A few short years ago, there was a fire. Abbey Hill, the wooden alpine-styled condominiums on the hill near the stop and sock, suffered a casualty. The cause of the fire wasn’t necessarily known, though foul play was not a consideration, and when the smoke cleared the building that housed four condominiums at 850 Hillside was no more. I had a unit for sale there at the time, and my lockbox burned with the rest of it. My insurance company doubted my insistence that the lockbox had a key in it and one hundred thousand dollars cash, but still.
That building was rebuilt, and owners had the chance to rebuild their old interiors. It might have been fun, it was certainly an annoyance, but when all was said and done Abbey Hill had one brand new building. A unit in that new building sold early this year, a bit north of $260k, and my sellers turned builders were once again sellers. $299k was the price to buy a two bedroom unit with a transitional third bedroom/den, attached garage, fireplace, and all that new. It was an aggressive price, sure, but if someone wished for a new unit at Abbey Hill they could either buy ours or head to the beach and pound the ground.
That unit sold this week for $295k. The sellers weren’t all that interested in selling, because Abbey Hill is a most pleasant place to watch the Fontana goings on. The buyers are young, as many of our buyers tend to be these days, and they felt the appeal of a new unit in an established setting to be too much to resist. I’m happy for them for their new vacation home, just as I am happy for my sellers that now move on to whatever is next.
Abbey Hill has gone through some gyrations over recent years. The bottom of this last cycle inflicted some serious damage at this condominium complex, but buyers have returned in a very big way. There are no lake rights at this hill. Lake rights. Those are magical words here, as the market has been primed for generations to seek private, exclusive access to that beautiful big body of water. It’s hard to break with that history, to consider something that doesn’t have access to be a vacation home setting, but Abbey Hill has successfully positioned itself as just that: The rare association to not have any specific access that still feels and functions like a vacation home community.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of Abbey Hill. I like the style of the units, which I earlier described as Alpine styled even though that has nothing to do with anything. The spaces are unique without being strange, the square footage ample without being large. It’s a wonderful hybrid development, and it’s approachable in terms of acquisition cost and ownership cost, and that’s why so many people are drawn to it. Fontana is always desirable, and if you don’t like the high amenity, high fee setting of Abbey Springs, trade a spring for a hill and you’ll accomplish very much the same thing.
Six units have sold here in the past 12 months, priced from the very low $160k to this sale at $295k. There are just three units for sale today, and if I’m a vacation home buyer seeking something economical, I’m heading straight to Abbey Hill. That’s not true. First, I’d head to my office, which seems strange for me to do but in this scenario I’m being you. You should head to me. I’ll be here, at this office. But only sometimes, so you should probably call first.