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Contact: Sharon Simms, RE/MAX Metro  (727) 896-1800

Russian billionaire’s purchase of French villa sets new world record for most expensive home — $750 million!

Most expensive home on the market in Pinellas County is listed at $16,999,000 in Tarpon Springs

Most expensive home on the market in Hillsborough County is listed at $25,000,000 in Tampa

August 11, 2008 — The market for the average priced U.S. residence may be soft, but the über rich (especially the Russians) continue to drive prices up at the very top of the world’s luxury market.  Case in point — Villa Léopolda, one of the most historic estates on the French Côte d’Azur, is now under contract by an anonymous Russian billionaire for $750 million (€500m).  This three-quarters-of-a-billion dollar sales price sets a new record for the most expensive home sale in the world. The previous record was set earlier this year by Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, with the reported purchase of a London home for his son for an estimated $236 million. 

“While the French Villa is a fabulous property, this sale does put into perspective the value U.S. properties represent,” said Sharon Simms (www.ssimms.com ), a luxury home expert with RE/MAX Metro in St. Petersburg.  “The most expensive residences on the market locally are listed for just $16,999,000 in Tarpon Springs in Pinellas County and $25 Million in Tampa in Hillsborough County.Both of these homes have between 28,000 and 29,000 sq ft. The record residential sale in the Tampa Bay area was in May of this year, a 13,000 sq ft waterfront home in Belleair that sold for $10,250,000.

Villa Léopolda, a cream-colored, turreted mansion with two guest houses, is midway between Monaco and Nice overlooking Cap Ferrat, near Villefranche-sur-Mer.  The villa was originally built about 1902 by King Leopold II of Belgium. The grounds are regarded as among the most spectacular on the Côte d’Azur.  Fifty full-time gardeners look after 20 acres of gardens and terraces, planted with 1,200 olive, orange, lemon and cypress trees.

The property’s new owner is said to be a Russian oil oligarch but not – despite initial rumors – Roman Abramovich, the highly visible owner of Chelsea Football Club, who already owns a €100m mansion near Antibes.

According to the Nice-Matin newspaper, a contract was signed last week to transfer ownership of the villa from Lily Safra, the widow of Edmond Safra, a murdered banking billionaire.  Rumor has it that Mrs. Safra held out for months as the persistent mystery buyer kept raising his offering price.  The paper also reported that 60 villas or mansions on Cap Ferrat are now owned by wealthy Russians.  

The property has a unique history.  In 1916, King Leopold’s nephew and heir, King Albert I, turned the villa into a hospital for officers wounded during the First World War. It later passed into the hands of the Agnelli family – Fiat automotive tycoons — and became the scene in the 1960s for legendary jet-set parties attended by Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan (in his acting days) and other celebrities.

“This sale raises the bar and makes the half dozen or so $100 million U.S. properties on the market seem like bargains,” said Laurie Moore-Moore, Founder of The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing (www.LuxuryHomeMarketing.com), a US-based organization which trains real estate agents who work in the luxury market and awards the international Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist designation.  “Today’s affluent are citizens of the world and the successful luxury agent must know how to reach them and what lifestyles they are seeking. It’s an exciting and active market for agents at the top.”

Sharon Simms is a member of The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing. She and her daughter, Tami Simms, are also trainers for the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing.

A Russian billionaire just set a record for the most expensive residential property sale in the world – 500 Million Euros, which is about $750 Million. The price is always driven up when a buyer wants to buy a property that the seller doesn’t want to sell. This property in Villefrance, between Nice and Monaco on the French Riviera, a turreted Belle Epoque mansion with two guest houses sits on 20 acres of grounds and gardens. The news article today shows a photo of The Villa Leopolda.

Note that this is a record "sale", which doesn’t mean it’s the most expensive property. We don’t know the cost of the skyscraper that Mukesh Ambani is building in Mumbai, for example.

A  Belleair home sold last week  for $10,250,000 sets a new record for a single family home in Pinellas County, Florida. Many of the homes in this exclusive area south of Clearwater date back to the 1920s but this home was built in 2001. It has just under 13,000 sq ft and has nearly 2 acres on the bluff overlooking Clearwater Harbor. The most expensive property listed in Pinellas County is $19,900,000 and there are two other homes listed at $10 Million or above. Contact The Simms Team at RE/MAX Metro for additional information.

Joel Glaser of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ownership purchased a home on Harbour Island for $5,600,000 in March 2008. Waterfront – of course! It’s an 8,601 sq ft home, built in 2002, with all the bells and whistles. Though it’s a recent record, it’s not THE record. In Tampa, an Alvarez-built home in Avila sold in 2001 for $5,800,000. The same year, 2001, the record sale in Pinellas County was $7,800,000 in Belleair. It was an 8,078 sq ft home built in 1971, also a waterfront home. Another contender in terms of value is a home on Brightwaters Blvd in St Petersburg that sold in 2006 for $5,100,000 which has been under construction/remodelling for the past two years – a spectacular waterfront home. There may be other comparably valued homes that are new construction, but generally that’s a contract between the owner and the builder, and not a matter of public record.