Call me an optimist, and many readers do, but it seems like the next housing segment to begin showing signs of recovery could be the luxury housing market. By “show signs” I mean just that—signs, or hints, of recovery, not actual recovery, which could be a year or more off.

Or it could be that a bunch of millionaires are just tired of that Italian Villa and they’re looking to make a move.

A recent search of properties over $1 million for sale in Long Beach yielded 87 listings. That’s more than in recent memory, and it makes one think that some of these sellers already know, or think they know, what’s about to happen in the luxury market. Granted, what they may think they know is that the luxury market is about to experience the foreclosure rush that’s been occurring at the lower levels of the market. But again, I’d like to take the optimistic slant, and insist on believing that they know the “move up buyer” is about to come back into the market.

One thing’s for sure, selling a million-dollar-plus home has seldom been as tough as it has in the last few years. “There’s been 120 million-dollar-plus properties that have expired already this year,” Richard Daskam, with Keller Williams Realty, says of the listings in Long Beach. “Definitely there’re a lot of people trying to get their properties sold in the million-dollar market.”

Daskam notes that the majority of those homes that were pulled off the market were there for over 100 days, and “at least a dozen of them were on the market at least a year.”

Daskam believes many of the home sellers are folks who are looking to take advantage of the low prices in the market at all ranges and they want to take the opportunity to move up, say into Newport Coast, where homes in the multimillion range are common. “I would say that they want to sell theirs to move up to the next big one; they’re looking to take advantage of the softer prices on the move up,” Daskam says.

But one problem with owning a $1 million-plus home is that you can’t rent it out and move into the new one you want to buy, which may be one reason why some many big-dollar homes are on the market, and sitting there. Worthy of noting in support of that argument is the fact that only 21 of the 120 homes that expired were vacant, or about one in six.

One of the biggest price tags on listed Long Beach homes comes from a pair of ocean view properties on two lots at 5456-5460 E. The Toledo in Naples. The properties were owned by HMO pioneer and Long Beach philanthropist Dr. Robert Gumbiner, who helped found the Museum of Latin American Art. Gumbiner, who died early this year, combined the properties in the 1980s.

The larger of the properties, 5446, is a six-bedroom, eight-bath home on 10,300-square-foot lot. It’s listed at just over $7.9 million. Features include limestone flooring, a paddle court, large grass yard, a giant stone patio, an exercise pool and spa and two private boat docks. The 5460 four-bedroom, two bath property sits on 7,100 square feet, and is for sale for $3.9 million.

The listing agents are Coldwell Banker Coastal Alliance Realtors Kym Elder and Erik Bueno. Elder says it’s not clear if all the high-dollar listings out there are due to confidence in the luxury market. “Yes and no,” explains Elder. “It depends on the property and there isn’t a whole lot of good inventory out there.”

Another Long Beach property well into the luxury class is a five-bedroom, four-bath Virginia Country Club home listed for $2.6 million. The home at 4531 N. Country Club Lane sits on a 9,000 square foot lot and offers views of the fairway, with features like a master suite retreat with balcony, cathedral ceilings and the master bathroom also has a view of the golf course.

A Peninsula home at 5616 Bay Shore Walk is listed for $4.2 million. The 5,134 square foot lot bay view home is listed by sellers as a “Tuscan Villa,” and features a beach room on the first level that opens out to the bay, as well as an old world wine cellar, a fire place, and a guest suite and luxury bathroom. The second level has a gourmet kitchen, a formal dining room, and distressed hickory wood floors. The third level, which boasts the property’s best water views, has a master bedroom suite with two private patios, dual walk in closets and a wet bar.