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Selling Big-Ticket Dream Homes

MOOSIC — When you consider that the average price of a home for sale in our area is around $170,000, selling a home listed at a half million dollars or mo...

MOOSIC -- When you consider that the average price of a home for sale in our area is around $170,000, selling a home listed at a half million dollars or more can be a challenge. But there are plenty of homes like that for sale right now.

A home along Glenmaura Drive in Moosic is listed at $899,000. It's one of about 60 homes for sale in Lackawanna County right now that are $500,000 and up.

A 7,000-square-foot home with 120 acres outside Clarks Summit can be yours, if you have at $2.3 million.

You can sum up this dream home in one word: magnificent.

"We wanted to walk into the home and as you walk in, there are actually three sets of French doors that line up with each other."

Cathy Wendolowski and her husband Paul are among those In Lackawanna County selling high-end homes, ones listed at a half million dollars or more.

A 24-room mansion built in 1927 in the Waverly area? It's listed at nearly $1.7 million.

Nearly $1.2 million is the asking price for a seven-bedroom, five-bath home outside Clarks Summit.

Realtors believe even the successful and financially well-off baby boomers now want to sell. What was an ideal home for a family growing up is too large now.

"They're going to different parts of the country, whatever they have to do. They got kids in college and they're trying to pay for their kids' tuition. They have all different reasons why they want to sell," explained Louise Wesolowski of ERA Real Estate,

Mat Swientisky's home along Sugarbush Road in the Waverly area was built in 1976 for Marty Sugerman of the Sugerman's Eynon Drugstore fame.

The house right now is listed at $700,000 after many updates and renovations.

"Blew the ceiling out, put the skylights in, put circle-top windows in, remodeled five bathrooms."

The challenge for people selling homes like this though, is that the job market in Lackawanna County does not really support higher-end homes.

A luxurious log home and one right next door off Lily Lake road in the Waverly area were both listed at over $1 million at one time. Both are on the market now for under $850,000 each.

At one time, the asking price for a property along Meadowside Lane in North Abington Township was $711,000. The owners dropped the price to $700,000, then $697,000, then $649,000. The property finally sold last month for $555,000, more than $150,000 less than the original asking price.

So who eventually buys these homes? Executives from out of the area, doctors, those who use their home as their office, too.

And 88 percent of those buyers search online.

One realtor recalls one time when she had no eye contact whatsoever with her buyers.

"They were on their computers, they were texting, and we did a whole, everything without him even looking at us. That's the new buyer."

And that's the kind of buyer who could end up making just the right offer on Cathy Wendolowski's home, and then this dream home suddenly belongs  to someone else.

Four months is the average time a house is on the market in Lackawanna County. For homes listed at $500,000 or more, it usually takes longer, sometimes years.

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