When buyers are looking for a new home, most prioritize a prime location followed by other amenities, said Becky Fatemi, the managing director of London-based luxury boutique estate agency Rokstone. "If you’ve got the location with a view, then you really are looking at the Picasso of the property world," she said.
While there’s generally no such thing as a bad view, and most, whether it’s of a city center, ocean vista or iconic landmark, command a huge premium, if you can only have that view from one room, there’s a general hierarchy of which room people would choose to have it from, experts say.
More:Tour the New London Developments That Boast Iconic Views and Impressive Addresses
For most, the room where they spend the most time would top that list, Ms. Fatemi said, meaning the reception area or living room.
In prime central London, for example, where most residential buildings are low-rise and top out at about six floors, panoramic city views aren’t on the table. Instead, "people love nothing more than to see green, open space, whether that’s a park or a garden square," said Mark Tunstall, the managing director of Tunstall Property, London’s most high-end rental agency.
Properties with reception areas that face Hyde Park, Regent’s Park or Grosvenor Square command the highest prices—generally 10% to 20% above any non-view units in the same building, said Robert Cox, the sales manager of Harrods Estates Mayfair office. And these prices increase with the floor number, as units that are higher up have more expansive views.
At One Hyde Park, where Tunstall currently has a third floor, four-bedroom, park-facing apartment listed at £19,500 (US$24,000) per week, the views are from the main sitting room, a smaller sitting room, the dining room and the study, Mr. Tunstall said. He earlier listed a similar seventh floor unit at £45,000 (US$56,000) per week.
Both of these apartments, which are located in the most expensive building in London, along with other apartments in buildings including The Buckingham, The Lancasters, and Chiltern Place, all have park views from reception spaces, and bedrooms that overlook a more urban landscape in the back.
Meanwhile, in major U.S. cities, including Manhattan, Miami and Los Angeles, the second most important view room is the master bedroom, followed by the master bathroom, said Roy Kim, the chief creative officer for Douglas Elliman Development Marketing.
More:The Best Views in New York City Will Cost You $82 Million
"The master bath is the most surprising of the top three, and the one that’s kind of risen in the past few years," he said, noting the he recently advised a client working on a Los Angeles high-rise to reconfigure the master bedroom so that the attached bathroom would boast stunning views. "There’s a real wow factor when you can sit in your bathtub and have that," he said.
In Miami, developer Shahab Karmely, the CEO of KAR Properties, is currently working on two luxury buildings—One River Point and a new project called 2000 Ocean—that will both have wraparound views, including views from the bathrooms.
At One River Point, which will be raised on a 1.8-acre site on the Miami River, across the street from the Brickell City Centre, architect Rafael Viñoly designed a dual tower structure with a connecting glass sky bridge 800 feet above the river. The vantage point from the sky lofts, which are surrounded by 12 foot walls of glass, make it feel like "you’re in a helicopter looking out towards the infinity of the horizon, and down 800 feet without needing to step out onto a balcony," Mr. Karmely said.
In the master bathrooms, freestanding bathtubs and showers will be situated against a glass wall, so that the people in them can look off into the distance and feel like they’re floating in the sky.
After views from master bathrooms, the rest is a matter of preference, Mr. Kim said. "If you spend a lot of time in your kitchen or family room, then you might want a nice view there," he said. "If you throw a lot of dinner parties, you might want a nice view from your dining room. Or if you work from a home office, you might want a nice view there, as well."
Mr. Karmely agreed, noting that if a building boasts views, it better deliver on that promise. "Otherwise it’s just talk," he said.
