Piedmont Historic Homes

Higher interest rates are inflicting pain on home buyers and sellers alike. Sellers are having to lower their prices, but any benefit to buyers is largely, perhaps totally, cancelled out by higher mortgage payments. This week’s closing on the George Grimsley House in Greensboro is a striking example of the impact.

The Grimsley house is a big Queen Anne/Colonial Revival in the Fisher Park Historic District, built in 1907. It’s named after a historic figure almost synonymous with the city through Grimsley High School. I wrote about it after it was listed — it’s an outstanding house. The initial price in February was $1.295 million ($363/square foot). That was definitely at the high end, but it didn’t seem unlikely for a top-of-the-line home in a high-demand historic district. It was for sale for 10 months, longer than you might expect. The closing price was $805,000, a stunning $490,000 below the initial price (38 percent).

Two years ago, the Grimsley house very well might have gone for $1.295 million, maybe more. Interest rates were low, and demand was insane. Today, sellers are tempering their expectations, and reductions in asking prices are widespread. But some sellers are still pushing the upper limits of their neighborhoods’ price range. Here are five outstanding houses, all for sale for at least four months, still priced at the high end or beyond for their neighborhoods.

Update: As I was writing this, two of the sellers took the hint the market had been giving them and withdrew their listings.