What Is a Luxury Home?

Nate Hoelzen

President, Arizona Journal of Real Estate & Business 

On its surface, luxury real estate as a concept seems specific to the consumer, varying from each individual. For many, it depends on how you look at the property itself and the word luxury. The definition of a luxury home also varies across different markets. In many large U.S. metro areas, the typical luxury price point is $1 million and up. To develop a more concrete idea, we can compare luxury homes with each other and current trends in this market. Doing this helps to uncover common themes among these properties.

This article will discuss the following luxury home commonalities: privacy, location, experiential, age agnostic, collectible, and functionality. Many of these are more than a little subjective. The functionality aspect, for example, largely depends on the owner’s lifestyle.

Privacy

Considering how invasive social media can be, it is no wonder luxury home seekers value privacy. They are looking for homes with long gated driveways and large yards with high walls. Foliage is also a popular option for cover.

Location

As in all real estate, location is extremely important. But luxury homes are no longer just for private islands. Luxury home buyers are now also looking for homes farther into the city. A newer area with trendy bars and restaurants can become a hot spot for these swanky shoppers. But many other luxury homes are where you would expect to find them. Popular locations still include atop mountains and along beaches.

Experiential

This mostly refers to the unique features a luxury home might possess. This could include meditation gardens, outdoor showers, and IMAX movie theaters. For most potential lux homeowners, it’s important to incorporate these majorly exquisite amenities.

Age Agnostic

The idea behind a property being age agnostic is something much more than timelessness. A luxury home has the potential to serve multiple generations of a family at the same time. These different needs could include a separate cottage for grandparents or some other kind of self-contained guest quarters.

Collectible

A luxury home being “collectible” could mean it is a one-off or part of a limited edition by a world-famous architect. A home that is considered a rarity often serves as the ultimate asset. This quality gives a property a story, and even history. It has the potential to become more than just a conversation piece — though it is that as well.

Functionality

Luxury or not, a home should serve a function for its owner. Everything from the construction materials to the kitchen appliances must be of premier quality for the owner’s use and enjoyment. Materials like marble, hardwood, Venetian plaster, and crystal are commonplace ingredients in a luxury home. Some ultra-rich home buyers are even willing to pay a premium to walk into a brand new, fully furnished home. Talk about turnkey ready!

Luxury home aspects receiving an honorable mention here include discreet, eco-friendly, and open plots. To explain further, some shoppers are seeking more scaled-back exteriors, with some designs even blending into the surrounding landscape. This serves to achieve a more modest display of wealth. Green luxury buyers are more content to live in self-sustaining, energy-efficient environments while maintaining an extravagant lifestyle. Even an open plot of land can serve as a blank canvas for the aspiring luxury home owner. This kind of buyer plans to literally build their own luxury masterpiece from the ground up, making themselves something like the collectible homes mentioned above.