WASHINGTON — Looking for a new home? An incredible villa in Florida just hit the market, albeit with an equally incredible price tag.
The Gordon Pointe townhouse, which entered the market this week, is listed for a whopping $295 million. In fact, that price makes Gordon Pointe the most expensive property in the U.S., according to CNBC and the Wall Street Journal.
The property is currently owned by John F. Donahue, a philanthropist who has lived there since the 80s. It's being sold by Leighton Candler, a realtor at high-end real estate firm Corcoran.
But what do you get in the deal? It's quite a lot.
The property is listed as a "private oasis located in the exclusive neighborhood of Port Royal" in Naples, Florida. The lot is nine acres, at the end of the peninsula that makes up the neighborhood.
It's beachfront property, with 728 feet of beach frontage and 927 feet of bay frontage situated on the Gulf of Mexico. That's always a good thing when a property comes with a private, 231-foot yacht basin and a 111-foot T-dock.
The compound has two guest houses in addition to the main primary home, and plenty of space for expansions. Not that you'll likely need them. The listing is approximately 22,800 square feet.
According to CNBC, the main home is approximately 11,500 square feet while each guest house is around 5,000 feet.
For context, going by numbers from investment research site The Motley Fool, the median size of houses across the U.S. is around 2,014 square feet.
Within that 22,800 square feet are 20 beds, plus 20 bathrooms.
But even with all that room, the price is still huge for the space. Each square foot costs about $12,900.
But compounds like this aren't easy to put a price tag on. The people able to buy them aren't so much interested in the cost as they are in the property's customization.
The true value of the property isn't in the square footage. It's in the legacy of the home itself. According to the listing, Gordon Pointe is available for development, which means a new owner could add more houses or other structures to the property to truly customize it.
And all that doesn't take into account how likely somebody is to actually buy it at its asking price. According to a list compiled by Robb Report, an outlet focused on reporting about luxury, the most expensive home sold in the U.S. in 2023 was Paradise Cove in Malibu, California, for an estimated $190 million.
That's more than $100 million lower than the asking price for Gordon Pointe. And even then, Robb Report says Paradise Cove's sale was the priciest deal ever in California, and the second-priciest in U.S. history.
According to Realtor.com, the median listing price in the Port Royal neighborhood was $24.1 million, less than 1% of the Gordon Pointe asking price.
And CNBC found the two homes with the previous record — tying at $250 million — never sold at that price. In fact, both are still on the market more than a year later, and both have lowered their asking price to (a much more reasonable) $195 million.
Even if you did purchase the property, it wouldn't be without hassle.
At today's interest rate of around 7.75%, you'd need to put down a $59 million down payment to reach 20% of the sale price.
Unfortunately for homebuyers looking to finance, Corcoran's loan calculator doesn't have any eligible loans available for that amount. So, it looks like you'll either have to find outside funding or buy the home outright.
And once it was in your possession, there would be a massive upkeep bill. Each year, you'd pay $1,414,500 in property taxes alone.
But isn't that a small price to pay to make a house your home?
