The sale of the club to its members, originally scheduled for 2011, was advanced to stop “the attrition of members,” said Silbert, a retired Exxon oceanographic engineer who moved to Las Campanas from Houston three years ago.

Buddendorf and Silbert believe that sales of both land and homes will pick up as the recession eases, but other forces may be at work.

“Las Campanas introduced a new market segment to Santa Fe that was not being served. The question now is whether the depth of that segment has been plumbed,” said former Santa Fean Christopher Lienberger, a land-use consultant and scholar who chaired a commission involved with planning the Santa Fe Railyard and whose firm once counted Las Campanas among its clients.

Lienberger, who is a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., believes that, nationally, the market for exurban development like Las Campanas has been saturated. For all of its amenities, Lienberger said, “Las Campanas represents a prettier form of sprawl. … The demand has shifted back toward a preference for close-in, walkable urban space.”

Lifestyle in jeopardy

Spread across 4,700 acres of high desert, with telescopic views of the Jemez and Sangre de Cristo mountains, Las Campanas began selling lots in 1992. It quickly became the top selling luxury golf development in the country. However, by 2003, well before the current recession, lot sales at Las Campanas began to slow. Of 1,700 parcels, about 400 remain unsold.

A new era dawned at Las Campanas this fall with the announcement of a jolting 50 percent hike in monthly club dues. The increase was necessary, said Buddendorf, after the developer stopped paying about $2.5 million a year to maintain The Club at Las Campanas.

The loss of that annual subsidy led to a temporary shutdown of the club in September, the furloughing of 178 employees, and the sobering realization that if resident and nonresident members did not step in, the future of Las Campanas, or at least of its lifestyle, could be in jeopardy.

“The price premium Las Campanas has enjoyed is clearly tied to the reputation and viability of its amenities,” said Lienberger. “Whatever can be done to maintain them is a smart idea, whether it means raising fees or cutting costs.”

Club membership has fallen by about 15 percent with more than 100 memberships up for sale. An auction is planned for early next year, with the bidding tentatively set to start around $30,000 for golf memberships, which previously sold for $90,000. The bidding for social memberships, which exclude golf privileges, could start at $20,000, a 60 percent discount from their customary price.

Club members don’t have to own property at Las Campanas. Nor does the price of property necessarily include the cost of a membership, although it often does.

Image problem

The average sale price of a house has also fallen by 20 percent over the past year to just over $1 million. Prices did not fall as hard as they did in Tesuque, for example, but the rate of decline was steeper than in the city’s pricey northeast foothills.

Las Campanas is still doing its part to hold up the high end. One home on Mustang Mesa is going for just under $5 million. Another nearby estate, featuring a 12,000 square-foot house on 2 acres, is on the market for $8.2 million.

At the other end of the spectrum, you can find a 1,900-square-foot, three-bedroom house for $440,000, less than the amount owed on its existing mortgage, according to the real estate agent who represents it. Known as a “short sale,” the listing is a sign of the times. Buddendorf worries that it also may reflect a negative perception fostered by Las Campanas’ recent troubles. “We clearly need to alter that perception,” he said.

Las Campanas has struggled with an image problem almost from the outset. Fairly or unfairly, it has been branded as a wealthy wastrel, especially when it comes to water use. In 2002, in the midst of a drought, the city of Santa Fe filed a lawsuit to compel Las Campanas to abide by city water-use restrictions. Located outside the city, Las Campanas nonetheless took its water from one of the city’s main sources of supply, the Buckman well field, which was being drawn down at an unsustainable rate.

The fact that Las Campanas was using Buckman water to irrigate its golf courses during a drought was particularly irksome to city residents who were forced to cut back on household consumption.

Las Campanas agreed to abide by municipal water-use restrictions as part of a settlement of the lawsuit. But this past fall, the two sides were back at the negotiating table after Las Campanas scaled back its role in a partnership with the city and county to build a $200 million project to replace the Buckman supply with surface flow from the Rio Grande.

