The Supersized Closet Is Hitting the Market

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | MONDAY, AUGUST 08, 2016

Some of the priciest condos in the nation are touting a new must-have: Spacious master-suite closets.

Developers in the luxury market are going beyond 24-inch-deep walk-in closets to create lavish, spacious havens where home owners can spend more time in.

Read more: Is a Larger Closet Worth More Than a Prime Location?

“The new closets of choice are full-fledged dressing rooms the size of stand-alone bedrooms, arrangements with two separate walk-ins for couples, and windowed rooms with precious natural light and views that were once reserved for the main living areas,” The New York Times reports.

For example, in a condo project at 10 Sullivan in SoHo in New York City, the master suite closet measures 9 by 16 feet. Also, in the Walker Tower, another condo building in New York City, the Property Markets Group has created closets that are “probably three times what you would consider a reasonable walk-in closet.”

“We’ve reduced the size of the bedrooms and pushed that space into the closets because the luxury buyer is looking for that large closet space,” Kevin Maloney, the founder of the Property Markets Group, told The New York Times. “They want the big walk-in, with a shoe counter in the middle and all the bells and whistles.”

Master bedroom walk-in closets in new luxury apartments are about 30 percent larger than they were in the last development cycle, estimates Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm. The overall size of new apartments, however, have only grown by about 10 percent, he notes.

Also, new developments aren’t the only ones jumping on the supersized closet trend.

“We see people who will bunk their kids, and then make the second kid bedroom a dressing room,” Melanie Charlton, chief executive and founder of Clos-ette, a custom closet company, told The New York Times. “They’re giving themselves that master suite they always wanted.” And some luxury buyers are willing to pay a hefty price to have the most ultra-luxurious closet too. Charlton says she had a client who spent about $200,000 having Clos-ette and an interior designer convert a former bedroom into a dressing room.

Source: “Closets As Big as Some Apartments,” The New York Times (Aug. 5, 2016)