Palm Beach mansions get (relatively) cheaper


From the South Florida Web site: A multimillion-dollar mansion sale last week brought the extent of the housing crash home to the very highest end of the South Florida market. Prices, expectations and declining property values all played a role in the 40 percent discount reached in the sale of the Palm Beach Island home of William and Sarah Farish, politically connected prominent Kentucky horse breeders, who last week accepted $8.38 million for their mansion at the southern end of the island. Some realtors gulped when they did the math on the sale. James Orthwein Jr., a trustee of the James B. Orthwein Jr. Revocable Trust and a scion of the St. Louis Busch family, paid $5.57 million less than the asking price of $13.95 million. The comments reveal as much about the alternate reality of the luxury property market as the sale itself.

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