With the developer no longer able to participate in the project, Buddendorf and other residents were left to figure out how to pay the $4 million cost of a pipeline that will convey river water to their two golf courses. And as it scales back its investment in the Buckman Direct Diversion project, Las Campanas is again on the defensive as it seeks to assure rate payers elsewhere that they won’t be footing the bill for any of the development’s water.

“Are we paying for the sins of the developer?” mused Mark Silbert during a recent interview. “We didn’t get what the developer promised — a stand-alone water treatment plant that would have made us independent of the city and county. And we’re short $4 million.”

‘Epitome of divide’

Others say the years of wrangling over water masked a deeper resentment of Las Campanas and other gated enclaves that sprung up about the same time. Such developments were seen as an affront to a cherished image of Santa Fe as a place largely without class and ethnic distinctions, where wealth was camouflaged behind crumbling adobe walls.

“Las Campanas marked the beginning of the differentiation between rich and poor in this town,” said attorney Owen Lopez, the executive director of the nonprofit McCune Foundation, who has lived in Santa Fe since the 1960s.

“When we moved here, we lived on Otero Street across the arroyo from our landlady,” he recalled. “In those days, mansions were next door to hovels. The rich didn’t live behind walls with pass codes to get in.”

Yet Lopez himself was not immune to the appeal of Las Campanas. “I’m a big golfer. I have a lot of friends with places out there,” he said. “At one point, I told my wife we could get a deal on a house on the golf course. She said: ‘Are you nuts?’ That was the end of it.”

Lienberger has a similar take on Las Campanas. He compared Santa Fe’s demographic profile to a camel with two humps, one bulging with older, upper-middle-class Anglos and the other with a younger, poorer Hispanic populace. “Las Campanas became the epitome of that divide,” he said.

The last census illustrated his point. In 2000, the city’s median household age was 41, its median income $48,000. The citywide population was 49 percent Hispanic. At Las Campanas, where the population was split between two census tracts, the median age was about 55. The median household income was well over $100,000, and the population was 12 percent Hispanic.

The 2010 census may paint a different picture: As home prices come down at Las Campanas, there is likely to be more diversity among its residents.

“We have a growing segment of moms, dads and kids,” said Rosa Silbert, Mark’s wife, who heads a committee that is working on strategies to market Club memberships. “We’ve instituted junior programs in golf, tennis and equestrian. I’d say 20 percent of our memberships are young families. I think you’ll find that things are changing, that we’re more a reflection of the city.”

And yet it’s hard to shake the sense that Las Campanas is Santa Fe on steroids. It’s an impression reinforced by the mammoth vigas atop the great hall of the clubhouse, by the cavernous “horse Hilton” that provides 90 room-sized stalls for its tenants, at least one of which is valued at $100,000, and by the volume of water needed to sustain the golf courses — enough to supply more than 2,000 families.

Most of that water is effluent or gray water and not potable. But in the arid Southwest, even the demand for effluent is growing. As recycling technology improves, the potential for converting effluent into drinkable water is becoming a reality. In New Mexico, in the meantime, gray water nourishes farm fields and replenishes rivers and acequias. At Las Campanas, the golf course water serves the seasonal wants of a part-time community. “The golf courses are underutilized,” Buddendorf conceded.

In fact, many of the 700 homes are empty much of the time. Buddendorf and Silbert estimated that about half of Las Campanas residents live there year-round. During the winter months, the empty golf courses blend in with the surrounding landscape that lends Las Campanas its pastoral charm.

Charitable works

Many residents work hard to dispel the image of their community as a haven of carefree consumption in a poor state. Las Campanas every year opens its coffers to the disadvantaged and its gates to people with disabilities. Its Las Campadres program offers free riding, swimming and art lessons, and its community fund has contributed $18,000 to $20,000 annually to local nonprofits for the past few years.

