It seems everyone wants a Hummer of a home, with plenty willing to spend the extra dollar for the finest home money can buy. Here's a snippet from today's first part of the new Inman News series on luxury homes (subscription required after today):

America's luxury housing is on steroids, with 10,000-square-foot homes and eight-figure prices becoming commonplace. In the luxury market, it's not about keeping up with the Joneses, building a two-story ranch and putting up a white picket fence. The stakes are higher and the fences are made of Australian jara. Now it's more about keeping up with the high-tech moguls next door: the Bill Gateses and the Larry Ellisons.

"We've experienced the overly large home phenomenon for some time," said William Hablinski, founding partner of Hablinski + Manion Architecture, a luxury housing design firm focusing mostly on the Pacific Northwest. Hablinski said 15,000- to 24,000-square-foot houses are the norm for his firm.

"I've had 60,000- to 70,000-foot houses. It's really almost obscene," the architect said.

Such projects easily can cost $35 million for the home construction alone. With the price of the land, the house could be valued at $50 to $70 million, he said.

"They're building palaces," said Yolande Citro, an agent with Triangle Properties who sells luxury homes in Miami Beach, of her clients. "Star Island and India Creek Island (in the Miami Beach area) have lots of land. They are building gigantic homes, huge master bedrooms with 'his and her' bathrooms, pools, six-car garages with private apartments on top, maid's quarters and cottages for guests."

The former Atherton, Calif., home of Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, has seven bedrooms and 7.5 baths on 2.8 acres, with a Japanese teahouse, Japanese gardens, waterfalls, a koi pond, an in-ground spa, a pool and a tennis court. It's currently for sale at $29.5 million.

Such extravagant homes are spreading. The luxury home market is booming, with Coldwell Banker's sales volume of homes valued at $1 million or more surging to an all-time high of $35.5 billion in 2004. The company's previous record volume for luxury home sales was $23.3 billion in 2003.

Luxury home buyers typically understand that a home really is the best possible personal investment they could make. Find out how to find that lusciously lavish luxury home you've been dreaming of making your own.

-John Mudd
"Mr. Real Estate"