Rasheed Wallace Still Won’t Budge on Price of Portland Home
Rasheed Wallace, former Detroit Pistons forward who played with the Portland Trail Blazers for eight years re-listed his Dunthorpe mansion at the beginning of the year for $4.875 million. This Tudor-style home is on 2.16 acres that include a pool, sports court and guest house. Wallace bought it for around $3 million back in 2000. It’s now been on and off the market for almost five years, but Wallace has remained remarkably stubborn on pricing.
The five-bedroom home has a red home theater, built-in saltwater fish tank, home office and more. The seven thousand square foot mansion was first listed for sale in early 2006. At the time Wallace was asking for $5.5 million.
Rasheed Wallace’ Portland Home for Sale:
What’s it worth now, roughly? Here are two back-of-the-envelope approaches:
1. Historic Pricing Trends: Wallace bought this property at a time (2000) when the housing market was relatively quiet. He then witnessed one of the most dramatic run-ups in value, but also stuck it out as the market corrected substantially over the past couple of years. Based on the Case Shiller Index for Portland, he’d nonetheless be up by about 30% over his initial purchase price. That puts the fair market value at about $4 million.
2. List/Sold Discount: Let’s assume Wallace was overly optimistic about what he would net by about 10% (seems about right, given that a healthy portion of optimism is required to make it into the NBA big leagues). That means that the fair market value at the time would have been no higher than $5 million. That was 2006. The market has since corrected more than 25% (based on Case Shiller numbers). According to this calculation a price tag around $3.75-$4 million would seem more appropriate.
Both approaches seem to support a price around $4 million. Granted, a back-of-the-envelope approach like this isn’t going to provide an accurate reading, nor will it stand up much when it’s time to negotiate. You’d need a competitive market analysis to get to the bottom of it. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say that the current price is off by as much as 20%. So, what’s the reason for the discrepancy? Reportedly Wallace and his wife Fatima spent more than $1 million on improvements, which they feel justify a price point just south of $5 million. In this market that is going to be a stretch. That built-in salt-water fish tank is not likely to be valued at a quarter of a million dollars.
If you’d like to get to the bottom of what your (potential) home is really worth, drop me a note.