“A number of our members serve on the boards of the opera, the Lensic and the Santa Fe Community Foundation,” Buddendorf said. “I think our efforts have made a difference in terms of how we are perceived by people in Santa Fe.”

But the good works have also relied on the deep pockets of the developer who donated $50,000 a year to the community fund. Those contributions won’t continue, said Buddendorf, unless The Club at Las Campanas raises the money on its own.

Whether residents will agree to raise their contributions along with their club dues is an open question, Buddendorf said.

“Las Campanas has played a significant role in this community, and I don’t think anybody wants to see it reduced. But the issue is now up to the members, and the key to the future is building membership.”

Frank Clifford | For The New Mexican

Happy Holidays from Matt and Ryan

Here’s the article:

Prices have dipped, but some sellers are certain their nine-figure properties will attract buyers.

Last year, a 40-acre Greenwich, Conn., property with a 21,897-square-foot, 14-bedroom Jacobean manor was listed for $125 million. It was the world’s second most expensive home for sale.

It now sports a $60 million price tag and falls just short of making this year’s list.

It’s no secret sellers across the country are resorting to measures such as price cuts of 20% and higher to move their homes. What’s new: That group is increasingly including owners of eight- and nine-figure properties. Last year, investor Marty Zweig pulled the $70 million Pierre Hotel penthouse off the market after it was listed for four years. Financier Leonard Ross, who had asked $165 million for the Hearst Mansion in Beverly Hills, Calif., de-listed it in September 2008.

A few months later, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia removed his $135 million Aspen ski lodge from the ranks of available listings. This year, “Hillendale,” in Stamford, Conn., fell victim to the depressed housing market. It was listed for $95 million. It’s no longer for sale. Others, such as the owners of an $85 million Wallace Neff-designed mansion, are leasing their properties until the market picks up.

Such moves, says Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel, are to be expected.

“There was a frenzy that caused the prices of these properties to be astronomical,” he says. “Dramatic discounts are not as much a reflection of the market crashing, but a reflection of a reality.”

While the number of buyers willing to invest in eight- and nine-figure homes has always been slim, a pullback in jumbo loan-financing has shrunk the pool even further. And some with the means to pay cash are waiting to see when the housing market will return to stability.

They may be holding off a while.

“First, the lower end of market started breaking,” says Mike Simonsen, chief executive of Altos Research, a real estate statistics provider. “Then, it was only 12 months ago when the luxury market started to break, and just recently when the ultra-luxury market started to break. It may be years–it may be many years–before that market recovers. For this level, it will be even slower than the luxury market at large.”

To entice buyers, owners and their brokers are resorting to strategies often reserved for sellers in more mainstream markets.

That’s the tack the owners of the BootJack Ranch in Pagosa Springs, Co., adopted. In the last year, they lowered their asking price from $88 million to $68 million.

The home’s broker, Bill Fandel of Sotheby’s International Realty, hoped the discount would ignite interest. He says inquiries are coming from overseas billionaires.

“For those who have the wherewithal for a property like this,” he says, “[they] now have to feel like they’re buying well, that they’re getting a great deal of value for these enormous prices.”

Herald Grant, also with Sotheby’s, de-listed an $80 million Southampton retreat that rounded out the World’s Most Expensive list last year, rather than let it sit unsold.

“You put emotional prices on properties when people were spending,” he says, “Now, sellers are being more conservative.”

Grim forecasts, however, haven’t deterred some sellers from listing their luxurious estates.

In March, Candy Spelling, wife of the late producer, Aaron Spelling, publicly listed their $150 million Holmby Hills mansion. Named “The Manor,” the 100-room property tops this year’s list. Despite plummeting home prices everywhere, it is priced higher than last year’s No. 1, “Fleur De Lys,” also in Holmby Hills and listed for $125 million. That property was modeled after Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles, and is spread over 45,000 square feet.

The $100 million Albemarle House, a Charlottesville, Va., estate, is another newcomer to the list. Situated on 300 acres, and neighboring Monticello and Ash Lawn-Highland, the eight-bedroom Georgian home was designed by architect/designer David Easton.

