Reported $147 Million Home Price Would Set New U.S. Record

By Bill Chappell

Published May 7, 2014 at 10:07 AM EDT

The stock market has been on a winning streak — and that means these are busy times in exclusive U.S. housing markets. How else to explain three homes that each reportedly sold for more than $100 million in the past three months?

News that hedge fund founder Barry Rosenstein is buying an East Hampton, N.Y., property for $147 million prompted Bloomberg News to declare, "The U.S. trophy-home market is shattering price records this year."

"In the megahome market, $100 million is the new $50 million," CNBC reports.

Rosenstein's purchase made headlines over the weekend, as the New York Post reported that he reached a record-setting price for an "18-acre beachfront property — with formal gardens and a pond" at 60 Further Lane in East Hampton.

The house tops the Forbes list of the most expensive home sales in U.S. history. And four of the top five properties have changed hands since January 2013. Here are the other three:

$120 million for Copper Beech Farm in Greenwich, Conn.

$117.5 million for an estate in Woodside, Calif.

$102 million for a 50,000-square-foot residence in Holmby Hills, Calif.

Those numbers are gaudy. But proving that more money can indeed mean more problems, consider that last year, Copper Beech Farm made headlines for carrying more than $120 million in mortgage debt, as The New York Times reported.

As for what the rash of sales says about these financial times, Bloomberg reports:

"The world's richest people are moving cash to real estate as they seek havens for their wealth. In the U.S., an improving economy and stocks at a record are bolstering confidence among the affluent. Home purchases of $2 million or more jumped 33 percent in January and February from a year earlier to the highest level for the two-month period in data going back to 1988, according to an analysis by DataQuick."