Wilbur Development LLC bought the penthouse three years ago for about $13.1 million as an investment, after a previous buyer, a Florida real estate developer, backed out of buying it for $14 million. That buyer said the unit had too little sunlight. Wilbur first listed the property for $16.9 million in October 2008.
It is possible Wilbur might have even lost money on the deal, although there is little information in public records about how the company financed the transaction and company officials did not return calls seeking comment. For example, condo fees for the penthouse run more than $10,000 a month, and Wilbur owned the unit for 33 months.
Right now it doesn’t have a stick of furniture in it. In real estate parlance, it is “raw’’ space, empty and unfinished, as Wilbur Development bought it as an investment and never moved in.
The new owner intends to be one of the first to live there, according to Campion. He is Henry Rosen, a real estate lawyer at the Boston firm of Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP. Rosen declined to comment.
The penthouse deal is helping to make 2011 a good year for sales of luxury condos, especially those of $10 million or more, real estate brokers said, while the rest of the market remains in the doldrums.
Debra Taylor Blair, president of the Listing Information Network, which tracks sales of Boston properties, said the luxury market has picked up. Citywide, the sale of luxury units increased 14 percent, with median selling prices up nearly 10 percent in the second quarter of this year, according to preliminary results analyzed by Taylor’s company.
“We had so many people on the sidelines for close to three years, and those people who have been on the sidelines I think are feeling a renewed confidence in the real estate market and there isn’t any benefit to waiting any longer as prices go up,’’ Taylor Blair said.
So far this year, Campion said, she has sold four other units at the at the Mandarin, at prices ranging from $3.5 million to $12.2 million.