Owners of properties outside the States also seem to be betting their properties’ unique characteristics will draw buyers. Updown Court, the $117 million estate said to be larger than both Buckingham or Hampton Court palace, remains on the market. So does the $102 million, 11-bedroom, 29,000-square-foot Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera.

If their owners get antsy, perhaps they can consult Joel Horowitz, the co-founder of Tommy Hilfiger, and owner of “Tranquility” on Lake Tahoe. The $100 million, 210-acre property has been listed since 2006.

 $150 million

The Manor

Los Angeles, Calif.

Built by Candy and Aaron Spelling, this 4.7-acre estate rests flat land in Holmby Hills. Its numerous entertaining salons feature Palladian windows and views of the property’s gardens and landscaping. A grand staircase greets guests who enter the foyer, and a fountain sits in the center of the circular driveway.

It is listed with Jeff Hyland from Hilton & Hyland Real Estate and Sally Forster Jones from Coldwell Banker Previews International. 

$125 million

Fleur De Lys

Los Angeles, Calif.

Suzanne Saperstein’s Beverly Hills estate is modeled after Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles. The 45,000-square-foot home took five years to build following Saperstein’s accumulation of five acres during the 1990s.

Should strolling the grounds bore you, there is a 50-seat screening room and a library. A nine-car garage completes the home’s luxurious amenities.

 $117 million

Updown Court

Windlesham, Surrey

Said to be larger than both Buckingham or Hampton Court palace, this 103-room home has 58 acres of gardens and woodlands.

Several ballrooms and grand entrance ways punctuate Updown Court, which has a panic room, an indoor squash court, bowling alley, 50-seat cinema, helipads, space for eight limousines and a heated marble driveway. Marble bathrooms are nice, but some would say indoor spas, Jacuzzis and pools with views of the grounds are better.

$102 million

Villa Leopolda

Cote D’Azur, France

Situated on the French Riviera, this 11-bedroom, 14-bathroom mansion has 29,000 square feet of interior space that opens to manicured lawns and a swimming pool.

The spiraling outdoor staircases, balconies and terraces have waterfront views and of the surrounding hillsides. Working fireplaces, a sauna, outdoor kitchen and pool house are other features.

 $100 million

Albemarle House

Charlottesville, Va.

The $100 million Albemarle House is another newcomer to the list.

Situated on 300 acres, and neighboring Monticello and Ash Lawn-Highland, the eight-bedroom Georgian home was designed by architect/designer David Easton.

Also on the property: a barn, three-car garage and guest house.

Forbes Magazine

Don’t expect your property taxes to go down, at least not now. But the Santa Fe County Assessor’s Office announced Friday that it has completed its valuation of the mansion built by Andrew and Sydney Davis on a ridgetop off of Hyde Park Road.

The land and 23,337-square-foot residence — nearly as big as the Southside Branch Library — are worth $20.4 million, according to the county. And that means an estimated $131,765 in property taxes will be flowing annually into county coffers for distribution to schools and local governments.

The house was finished more than a year ago, but it’s taken that long to appraise. Back in August, County Assessor Domingo Martinez complained there had been some foot-dragging on the part of the owners in providing information about costs.

But determining the market value of the unique, 11-acre estate was complicated because, “It’s probably the most expensive residential property in New Mexico,” Martinez said.

There’s nothing like it in the state in terms of size and quality. And to find comparable sales on which to base their valuation, appraisers had to look elsewhere in the West — to high-end communities such as Scottsdale Ariz., and Vail and Aspen, Colo.

Frank Herdman, an attorney for the Davises, said the owner’s appraisal came up with a different value, but he doubted there would be any protest.

“We appreciate the fact that the county put a lot of hard work into the process and we’re pleased it’s over,” Herdman said.

Notices of value for properties already on the tax rolls went out in April. The 2009 tax bills were mailed on Nov. 1 and are due within 30 days.

