This stunning penthouse at The Astoria came on the market a couple weeks ago. I toured the space during a broker open and I can tell you first hand the space is extremely well done. Everything has been thought of down the tiniest detail. With approximately 4,040 square feet, you have plenty of room to stretch out inside. Outside there are four long covered terraces to enjoy, but the magic is really inside. Spectacular views of Buckhead and Midtown are seen through walls of glass.

One of my absolute favorite rooms in the condo is the indoor/outdoor lanai shown in the photo above. This room is enclosed in Nano hurricane-strength folding glass doors on all sides. These doors fold into themselves to open the room to the outdoors. The lanai also has a ventless gas fireplace for those chilly Atlanta evenings. Pretty clever and very well thought out considering the terraces are not large by any means. Click Here for More Photos & the Rest of the Feature

These are the sales I have compiled over the course of the year noting the 40 highest luxury condo sales for 2011! Sovereign and the Ritz-Carlton appear most often on the list, along with some additional new construction buildings (and some resales too). I kept track of the 40 highest closed luxury property sales, which resulted in $55,344,507 in sales. It’s probably not as high as we would like it, but the market has picked up significantly and this year has started off with a bang!

This is the list, ordered from the highest sale to the lowest: Click Here for More Photos & the Rest of the Feature

The days are flying by and we are pretty close to the end of the year. I’ve been super busy as the market continues to heat up and our inventory continues to shrink. I pulled the highest sales for the third quarter and the results were interesting. New construction condos are continuing to sell very well in all price ranges. Since this post is about the upper price range, I have targeted the highest sales above $700,000. You’ll notice that buyers are now going to a variety of properties and not just Sovereign like last quarter (which pretty much dominated the highest closings).

So what does the top 8 list look like?

1. Sovereign Unit 3304 | Closed on 8/12 for $1,300,000 (MLS Available Properties)
   
2. The Aberdeen Unit 1101 | Closed on 8/29 for $1,285,250 (MLS Available Properties)
3. Gallery Unit PH 2601 | Closed on 9/23 for $1,000,000 (MLS Available Properties)
4. Park Place Unit 37E&F | Closed on 8/01 for $975,000 (MLS Available Properties)
5. Ritz-Carlton Residences Buckhead Unit 1801 | Closed on 7/22 for $956,725 (MLS Available Properties)
6. Ritz-Carlton Residences Buckhead Unit 2404 | Closed on 8/04 for $799,500 (MLS Available Properties)
7. The Atlantic Unit 4502 | Closed on 7/01 for $733,033 (MLS Available Properties)
8. Astoria Unit 901| Closed on 7/29 for $726,000 (MLS Available Properties)

There is plenty of activity in the lower price range also. The under $300,000 category continues to thrive and we are starting to see a sellers market emerge. Surprising and exciting!

Next quarter we’ll see the first sale happen at the Mansion on Peachtree (since the new owners took over) and another building which has recently come back to market. Exciting stuff for the condo market and a definite sign the market is coming back to life in full force.

It’s not surprising condo closings above $1,000,000 haven’t been all too great in the past year, but the question is are luxury sales picking up in Atlanta? Slow and steady wins the race? In today’s real estate climate, luxury developers are willing to give incentives to buyers, but would rather keep their pricing where it is – and that means units stay on the market sitting empty for months. Some luxury projects have not seen any new sales this year, and those include The Mansion on Peachtree, W Downtown Atlanta Residences and the St. Regis Residences in Buckhead.

Most of the movement in the condo market has been in the lower and middle end, leaving room for a huge buyers market in the upper end of the spectrum. That being said, what are luxury condo buyers purchasing above $1,000,000? Penthouses! When you look at the sales below, you’ll notice 5 of the 8 closings have been penthouse sales. Two more are in my favorite building – Sovereign. In that building, buyers are purchasing the larger units and nothing under $1,000,000 has closed. The Astoria also closed a larger unit very close to the million dollar mark. Unit size and location do matter!

1. Ritz-Carlton Residences Buckhead Penthouse 3401 | Closed on 3/16 for $2,582,500 (MLS Available Properties)
2. Sovereign Unit 4301 | Closed on 2/7 for $2,100,0000 (MLS Available Properties)
3. Sovereign Unit 4101 | Closed on 2/24 for $1,775,000 (MLS Available Properties)
4. 10 Terminus Place Penthouse 3201 | Closed on 2/15 for $1,700,000 (MLS Available Properties)
5. 10 Terminus Place Penthouse 3101 | Closed on 2/15 for $1,300,000 (MLS Available Properties)
6. Gallery Residences Penthouse 2602 | Closed on 3/31 for $1,000,000 (MLS Available Properties)
7. The Astoria Unit 904 | Closed on 2/11 for $935,000 (MLS Available Properties)
8. 805 Peachtree Penthouse 605 | Closed on 1/31 for $725,000 (MLS Available Properties)

In the second quarter of 2011, Sovereign, the Ritz-Carlton Residences and The Brookwood are set to close condos above $1,000,000.

I recently went to The Astoria, located in the historic Peachtree Battle area of Atlanta, to take a look at their only remaining penthouse. The entire project turned out quite well. The mix of traditional and contemporary is something I have always loved and Kairos has managed  to blend the two seamlessly throughout the interior of the building.

What I really love about this building is the size. There are only 70 condominiums and that is an advantage when thinking about resale down the road. This particular penthouse is about 3,145 square foot inside and has a huge 1,374 square feet terrace. The list price is $1,572,500 – about $500 per square foot – not bad at all considering the large size of the unit.  Click Here for More Photos & the Rest of the Feature