You’ve likely heard about the Goldman Sachs executive who has put his Nantucket estate up for sale, asking a whopping $55 million for the 5.75-acre waterfront property, which comes with a main house, guesthouse, and two garages, among other amenities.

If someone actually pays that amount, it will by far beat the $26.5 million record sale price reached on the island last year.

I don’t know about you, but this story has had me indulging in some fantasy real estate purchases.

Though Nantucket is a lovely place, I’m not sure I’d buy a $55 million home on the island – if I had that kind of money to spend, that is. I grew up here in Massachusetts, so I’d want to spend that money someplace a little more exotic. I’m thinking palm trees, soft sandy beaches, some place you can hear steel-pan drums.

My sights are set on St. John, a lovely island of about 19 square miles in the US Virgin Islands. It’s right near St. Thomas, but unlike that island, St. John’s port is too shallow to allow cruise ships to pull into the harbor. There is also a national park that protects huge chunks of the island. Anyway, you can buy a vacation home there for under $3 million … which would, if I’m playing with a multimillion-dollar budget, leave me room to buy a guesthouse for visiting friends and budget enough money to travel to the Caribbean regularly.

Or maybe I really want to buy a little villa in Tuscany …

At a time when the financial markets are, shall we say, a little messed up, and the housing market is still in flux, I’d like to know where you’d make a fantasy real estate purchase. Would you want to help set a new real estate record on Nantucket, or would you look elsewhere on the globe?

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