The Davises have been paying taxes on their land, which is valued at about $1.5 million, while the county has been working to appraise the improvements.

“They have paid all taxes when due and will pay all taxes when due,” Herdman said.

“I think they’re satisfied with what they received,” Martinez said, but he added that they, like all other property owners, are entitled to protest.

While Martinez admits some other properties in the county have gone unnoticed (or untaxed), the size and location of the Davis mansion has drawn constant scrutiny. The Santa Fe Review’s webcam was trained on the site off and on during the years of construction.

Davis is president of Davis Select Advisers, L.P., an investment company and portfolio manager for other real estate funds.

The county’s valuation process was complex and relied on many of the most sophisticated tools and databases available to appraisers. “You can’t just hold your thumb up like a painter,” Martinez said. “Because it was exceptional, getting it on the tax rolls took more time than usual.”

Gus Martinez, the senior appraiser who led the process, looked at homes in the Rocky Mountain West between 9,400 square feet and 15,000 square feet that sold for between $9.5 million and $36 million. Not including the land, the properties ranged between $633 per square foot and a high of $1,400, he said.

The median price of the comparable sales considered was $21.2 million, he said.

He also took into consideration something called “superadequacy.” That’s a measure of how overbuilt a property is for its setting. It could include things like more than one kitchen or an excess of bathrooms. But it brings down market value somewhat.

“There are only so many people in the world who can shop in that market. That reduces its marketability,” explained deputy assessor Victor Baca.

Putting the Davis house on the tax rolls won’t immediately lower the taxes of other Santa Feans. Down the road, it could — in theory. Adding new value means the cost of operating government and schools, and things like paying interest on bonds, can be spread out among more property owners. But taxes come down only if the agencies which receive property tax revenues don’t raise their budgets. And those traditionally go up every year.

“Everything is a moving target,” Domingo Martinez said.

Anne Constable | The New Mexican

The range is from a quarter acre to over 5 acres, averaging about 1.5 acres. The prevailing architectural styles are Pueblo Revival and Territorial with variations that expand the range from contemporary to western rustic to Mediterranean influence. One story homes are the norm with flat rooves that allow for positive pitch for drainagage. The flexibility of the design guidelines allows for your personal expression.

The Estancias at Las Campanas is an area where the design guidelines have been expanded to include log homes, pitched roofs and second stories. Here the topography with its unlimited views and canyon vistas over looks open federal land and slopes gently to the Rio Grande.

Surrounded by adobe walls reminiscent of the old East Side of Santa Fe, Club Estates enjoys a superb location within walking distance of the Clubhouse and Spa and Tennis Center.

Directly across from the Spa and Tennis Center are the 12 homesites of Silver Mesa sited on 3 cul de sacs. Here semi custom homes built by Roger Hunter for Senterra Corp. are available for purchase, several sitting high above the golf course.

Lining the golf course, the Club Casitas are the ultimate in lock and leave convenience, being the closest homes to the Clubhouse. They range from 2100 square feet to 3665 square feet and all offer golf course and mountain views, with some overlooking the spectacular lake between the two 18 finishing holes. All feature outdoor portals with fireplaces for enjoying the serene landscape.

High atop Trailhead Dr. with magnificent views of both golf course and mountain ranages sit The Pueblos, 37 homes surrounding a park and behind their own gate. They vary from aproximately 2800 square feet to 4200 square feet in size, some featuring guest houses.

Across Trailhead Dr. is Park Estates which isby golf course and centered by a park. Lot sizes range from .6 acres to 1.85 acre homesites which are suitable for custom building. Resale homes are also available for purchase here.

The Terrazas, developed by Westman- Browning and built by Tierra Concepts. They range in size from 2390 square feet to just over 2500 square feet. Offering a variety of views from golf course, to open land, all have a mountain backdrop and enjoy a convenient location close to the core of the community and its amenities.

