Martha Stewart enters the world of real estate

Paying for prestige?
Experts say the Stewart development, where top-priced houses will cost $100,000 less than in the Deere neighborhood, will add a touch of distinction to less wealthy consumers who like the prestige associated with the Stewart name.

“If this indicates it’s a reflection of the superior taste of the house’s owner, then they’ll go for it,” said Wilfred Amaldoss, an associate professor of marketing at Duke University. “If people believe she’s of a higher social group and has better taste ... it’s an indication for them that they are also part of that group.”

Mitzi Montoya-Weiss, a North Carolina State University marketing professor, lives in Cary herself and believes the suburb is the perfect market “filled with a huge bunch of conspicuous consumers.”

Buyers will be “the newly well-to-do crowd. They are very aware of style, fashion in general. They’ve got extra income to spend,” she said.

“Everything’s a fad. It depends on what time frame you want to look at,” she said. “Does a homeowner concern themselves with, ’How am I going to sell this house (in the future)?’ Not always. I’m thinking about, ’I love this home and I want to live here now.”’

KB Home and Cary officials say they’re not worried the development will suffer now or later from anything that might tarnish Stewart’s image, such as her conviction and five-month prison term for lying to authorities about a stock sale.

Mayor Ernie McAlister said Stewart’s handling of the matter, including her decision to serve her prison sentence while her conviction is appealed, will help it be viewed years from now as merely an aberration.

And Stewart herself believes that the reputation associated with her products will last even if her celebrity fades. To make her point, she gestured to the tastefully appointed showroom displaying her fourth collection of furniture.

“When you’re sitting on this couch, you don’t know it’s a Martha Stewart couch unless someone tells you,” she said. “But you can be sure it will last, it’s well made, it’s covered in beautiful fabric, it’s comfortable and it fulfills the homeowner’s dream of having a comfortable, practical, usable piece of furniture.”

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