While the $20 million price tag for this oceanside property is lofty, the owner benefits from California legislation, the Williamson Act, that keeps property taxes low on large spreads preserved for agricultural uses and not subdivided.
Chris Simmons, who owns two Remax real estate agencies in Costa Rica and recently purchased the franchise rights for two more, is seeing the high end of the market grow even loftier to include properties selling for $4 million.
Although local papers often run editorials complaining of Boracay's existing overdevelopment, some property developers have lofty goals for the island – from water parks to luxury villas – and the Crown Regency aims to be at the forefront of that expansion.
But given its enormous size and popularity it is sort of amazing that for years, Vail has had only one ski-in/ski-out lodging property - even the lofty Arrabelle, which I love, features a short walk to a standalone slopeside ski valet where guests change, the same tact taken by all the other top hotels here such as Four Seasons.
Stribling-Kivlan says she has seen buyers approach properties with "incredibly lofty expectations," and so they pass on wonderful houses because the layout of one room isn't quite right.
Democratising property investment sounds a lofty ambition, but there is genuine interest in this cheap entry to buy-to-let, particularly as the new pension freedoms have made it easier for people to invest their retirement savings.
A glass elevator cut into the mountainside ushers guests up to a lofty perch overlooking the town; the 30-room property has a spa, a library lounge and a gorgeous indoor-outdoor swimming pool.
The only other property in Florida to draw such a lofty asking price was a Palm Beach home that Donald Trump sold for $100 million in 2008 to a trust linked to Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian billionaire.
The strapping spruce with the lofty branches, a tree that has stood on the property of William and Frances Heady for a half-century, will be cut down, loaded onto a truck.
