As if things were not already bad enough! The luxury industry takes another blow and this time it comes directly from top industry players. Kevin Brass posted this information over at Raising The Roof, read full story
According to the latest report, launched by Sotheby’s International and Architectural Digest magazine the media “especially” the reporters are getting the property (real estate) story ALL wrong! Sotheby International released a media release that proclaims that high end buyers are still “confident” about the market, the study shows. Even stressing that a whopping 79 percent of respondents believe the value of their house will remain constant or increase in the months ahead, the study found. See the Sotheby’s press release .
One of the reasons I will have to question the validity of this report is because Sotheby’s International recently fired their PR rep for suggesting some of the opposite of these findings. Read story here
Maurice Levin was once Sotheby’s International public relations officer. He was let go because he publicized an internal memo (which I guess he thought was newsworthy and a trusted source since it came from the owner of the agency). Apparently, Lew Geffen the agency owner did not want the information that he sent to his franchisees to be made public information. However, we would have to assume that Maurice Levin did not get that memo? Anyways here is what the memo suggested.
In the memo Geffen predicted a 40% drop in local luxury house prices by the end of this year and advised franchisees to convince sellers to drop their asking prices by 25%, to secure a sale of their homes.