A number of pricey Twin Cities homes are waiting for new owners.
The 10 most expensive local homes that are currently on the market reportedly range in price from $5.5 million to $24 million, according to a Finance & Commerce report.
The newspaper reported that the most expensive house currently up for sale is Southways, a 32,461-square-foot mansion in Orono that was originally built in 1918 to serve as a summer home for the Pillsbury family. The house on Lake Minnetonka, currently listed for $24 million, has reportedly been owned by former Vikings co-owner James Jundt since 1992. It has seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, and a 12-car garage and sits on a 15-acre site, for which property taxes total about $200,000 annually, according to Finance & Commerce.
Next on the list is another Orono house listed for $13.5 million. The 10,761-square-foot home has four bedrooms, seven baths, and a carriage house on five acres along Lake Minnetonka.
To see a full list of the 10 priciest Twin Cities homes currently up for sale, read the Finance & Commerce story here.
The newspaper also reported that the Twin Cities-area upscale housing market is showing signs of improvement: Pending sales for homes that cost more than $1 million are up 13 percent from a year ago.
However, upscale homes represent only a sliver of the market: For the 12 months that ended May 31, the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors reported 322 pending sales of $1 million or more out of the 46,119 pending sales during the period, according to Finance & Commerce.
The small percentage, however, does not reflect lack of money in the area, John Wanninger, an agent with Lakes Sotheby’s International Realty, told the newspaper.
Wanninger said that many local upper-bracket homeowners keep a low profile in the Twin Cities while spending far more on homes in luxury vacation spots.
“There’s a very, very deep pool of upper-bracket buyers,” he said. “We have a Fortune 500 crowd that is doing quite well.”