Aptly named, the Ranch Estates is a unique enclave bordered by ranch land and incorporating the Equestrian Center. Here 27 lots are zoned to include a home, guest house and barn to accomodate two horses. An interior trail connects each homesite to the Equestrian Center and the main trail to the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) which afford you 68,000 acres of riding terrain.

Surrounded by golf course, Los Santeros features a variety of lot sizes and home sizes from large estate homes to smaller patio homes. Neighborhoods with the area include the Villas, Puertas, Ventanas, and Las Melodias.

The remaining neighborhoods are called Estates and are identified by numbers corresponding to the order of their development. Here existing and undeveloped homesites are situated behind gates and offer a variety of topography and views.  Home sizes must be a minimum of 2500 square feet but can be as large as the developable area will allow. Guest houses are permissible.

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The Trust for Public Land signed contracts late Wednesday and paid a nonrefundable deposit to buy about 23 acres that had been proposed for the Mirasol subdivision. The same night, the City Council accepted nearly half the land as publicly owned open space.

“We’re in,” trust director Jenny Parks said Thursday morning, showing off a two-inch stack of real-estate paperwork. “We are guaranteeing public access to the top of Sun Mountain, which has never been there before.”

The property known as the Watson Estate, where the late John T. and Jane Watson raised their family, has long been a popular hiking spot with that family’s blessing. Although access to the trails has not been broken to date, development could have changed that, Parks said.

The trust worked to broker the deal this summer after being approached by an ad hoc group of area residents who conducted a fundraising drive. Next month, the trust expects to completely close on the deal, she said.

Remaining steps include paying the rest of the $3.2 million purchase price to developer Doug McDowell as well as selling a historic home on the property, creating a new lot for another large tract that will stay in private hands, and formally deeding 11 acres to the city of Santa Fe.

McDowell originally planned to create 13 lots on the property and build homes there, but agreed to sell the land instead.

Funding for the deal was complicated, including $1 million from a donor who wants to remain anonymous and $264,500 from more than 100 other private donors. About $1.4 million came from Los Angeles residents Steven Lipscomb and his wife, Miranda Viscoli, who until Thursday were called “an anonymous conservation buyer.”

Lipscomb, founder of the World Poker Tour, already owns several acres and a home on adjacent land and will own 10 acres with a limited development right for two home sites. The couple closed the deal on their house and guest house just weeks before McDowell announced his subdivision plan.

Although the couple is eligible for tax credits because much of their new 10 acres will be in a permanent conservation easement in the care of the Santa Fe Conservation Trust, Parks called the agreement “generous.”

The private landowners will allow continued public use of trails that branch off a driveway on the property, and Lipscomb said late Thursday that the couple has no intention of developing the home sites or stopping access any time soon.

“To the credit to those on both sides of the equation, the Save Sun Mountain group and Doug McDowell said ‘We’ll not make this a fight,’ ” Lipscomb said. “And I think that’s a huge reason of why we are here.”

In the meantime, the property that will come into the city’s hands already has a trail that leads to the foot of the mountain and up toward its summit before crossing onto other open space.

City Parks Division Director Fabian Chavez said the city will have to undertake its own process to ensure the new public land is available as a safe place for recreation. Trail maintenance, development of a trail head, signage and a parking area could be on the list, as well as evaluation for possible fencing, he told city councilors this week.

Sun Mountain neighbor Deborah Post was one of a more than a dozen people who worked to raise funds.

“We started out pretty innocently to minimize the impact of development on the mountain,” she said, which “took a turn and became a much grander objective.”

Husband Steve Post also helped rally support. “I think it’s an amazing community effort to save an important part of Santa Fe’s setting for everyone to enjoy,” he said. “We’re just elated.”

The trust plans to hold a public auction soon for the home already located on the Watson estate. One buyer has already offered $536,000, which will be the opening bid, Parks said.

Closing costs and maintenance money will also be needed, she said, so the fundraising effort continues.

Julie Ann Grimm | The New Mexican