Bidding starts at $1.25 million for this Chickamauga Lake mansion

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Auction starts at $1.25 million for Chickamauga Lake mansion — luxury homes here 'a steal'

If you've got at least $1.25 million to spend - and can prove it - you can bid on Saturday to buy a nearly 10,000-square-foot mansion with 250 feet of frontage on Chickamauga Lake.

Miami-based Platinum Luxury Auctions will hold an auction so registered bidders can vie for the four-bedroom, four-bath, two-half-bath lakeside home on a landscaped acre dotted with Italian bronze fountains that comes complete with a wine cellar, a "gentleman's pub" and a theater room.

Previously offered for $3 million, the two-story house on Clematis Drive in Hixson will be sold to the highest bidder who meets or exceeds a reserve bid price of $1.25 million.

"This is our first foray into the Chattanooga market," said Trayor Lesnock, president of Platinum Luxury Auctions.

"Pound for pound, that's quite a bit of property for that price," Lesnock said of the Clematis Drive mansion. "Take that very same property and plop it down in Miami, that's going to be a $7 million house all day long."

Three potential buyers already have indicated they'll meet the reserve price, he said last week.

Million-dollar homes scarce here

Even the minimum $1.25 million bid would put the house in the stratosphere of Hamilton County residential real estate, since the median home price here is about $152,000 and only 22 homes' sales prices topped the $1 million mark in 2015, according to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) - with the highest being $2.5 million for a Lookout Mountain mansion.

If you're a Chattanooga-area real estate agent, the $1 million mark is a nice notch to have on your belt. But top-selling agents here say they can't live on big sales alone; they need to sell lower-priced homes as their meat and potatoes.

"It's supply and demand, as you get up toward the peak of that pyramid, you don't have as many buyers," said Jack Webb, a broker at Crye-Leike Real Estate Services who ranked first in 2015 among area agents for selling the $2.5 million Lookout Mountain mansion.

"I did not know I had the record," Webb said, when told he came in first place. "There have been a lot of years when I didn't have any kind of records. Every now and then if I have a sale at the high end, I'm very thankful and blessed.

"I'll be the first to tell you that very few people in Chattanooga - they might say they specialize in the high-end of the market - but there are only a limited number of sales," Webb said. "You're also happy to sell a $400,000, $500,000, $600,000 or $700,000 home. Any agent is happy to make sales. We don't just live on waiting to make a $1 million sale."

Chattanooga luxury homes 'a steal'

Compared to national prices, high-end property in Chattanooga is "a steal," said real estate agent Jay Robinson, founder and owner of the Robinson Team of Keller Williams Realty Downtown Chattanooga.

"Our high-end property in Chattanooga is still incredibly reasonably priced," said Robinson, who recently was named the top luxury real estate agent in the Southeast by Keller Williams Realty Inc. It defines its luxury agents as those who help clients buy and sell properties above $500,000.

The highest-priced home ever to sell in the Chattanooga area was a little over $4 million, Robinson said, and there have been six sales above $3 million and 24 transactions between $2 million and $3 million.

"So it's a very thin market when you get above $2 million," he said.

For homes that cost more than $900,000, about 80 percent of the buyers were local, Robinson said.

Often, people who have that kind of money to spend opt to custom build a new home, he said.

"Rather than buy [someone else's dream home], if they can afford whatever they want, they can build whatever they want," Robinson said.

Red carpet auction

Platinum Luxury Auctions used more than 40 different advertising platforms to get the word out about the Clematis Drive home, Lesnock said, everything from TV ads to postcards to the digital versions of The Wall Street Journal.

"A lot of the marketing is local-regional," he said. "But we have a lot of Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, a lot of international. We're bringing people from beyond the Chattanooga market."

While Chattanooga-area real estate agents see a vanishingly small number of potential buyers for a home with bidding that starts at $1.25 million, Lesnock sees that as a price with wide appeal.

"I would say our sweet spot is between $3 and $8 million," said Lesnock, who likes selling $1 million homes because there's a bigger pool of potential buyers than for a typical property he auctions.

"There are statistically that many more people," he said.

The Saturday auction for the Hixson mansion won't be open to the public; Only registered bidders who've shown they can afford the opening price can attend.

Platinum Luxury Auctions will set the stage at 11 a.m. Saturday to get bidders excited and loosened up.

"We roll out a red carpet, literally," he said, "and we do velvet ropes."

The auction for the mansion will kick off with a preliminary charity auction at which bidders can compete for an expensive bottle of Bordeaux wine or champagne that will be auctioned off to benefit charity.

"We as a company will match that donation," Lesnock said. "That's how we kind of get everybody a little bit loose."

Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/Meets ForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.