Here’s a look at other news from around the world compiled by Mansion Global:
Ireland is Europe’s Best Bet for "Buy-to-Let" Investment Properties
With a rapidly growing economy and a bustling property market to match, Ireland has in short order become the top spot in Europe for "buy-to-let" purchasers of investment properties, according to the latest European Buy-To-Let League table from currency exchange service World First. The nation jumped from 10th place to first, thanks to its high rental yield of 6.54% in November, compared to 6.35% in the Netherlands, which came in second place, and 6.33% in Portugal, which came in third. Sweden, Italy, and France were at the bottom of the list, with returns of 3%, 3.26%, and 3.55%, respectively. (World First Blog)
Dubai’s Expected 2017 Price Bounceback May Not Happen As Expected
While predictions have been largely optimistic for Dubai’s struggling property market in 2017, some experts are warning that the forecast may not be as sunny as expected, thanks in part to a 41,000 unit glut in supply, a continued dip in rental prices, and decreased investment from the U.K. "With over 11,000 units currently scheduled for delivery in the final quarter of 2016 and more than 30,000 units under construction for planned delivery in 2017, there is definitely the potential for oversupply if all these projects progress on scheduled," said a report from Dubai property platform Dubizzle in collaboration with JLL. Cluttons has also predicted a stagnant or falling market, and the managing director of consultant Phidar Advisory has forecasted a 10% drop. All of which means that buyers hoping to score a deal as Dubai’s market hits its cyclical bottom should sit tight as prices may fall further over the coming year. (Khaleej Times)
Luxury Sales Lead Shanghai’s Property Prices To a Rebound
The average cost of new homes hit record numbers last week in Shanghai, at 53,971 yuan (US$7,810) per square meter, a week-over-week increase of 17.1%, according to a report from Shanghai Centaline Property Consultants. Strong numbers on luxury projects helped bump up the numbers, including a new development in the Changing District, which sold 32 units at average prices of 104,953 yuan per square meter. Researchers noted that this is the first time averages have broken 50,000 yuan per-square-foot, but that this doesn’t represent a full-scale market rebound, as the rate of new inventory hitting the market remains low and prone to fluctuation. (Shanghai Daily)
Chinese Authorities Crack Down on Phony Divorces for Property Purchases
Shanghai authorities have found themselves cracking down on the results of their own crackdown, after many would-be buyers have rushed to obtain fake divorces in order to facilitate property purchases. (Recent market-cooling regulations had banned couples who already owned a certain amount of property from purchasing more.) Earlier on in the month, Shanghai encouraged commercial banks to review borrowers’ repayment ability based on "family credibility," and brokers say that they’ve already seen lenders declining applications from buyers who have gotten divorced within the last six months. One woman who’d recently divorced so that she and her husband could buy a fourth property in the city, said, "Divorce is not some great thing, [but] we needed to buy before it got more expensive." (WSJ)
Indian Cities Are The Best 2017 Bets for Investors in Asia
A new survey of Asian property markets has put Bangalore and Mumbai at the top of the list for 2017 investment potential, thanks to rapidly growing economies and a high demand for office space driving a boom in commercial markets. Just last year, both cities ranked 12 and 13th on a list of 22 Asian cities. The survey, conducted by the Urban Land Institute with help from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, notes, "There is little doubt that catering to the expansion requirements of the Indian BPO industry has delivered big profits to investors who arrived early on the scene. Today it remains a compelling story." Elsewhere, Tokyo dropped from first place to 12th amid stagnant prices, and Singapore, which topped the list as recently as 2012, dropped down to 21st place, reflecting 12 back-to-back quarters of declining residential prices. (Bloomberg)
Millionaire Residents of London’s Mayfair District Add Billions to U.K. Economy
The 2,000 millionaires residing in London’s Mayfair district contribute a whopping £2.5 billion (US$3.1 billion) to the economy, per a new analysis from luxury real estate brokerage Wetherell. In an effort to combat the stereotype of absentee owners of high-end property, Wetherell looked at these residents’ spending on "employing staff, luxury shopping, spending on consultants and other expenditure," and found, among other things, that Mayfair millionaires typically eat at restaurants three to four times per week, and spend £2.7 million (US$3.4 million) per year on interiors. In fact, 40% of Mayfair’s overseas residents are "resident Anglophiles" whose main homes are in London, and have lived there for over 10 years, according to the report. (Business Insider)
Residents Claim a Luxury Florida Condo Building is Sinking
Echoing concerns with San Francisco’s sinking Millennium Tower, the owners association at the Plaza Harbor Island condo building in Tampa is suing the contractors who built their building, alleging that it’s sinking and tilting due to construction defects. Their suit notes "significant subsidence concerns and structural design deficiencies," as well as loose soil below the ground floor, which has resulted in "movement and significant cracking of the walls, stucco and structure." For their part, construction experts say buildings usually settle into their foundations without causing long-term damage, but unit owners are concerned in the immediate future about the impact on sales once they disclose the ongoing problems to prospective buyers. Currently, seven units in the building are on the market, including a $2.4 million penthouse that hasn’t sold for over a year.(The Real Deal Miami)