Goodbye, New York; hello, Minnesota?  During the last real estate boom, high-end home markets turned up in unexpected places

Business Week.com, April 2, 2007 by Maya Roney, a real estate writer for BusinessWeek.com

If you could spend a few million on a modest Manhatten condo and a cozy (read: tiny)  Hamptons shack, or put the same amount toward a penthouse in Minneapolis and a lakeside mansion in nearby Wayzata, Minn., which would you choose? 

People continue to sacrifice size and quality for location and salary.  That's why states such as New York and California still have the hottest markets for luxury homes.  And the top addresses on Fifth Avenue and in Bel-Air just keep on rising in value despite the spreading malaise at the lower end of the housing food chain.  But that doesn't mean that luxury real estate isn't continuing to apprecaite in other areas as well...

SECOND-HOME SECRETS

Booming business isn't the only thing fueling the emergence of luxury home hot spots.  Alternative markets for second homes and retirement have popped up across the country as traditional markets grew unaffordable to many in the first half of the decade.  In Rhode Island, the high-end market for oceanfront property has grown well beyond Newport's fabled Gilded Age mansions--the number of homes valued at $1 million or more jumped from 898 in 2000 to 4,209 in 2005.

"The smart money has started to appear," says Melanie Delman, president if Lila Delman Real Estate, an affiliate of Christie's Great Estates in Narragansett.  "But the pricing here is still better compared to the Hamptons and Nantucket.  It's still a little bit undiscovered."  According to Delman, Rhode Island coastal towns such as Watch Hill, Westerly, and Misquamicut are winning the attention of professionals from New York City and Boston, as well as retirees...

by Maya Roney, real estate writer for BusinessWeek.com