Unsellable Mansions: Luxury Property Mistakes

you're about to go inside one of the ugliest houses in the country at least from a resale perspective on the market for a staggering amount of money it may stay there until someone just as eccentric as its original owner comes along so with the housing market in an uptick how do you make sure your own home doesn't become unsellable here's ABC's Rebecca Jarvis with tonight's Realty check staircase railings that seem more than a little out of place a bedroom that would make a caveman claustrophobic and of course all those Wyatts welcome to the million dollar mansion that might just be America's most unsellable house Kessler estate it's 10 degrees below zero and there's a bunch of dolphins out front and they're covered meet brian sanders' listing agent on this sprawling mansion consider this a cautionary tale in the new hot real estate market basically we've got five structures we've got the main house we've got the guest house we've got the pool house we have the ballroom conference center and then we have an apartment that also houses additional guests Sanders knows that when it comes to real estate there were some cardinal rules first and foremost you never want your home to be the most expensive one on the block that's just the first of many rules being shattered here at the Kessler compound in Indianapolis the asking price we realtors like to say 1 million two hundred ninety five thousand which in really is a million three rounding up a little bit rounding up making is the priciest property on the market in this entire zip code what is the cost of the average house on this block the average house is one hundred and fifty thousand dollars this is like 10 times it's about ten times that so Wow from the bedrooms this is almost a room entirely of stone I feel like we're gonna cave to the basement this room would kind of be like the party place down here this room is perfect if you're in the mood for a cocktail then a hand of blackjack and then it's time to get in the hot tub and the formal dining room what we've done here is we've taken a trip to the Orient as you see the formal dining room has a hint of Asian influence with the hint of circus muse there's really no play footsie under the table here I'm blown away this is definitely definitely the most original house I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of houses if I dead but original can be a dirty word when it comes to resale value with the housing market making a serious recovery more and more Americans are looking to sell so to guide us through the do's and don'ts we went to an expert Josh Altman from Bravo's million dollar listing this is as we like to say in real estate unique or one-of-a-kind this is definitely one of a kind wow this is like a dungeon room with beds in it at a 1 to 10 this is pretty much one of the worst house I've ever seen he's used to selling red-hot luxury properties like just 5.5 million dollar pad in the Hollywood Hills let me check out this view this view in itself is worth two million dollars but he says any house can fall victim to overly specific design details and that can spell doom when it comes time to Risa I see mistakes made in houses built all day long as much as he tried Josh couldn't sell this house in Bel Air shaped strangely like a boat not only is it shaped as a ship but it probably needs about a million dollars worth of upgrades looks like the freakin Love Boat in here this thing is straight out of the 80s this is a tough sell man you talk about a unique buyer how many people you know that are looking for a ship the more specific your house is the more difficult it is to sell the house absolutely everything is wrong with this Indiana House Hana Albert's of curb comm spends her day poring over real estate listings looking for the standouts what sidious about this one it's got a rotunda with pink metallic hues oh wow this is the Las Vegas one it's sort of as if you wouldn't need to leave your own home in order to get the vibe you would at the you know at the Venetian or just put a roulette wheel right there and you're right to go right behind the bar back at our baffling Indianapolis mega mansion yes I love that there's railings all around this but there's no railings going up the stairs you know great lights coming through on the place even listing agent Brian Sanders is confused by some of the rooms so here you have your side room your cell on yeah I'm not real sure what that room is used for how many rooms do you think you've said I'm not really sure what that room is used for well I think it just depends on the individual person and what they want to use the room for this isn't available anywhere else this isn't the only place where you can get this so I have to imagine that whoever is going to come here and buy this is a little bit eccentric has some money and wants to live in Indianapolis and you have to be able to put all of those things together in order to make it work but this was all part of a 20-year construction project taken on by the estate's original owner a convicted pimp turned construction magnate what do you think he was going for do you think he had a vision of what all of this collectively would be I just don't think he cared what people think in fact this house is so ugly oh look I'm in a fish tank it's become a local legend so do you pass the Kessler estate on your way to work of course if you're rich enough to build a mansion like this oh maybe you're not too worried about resale values imagine you just bought this house but for the rest of us for most people in this country their house is their biggest investment in their life you want to make sure that investments gonna make you money when you sell that house rule number one keep it simple you got to keep a house one particular style if you're going for modern stick to it the whole way through the house number two landscaping is key you got to work on the curb appeal this house for instance is horrible curb appeal the first thing you see when you pull up is like this Rock frontage of extra rocks all over the land I mean it's it's horrible rule number three don't make it personal make it as unspecific as possible beautiful colors take out all the the personal stuff throughout the house except this house in general is personal so at that point I don't know maybe take a bulldozer to it this isn't gonna be easy to sell well I think there's challenges for sure but allenge is I think I'm putting it lightly well I think as a realtor though you know do you always want the easy necessarily sale or do you want to maybe work a little harder and have the challenges something like this you're ready for Indianapolis million dollar listing I think I could handle it yeah for sure Bert Nightline I'm Rebecca Jarvis in Indianapolis

Channel: ABC News

Views: 2,465,710

Rating: 4.5418463 out of 5

Keywords: Real, Estate, Mansions, Homes, Sale, Rebecca Jarvis, Nightline, ABC, ABCNews, News, US, Real Estate (Industry), Residential

Id: vs2DTW8mn1E

Length: 7min 23sec (443 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/DavidGjam]

Kinda sad about that bel-air "boat" house. It's a nice looking house, it just doesn't perfectly fit contemporary tastes. I think it looks better than most modern interior design

[u/mendoza91234]

That was a fun watch.