Members of the real estate community, along with Bellevue Mayor Conrad Lee, gathered at the top of Cougar Mountain for a groundbreaking ceremony July 25 to introduce a new luxury home community to Bellevue. The Belvedere, developed by CamWest, a Toll Brothers company, will bring 81 homes to the Eastside – an area the developers say is high in demand.

“[Bellevue] has good schools, good businesses,” said Eric Campbell, president of CamWest. “It’s where people want to live and there’s not much land close in.”

The property was originally acquired by four different banks after previous owners went through foreclosure. CamWest had interest in the property, but the banks were unwilling to give property loans for the troubled assets.

But after CamWest merged with Toll Brothers, a national housing developer, in November 2011, CamWest finally had the financial backing – $20 million – to purchase the land for development.

In February 2012, CamWest and Toll Brothers announced their plans for building a luxury home community that would include 81 half-acre properties, containing lot sizes ranging from 12,000 to 29,000 square feet. Nestled into the side of Cougar Mountain Wildland Park, the homes would have a view of the Olympic Mountains, Newcastle Golf Course and the Seattle skyline.

The homes are expected to range from $900,000 to $1.3 million.

Belvedere construction follows a report from Seattle-based online real estate company Zillow, Inc. showing the U.S. housing market is on an upward trend for the first time since 2007, with home values increasing 0.2 percent since June 2011 (Bellevue saw a 2.5 percent increase in home values in the last year).

But despite a slow housing market recovery, CamWest and Toll Brothers do not anticipate a hard sell for their homes.

“The homeowner they’re going after, the economy in that bracket is more stable,” said Josh Caitin, spokesman for CamWest and Toll Brothers.

Homes will be sold on a pre-sale basis with construction beginning after homeowners buy their plot. CamWest anticipates it will take seven to nine months for homes to be built, once homeowners purchase their land and permits are acquired. For homeowners who need a quicker turn around, development is expected to take five months.

But the speed of development also depends on what customers want.

“There hasn’t been this kind of demand [in this area] in decades,” Campbell said. “It really depends on customer demand and buyers are very discriminatory and its hard to determine exactly what they want.”

Prices are expected to be released by CamWest Saturday, July 28.

For more information on the Belvedere, visit belvedereview.com.