The Tennessean
Williamson Real Estate
Friday, August 28, 2009
Agents push pools as ‘staycations’ grow popular
More than 150 of 2,500 local listings offered backyard option
The recession-inspired concept of the “staycation” has given real estate agents a new marketing theme this season for homes that have swimming pools.
Taking into account the often-sweltering heat of late summer in Middle Tennessee, the idea of buying a house with its own backyard pool can be really appealing, or so the sales agents hope.
“I’d say this is the perfect time to have a house with a pool to sell,” said Kennette Sweeney, an agent with Johnson and Thompson Inc. Realtors.
Sweeney’s listings include 2220 Castlewood Drive in the Oakwood Estates subdivision in Franklin.
The house is a renovated 1978 ranch with an attractive but unassuming façade.
Nobody would expect that an undulating, 16-by-32-foot in-ground pool sparkles in the backyard, along with three waterfalls that cascade over a stacked-stone wall.
It’s the kind of pool a buyer might expect to see In a house that costs twice as much as this one, which is priced at $358,900.
“I call it my vacation villa,” said Sweeney, who has sold this house three times in years past. “The backyard is almost like a resort.”
The house, which also has a koi pond, is one of the 155 Williamson County homes with in-ground pools that were listed for sale the week of August 10-14; that’s out of a total 2,511 homes that were on the market in Williamson that week.
Pool is the rule at the high end
The highest percentage of homes for sale with swimming pools are found in the $800,000-plus price category there were only 20 homes with pools available for less than $400,000 that week.
And yet, despite the heat and the growing need to be happy staying home, selling a house with its own pool isn’t really any easier than selling any other given house, agents say.
Sweeney’s listing has been for sale since April. In the past, when the economy was booming, she said she has sold it within weeks of listing it.
“It all depends on the buyer,” said Lisa Culp Taylor, a broker with Bob Parks Realty. “Typical people either want a pool, or they don’t even want to see a house that comes with a pool.”
Taylor has a listing at 311 Gillette Drive in Franklin that comes with a heated salt water pool in the backyard.
It is built with an infinity or vanishing edge, two waterfalls, a grotto and a hot tub.
“It really is such an oasis,” Taylor said. “You actually could vacation in your own backyard.”
The whole setup is nearly new, along with the two-story traditional house that comes with it. It was built in 2006 and has an asking price of $799,900.
Who needs a vacation home?
“I do think that we are seeing more people who like the idea of having a pool with the diversification of the buyers we have here,” Taylor said, noting that buyers moving here from California, Texas and Oklahoma demonstrate more interest in buying a house with its own pool.
“I think there is a growing segment of baby boomers who have put in pools in place of a vacation home,” broker Karen Morgan said.
She has a listing in the Brentmeade subdivision that comes with a 45,000 gallon gunite pool, a waterfall, a hot tub, a cabana and a Norwegian sauna.
The five-bedroom house at 9184 Brushboro Court was built in 1995 and has an asking price of $995,885.
The pool, sauna and other features were already there when the current owners bought the property, Morgan said, “and it was the reason they bought it.”
It being swimming season, Morgan has made a photograph of the pool the lead picture for her listing on Realtracs.com, as has Sweeney with her listing on Castlewood Drive and Taylor with hers on Gillette Drive.
Pool not fully reflected in the price
“For someone who does want a backyard pool, buying a house that already has on can be a good deal because of the cost of the pool is not reflected, dollar for dollar, in the asking price of the house,” Sweeney said.
There may also be proportionately fewer homes for sale with backyard pools next summer, because the pool builders haven’t been building much this year.
Fred Arnold, owner of the California Concepts pool building firm, said he just sold his first pool of 2009 in August, to a homeowner in the Governors Club.
He normally builds between 18 and 25 swimming pools a year.
“Starting last fall things really started to go down,” he said.
Jason Perry of Perry Pool and Spa said, “the economy took a big hit on the pool business… hardly anybody is building new pools.”
Perry and Arnold said renovation and repair jobs on existing pools have kept them going, along with routine maintenance contracts.
“It’s not just here, it’s like this is all over the country,” Perry said.