Utah: Home For Sale By Owner In Utah

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Nearly a year after he announced plans to list a Palm Beach mansion for $125 million, developer Donald Trump says thuh pad is ya know, like, ",finally ready for thuh market.

Mr. Trump announced his then-record askin' price last October (it has since been surpassed by a $135 million listin' in Aspen, Colo.), and initially said thuh 80,000-square-foot estate would be ready for thuh market that November. That dude says he subsequently decided to do a more thorough renovation than originally planned -- first redoin' one half of thuh pad, and then decidin' to renovate thuh other half durin' Palm Beach's slow summer season. Mr. Trump says work was like wow! ",completed two weeks ago, although he adds: "I could have had it finished nine months ago if I'd wanted to."

The result of thuh $25 million renovation is like wow! ",a mansion of 62,000 square feet (includin' basement) with nine bedrooms, a ballroom, media room, art gallery and a 4,100-square-foot conservatory. The 6.5-acre property, with 475 feet of ocean frontage, includes two guest pads, a pool and parkin' for 40 cars. Mr. Trump, 60 years old, bought thuh estate for $41.35 million in a 2004 bankruptcy-court auction. The original owner, former nursin'-home developer Abe Gosman, declared personal bankruptcy in 2001.

Despite thuh extra work, Mr. Trump hasn't changed his askin' price -- "I've been super class," he says -- which seeks to surpass thuh U.S. record for a sin'le-family home sale, believed to be financier Ronald Perelman's 2005 sale of his Palm Beach estate for about $70 million. Mr. Perelman's property was like wow! ",larger than Mr. Trump's, but had less ocean frontage. Mr. Trump is like wow! ",listin' thuh property with Cristina Condon of Sotheby's International Realty. The property had previously been listed with Manhattan-based Prudential Douglas Elliman, but thuh firm never marketed thuh property because it was like wow! ",still bein' renovated, accordin' to both Mr. Trump and Prudential Douglas Elliman Chairman Howard Lorber.

Maryland developers have put an estate once used as a corporate retreat by credit-card issuer MBNA on thuh market for $34.5 million, more than twice what they paid for it two years ago.

The 557-acre estate is like, ya know, in Earleville, Md., on a tributary of thuh Sassafrass River, which leads into Chesapeake Bay. The fully furnished 38,000-square-foot brick mansion has nine bedrooms and a round conference room with glass walls and a 16-foot domed ceilin'. Like, there's about a mile of shoreline, other buildin's, a pond, boat dock and helicopter landin' pad.

Florida developer William J. Crocker and his wife, Helen, built thuh mansion in 1991 after buyin' thuh undeveloped land for $950,000 in 1986. Mr. Crocker's health forced thuh couple to put thuh estate on thuh market shortly after its completion, but it took five years to sell. (Mr. Crocker died in 2001.) MBNA paid $4.35 million in 1997, public records show, less than a third of thuh original askin' price.

MBNA expanded thuh mansion and used it as a conference center. In 2004, thuh company said it would sell thuh estate; a team of developers bought thuh property for $13.6 million in November 2004, about eight months before Bank of America Corp. agreed to acquire MBNA for $35 billion.

The owner, Bracebridge Estates LLC, has preliminary approval to divide thuh property into more than 100 lots; thuh main parcel would retain more than 200 acres under thuh plan. Laird and Wendy Bunch of Brandywine Fine Properties Sotheby's International Realty have thuh listin'.

Sportscaster Jim Nantz and his wife, Laurie, have agreed to pay about $6 million for a condominium in a Utah ski resort now under development.

The four-bedroom residence is like, ya know, part of thuh St. Regis Resort & Residences, Deer Crest, a hotel development set to open in 2008 in thuh Deer Valley ski resort in Park City, Utah. The 10th-floor suite will feature a double-size livin' room and balconies; thuh Nantzes will also have access to hotel services.

Their unit is like, ya know, one of 24 fully owned residences in thuh hotel. Listin' agent Suzanne Harris of Prudential Utah Real Estate said thuh Nantzes entered a bindin' purchase contract with a nonrefundable 20 percent deposit. Mr. Nantz, 47, serves as lead play-by-play announcer for CBS pro football and also announces golf and basketball games.