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High-End Homes for Sale … for Years

It took artist Don Greenwood about 20 minutes to decide to buy his Park City, Utah, vacation home. So far, he’s spent about a year and a half trying to sell it.

Mr. Greenwood, 80, and his wife, Ginny, no longer ski, so they want to buy a beach house closer to their home in San Diego. They first listed the 8,825-square-foot home—which sits on the mountain in the Bald Eagle Estates neighborhood of Deer Valley Resort—in August 2015 for $11.5 million. It is now asking $10.9 million.

Mr. Greenwood may have a difficult time selling at that price because of the competition from newly built properties in the area, said Carol Agle of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Utah Properties, who is not affiliated with the listing. “We believe that it’s priced at the market,” said Mr. Greenwood, who paid $4.4 million for the property in 2009 and said he rebuilt the house.

Meanwhile, Mr. Greenwood said playing the waiting game is fine with him. His three children and 13 grandchildren use the home, he has no debt on the house, his property taxes are manageable and showings aren’t an inconvenience.

When the high-end market soared in 2014 and 2015, many ultraluxury sellers listed their homes for top-end prices, only to find their properties sitting when the market slowed last year. In response, many sellers cut their prices to more realistic numbers, aiming for a quick deal.

Not the holdouts. These are the sellers willing to spend months, if not years, waiting to sign a contract. Some own multiple homes; others have done the math and concluded it is financially and personally beneficial to wait (and wait) to strike a deal. “In most cases my sellers don’t have to sell,” said Mr. Greenwood’s agent, Ann MacQuoid of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.

The more expensive the home, the more likely it is to sit: Homes in the highest price bracket spent a median 134 days on market, versus 100 days for luxury homes overall and 53 days for the typical home, according to Realtor.com, which examined the priciest 10% of 44,000 listings in the 20 largest U.S. metro areas in February. About 9.5% of luxury homes spent more than a year on the market. (News Corp., owner of the Wall Street Journal, also operates Realtor.com under license from the National Association of Realtors.)

Real-estate agents warn that holding out is usually a bad idea. Testing the market, or listing at an eye-popping number in the off-chance a buyer materializes, often means missing out on buyers who would have been interested if the property were priced correctly, as well as wasting the most important window of time to appeal to them, said Samantha DeBianchi, founder of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based DeBianchi Real Estate. “The first 30 days are everything.”

Agents particularly note that buyers can be wary of “stale” listings, assuming something is wrong with the home or lowballing the seller, believing they can get a bargain. According to a report from Concierge Auctions, which examined the 10 priciest sales in 27 high-end housing markets using public property records and multiple-listing service data, homes that took longer than 180 days to sell spent an average 774 days on market and fetched 77% of their original list price. Homes that spent under 180 days on market sold in an average of 80 days for 93% of the initial price.

There are a few reasons why higher-end homes tend to sit around longer. Fewer comparable sales make it more difficult to value them. High-end buyers, too, can afford to take their time, since they are more likely to be making discretionary home purchases. Some homes fail to sell because of a major flaw—a funky layout, undesirable location or idiosyncratic décor.

The most common reason a home sits is a too-high price. Wealthy sellers can often afford to be more stubborn. Some agents acquiesce to unrealistic asking prices just to get a listing, hoping to later convince the seller to drop the price. Meanwhile, the home languishes.

Frank Sciame, 65, is one well-known holdout. The real-estate developer made headlines when he relisted two homes in Old Saybrook, Conn., including Katharine Hepburn’s longtime retreat.

Mr. Sciame bought Ms. Hepburn’s 3½-acre property for $6 million in 2004, a year after she died, and divided it into three lots. He first listed the three properties for a total of $28 million in 2011. Since then, he has listed them off and on at different prices. He built a beach house on one of the lots in 2015. The main house is now asking $11.8 million; the beach house, $5.88 million. (He will keep the third lot.)

The price is likely relying on the Hepburn name and still too high, said Joel Lucas of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, given the competition for high-end buyers from the Hamptons and other parts of the New England coast. Listing agent Colette Harron of William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty said the town has appraised the main house at $11.1888 million, and Mr. Sciame has received an offer higher than the current asking price. “But they were not ready to sell,” she said. “Now they are ready to sell.”

John Walton and Stacy Demcher of Keller Williams Jersey Shore specialize in “expired listings” that have failed to sell. For an expired listing, Mr. Walton said he typically adjusts the price, rewrites the copy and takes new photographs. Some agents will delist a home for a short period to reset the days-on-market number.

Pete Parisette moved to his family’s South Kingstown, R.I., home 11 years ago to look after his mother, now 88, after his father died. The owner of an exotic-wood-veneer firm, Mr. Parisette travels for work, and the home is too much for his mother, who has health concerns.

Although he said that an agent told him he could do a fast deal with a $1 million price, he asked $1.8 million for the 3,843-square-foot home in June, citing other local sales. After a refinancing, he relisted it in September for $1.575 million. The election and the winter delayed a sale, he said, but now he is hopeful he will get offers.

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