Selling an $80 million home is a science

When selling an $80 million home, brokers don't need to use the Multiple Listing Service or any other public real estate site. They don't even have to contact the media.

The best plan of attack, Southwest Florida luxury brokers say, is to have a deep Rolodex and an innate ability to deal with billionaires.

Naples brokers Tom Campbell and Richard Prebish II are doing just that as they quietly market an $80 million beachfront home in the ritzy Naples community of Port Royal. It's the highest listing price for a home in Southwest Florida history, and its sale would zoom past the Naples record for highest home sale of $47.25 million, but you won't find 2500 Gordon Drive on the Multiple Listing Service.

Campbell and Prebish are selling the property "off market" and making it available only to their uber-wealthy clients so they can keep their exclusivity and privacy. To sell the three-story, plantation-style home with 9,400 square feet of living space, the brokers are going to have navigate their billionaire contacts and work to validate the price.

"A guy buying a $100 million home or a $50 million home is a real smart guy. Really smart," Naples broker Bill Earls said. "The one thing you can say about Naples is we have captains of industry from the world over, and they all want a piece of Naples. It's their time in their life cycle, and they need the finest garden spots in the world. We have people coming to Naples that can afford anything, but they need validation of value. The value has to be there."

Luxury brokers often set their prices by comparing their homes to others in the area and nation. Although it's a record listing price for Southwest Florida, the 2500 Gordon Drive home is nowhere near the top of the list nationally. A 25-acre Beverly Hills compound owned by billionaire investor Jeff Greene is listed at $195 million, the nation's priciest private residence.

In Naples, beachfront property normally sells for $150,000 per square foot, Earls said. Using that formula, 2500 Gordon Drive's land would be valued at $50 million. Other factors such as quality of construction and recent home renovations drive up the price. The Gordon Drive home price includes a $5 million charge for all of the home's furnishings.

The 2500 Gordon Drive home — which features a marble bathtub and a sweeping staircase straight out of Hollywood — was purchased in 2007 for $40 million by software mogul Arthur L. Allen Jr. At the time it was the most expensive sale for a private residence in Naples. The seller was Miles C. Collier, grandson of the county's founder.

The home at 3100 Gordon Drive, a 16,000-square-foot mansion, holds the record for highest local sale price. Industrialist Randal Bellestri purchased the home for $47.25 million in 2012. Bellestri, who was sentenced this year to federal prison for tax evasion, is selling the home for $68 million.

"Whether that is the right price for those houses, I don't know," Fort Myers real estate appraiser Matthew Simmons said. "But there are properties in Naples that if they were offered in the open market would likely command a listing price at or above $100 million.

"On our coast, you can't beat being oriented over water and looking at the sunset. That's a big difference with the Atlantic coast properties. If you are on the west side of Miami Beach, you are looking over Biscayne Bay and you have the sunset. But the mainland is behind the sunset. Here, you are looking at the sunset entirely."

KEEPING IT PRIVATE

High-end brokers like using "off market" deals because it gives their billionaire clients exclusivity and privacy. Once a listing enters the MLS, the home's address and images become the property of other platforms and enters the public domain, meaning they can be shared by media outlets. There is no way for a new buyer to pull those images down.

The strategy to keep listings private seems to conflict with the conventional wisdom that the larger the buyer pool, the larger the chance for driving up the price.

"Bids don't raise the price on these types of properties," Earls said. "It's such rarefied air. It's not like you have a showing every week at these properties. You present it to the world, of course, but you don't need to present it to the common man. It's not stuff you need to advertise in the newspaper. You can say my readership is high and our readers have an average income of $400,000 a year. I need a guy making $400,000 a week."

Broker Mark Weber of White Sands Realty said Naples' high-end homes require privacy.

"It's not your typical listing where you have a lock box," Weber said. "These are special homes. Sometimes you even have to sign confidentiality agreements to even see the properties."

MAKING THE DEAL

Weber and Earls say the bulk of the high-end Naples mansions are purchased in cash. Bellestri paid cash when he bought the 3100 Gordon Drive home for $47.25 million.

As far as the home at 2500 Gordon Drive, Weber can see a retired CEO or maybe an international client purchasing the 5-acre mansion.

Big-money home purchases are inching up in Naples. Pending sales of homes worth more than $2 million were up 13.3 percent over the same period a year earlier, according to a recent Naples Area Board of Realtors report.

Downing Frye Realty broker Mike Hughes not only believes the $80 million home could be sold, but he thinks it won't be too long before a $100 million Naples home hits the market.

"The ultra-high-end market — and by that I mean more than $20 million —has been very active this year," Hughes said. "The stock market is certainly very high these days. I feel there are some people out there that recognize the market is high and are pulling their money out of the market and putting it elsewhere. Real estate is an attractive alternative, but you never know."

NATION'S 5 MOST EXPENSIVE

The $80 million listing price for the home at 2500 Gordon Drive in Naples doesn't even rank among the priciest in the nation. A look at five of the most expensive home listings in the U.S.:

• $195 million: Beverly Hills, Calif.: The Mediterranean-style villa, called Palazzo di Amore or "Palace of Love," sits on a knoll behind three sets of gates. It has 53,000 square feet of living space on 25 acres.

• $150 million: Owlwood Estate, Holmby Hills, Calif.: The trophy estate spans three parcels and includes an entire street in L.A.'s coveted Holmby Hills. The home's past residents include Marilyn Monroe, Sonny and Cher, and Tony Curtis.

• $139 million: 935 Hillsboro Mile, Hillsboro Beach, Fla.: The property has double-digit everything: 11 bedrooms, 17 baths, 22-karat gold-leaf finishes, a 26-foot fountain and 30-car garage. It was also the first private home in the country to have an IMAX home theater.

• $135 million: 1011 North Beverly Blvd, Beverly Hills, Calif.: The home is in the heart of Beverly Hills and was once owned by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and actress Marion Davies. The Kennedys are also said to have honeymooned here in the '50s.

• $125 million: 2500 E. Valley Road, Santa Barbara, Calif.: The 200-acre estate has been owned by the same family for nearly a century in Montecito, an oceanfront community attracting celebrities such as Ellen DeGeneres.

SOURCE: Zillow