A P.E.I. mansion that sold for what is believed to be a provincial record for a residential property in 2016 is back on market.
And this time, the price has gone up.
In August 2016, it was reported that the 13,360 square-foot Cable Head East mansion sold for around the asking price of $4.75 million.
Since mid-December, the mansion has been listed again – this time for $5.875 million.
Real-estate agent Michael Poczynek of Century 21 Northumberland Realty Ltd. is once again handling the mansion’s sale.
He explained a reason for the increased price is the improved real estate market on P.E.I.
“When it was purchased, the market was not doing very well. So, (the owner) bought it at the best possible time – no different than buying in Charlottetown two or three years ago,” he said. “He bought it at the bottom of the market, and now the market is doing much better.”
The mansion at 576 Route 336 was designed and built in 2006 by Philadelphia architect and businessman James Carr. The mansion has six bedrooms, nine bathrooms and a whale-watching tower. It sits on 11-acres of land along the beach near P.E.I. National Park in Greenwich.
The last time the property was on the market, it sat for about eight years. Poczynek said the 2008 global financial crisis played a role in the mansion’s inability to sell.
“All my clients from the States, they got completely wiped out. Then I started to market this in the U.K. and Ireland and Europe, and then the U.K. got wiped out. So, when markets collapse, it takes microseconds – they crash in the blink of an eye. But when a market recovers, whether it’s the stock market or the housing market, it takes years. So, much of that eight years was dead time.”
“What I’ve learned is don’t try to sell somebody on P.E.I. or Canada or the Maritimes. Sell it to somebody who’s already sold on P.E.I.”
-Michael Poczynek
The higher selling price also takes into account the amount of money the current owner invested to transform the property into a high-end rental accommodation.
Poczynek said the reason for the new sale is that the current owner, who lives in the U.S., is moving farther away to a new location, which will make accessibility to the P.E.I. mansion more difficult.
Poczynek suspects the next buyer will likely be someone who already owns property on P.E.I. or has a connection to the Island through friends, family or business as opposed to someone who knows very little about Canada or the Maritimes.
“Everyone seems to think you need to market it in China or the Middle East or Dubai or the U.K., or there’s some secret place where people are sitting around waiting for something like this. Well, the fact is there’s a million of these houses on the market,” he said.
“What I’ve learned is don’t try to sell somebody on P.E.I. or Canada or the Maritimes. Sell it to somebody who’s already sold on P.E.I.”
Poczynek said there have been a couple of inquiries on the mansion since it has been listed, but people aren’t usually inclined to be looking at houses in the winter.
“I suspect as the weather improves, the inquiries will improve and we could potentially find a buyer,” he said.
