After an opulent new-build on 3.13 acres in Northern Virginia sold in August, some potential buyers started feeling pangs of regret.
The palatial 10-bedroom, 16-bathroom home at 6431 Georgetown Pike in McLean sat on the market for years before it traded for $18.5 million. The all-cash transaction came under the home's $22.5 million list price, but it still made Northern Virginia’s priciest sale by the Potomac River so far this year.
Now, less than two months after the deal closed, its buyer has relisted the property.
“I think we are all as surprised as everybody else,” said listing agent Piper Yerks of Washington Fine Properties. Back in August, Yerks served as the buyer’s agent.
After the buyer started moving in, the brokerage started getting “calls from people who feel that they missed out on the opportunity,” Yerks said. “Strange, because it was on for, you know, three or four years.”
Still, after Yerks got a few calls, she asked the home’s new owner whether he wanted to put it on the market just to see how things went. The owner did, halting his moving process and listing the home on Sept. 30 for $22 million — a figure nearly as high as the home’s August list price.
“Since we’ve had some activity,” Yerks said, “I’m going to just see if one of those people does want to pursue it.” If they don’t, the owner plans to remove the home from the market and move in fully.
But, if the seller “gets an offer that works for him, we’re going to see it move quickly,” she said. “Like, very quickly.”
‘Another bite at the apple’
It’s a move that underscores how sunny some luxury sellers are feeling about the Northern Virginia market, even as Washington, D.C., faces waves of federal layoffs and is on Day One of a government shutdown.
“We’re just feeling good about the market,” Yerks said. In addition to specific interest in this home, (“people asking to come back and take another look or another bite at the apple,”), there’s “also been some high-end sales in the DMV that got absorbed into the marketplace,” she explained.
Part of that interest comes from the dearth of available luxury homes in the area that are new construction or move-in ready, Yerks said. “We’re also lower on houses that have very oversized, large parcels.
“If we get our price, we get our price.”