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| The Private Resort Home Market: An Investment Outlook |
Pursuing the Crown Jewels
John Ferry
06/01/2005
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Chris Webster runs an art and antiques business, a property brokerage company
and acts as a real estate consultant, all under the umbrella of his Santa Fe,
N.M., company, Webster Enterprises. Among other properties, he has purchased
lots from resort developer Lyle Anderson at Las Campanas, N.M., and at Hokuli’a,
Hawaii. “I was one of the first to buy a lot at Las Campanas when they came on
the market in 1991, 1992; and pretty much upon seeing Hokuli’a we bought a
property, then bought a second lot there, too,” he recalls.
Webster’s most
important consideration when evaluating a home is its location. “You can do a
lot of things with money to develop or change the property that you have, but
the location is the one element that you can’t alter, so first and foremost, it
has to have a very strongly appealing location.”
Webster insists that the
financial aspects of his investments are always secondary to lifestyle choices,
although he admits that his resort homes have performed exceptionally. “In
Hawaii, at the beginning—the mid-1990s—the lot prices started at $650,000, but
by the time they entered their next phase of marketing and sales their minimum
price had become $1 million.” When he bought in Las Campanas in the early 1990s,
the lot prices started at as little as $150,000 to $200,000; Webster says he now
sees lots selling there for as much as $1 million.
“But for me,” he explains,
“the best course to take in terms of the highest return on investment is in the
spiritual and heartfelt side of the equation.”
Webster says his three
children—a teen and two in their 20s—love his homes as much as he does. “We’ve
had the opportunity with our older kids to give them a couple of properties to
use on their own, which they enjoy. But as a realist, I know that their outlook
isn’t necessarily going to be the same as mine. And although I suppose they’ll
be happy to inherit them, they’re going to want to personalize their own lives
in conjunction with who they choose in life as a soul mate.”
While some
economists caution that resort homes can perform poorly as long-term
investments, Webster thinks the supply constraints on the number of truly
exceptional and unreproducible properties will support values in the long term.
“With all due respect to these economists,” he notes, “I would beg to differ
with what they conclude, because to find something that’s a crown jewel out
there well, there just aren’t that many of them.” Back to Main Article: The
Private Resort Home Market: An Investment Outlook
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