Luxury market still red hot
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
While the rest of Southern California is being buffeted by the Santa Ana winds of the housing downturn, the luxury end of the market is blissfully humming along.
Sorry for the turgidly mixed metaphors. But I just received the latest sales numbers for the Westside and it appears that sales of multimillion-dollar homes are outpacing last year’s stats by a tad.
Year to date, 206 sales closed at $5 million or more, compared to 211 for all of 2006. What’s more, 50 of those sales were for more than $10 million, the same as for all of last year.
So far, the biggest sale this year was to actor Tom Cruise, who paid $35 million for a Beverly Hills estate last spring. Joining him in the cavalcade of multi-multimillion-dollar deals this year was Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com and, if you haven’t heard, the Beckhams, who paid about $22 million for the former mansion of Northrop Grumman chief Kent Kresa, according to county records.
‘Looks like the sub-prime debacle has not hurt the high end yet,’ says Cecelia Kennelly-Waeschle, a Sotheby’s International Realty agent in Malibu, who is the keeper of ‘the list.’
For the last decade or so, Kennelly-Waeschle has been keeping track of high-end sales stretching from Bel-Air to Malibu to Marina del Rey. Her list is often more thorough than what’s available from DataQuick Information Systems, because she can get her Realtor buddies to reveal the sales prices on deals that they successfully keep out of the public record.
A couple of the latest transactions included one for $27 million in the exclusive gated community of Beverly Park and four deals in the double-digit millions in Brentwood Country Estates, the area’s other exclusive gated community. Also, the late Johnny Carson’s estate in Malibu sold earlier this year for a cool $33 million.
But these deals would pale in comparison to a couple of current listings that are striving for the mantle of biggest residential deal in U.S. history. The big Hot Property news this year was the listing of the former Hearst mansion at $165 million (pictured above) by the brokerage Westside Estate Agency. The 6.5-acre compound known as Beverly House was featured in the famous horse head scene from ‘The Godfather.’
And then there’s Fleur de Lys, the Holmby Hills estate as ornate as its name on sale for a mere $125 million. Coldwell Banker top producer Joyce Rey and Windermere Properties agent Robert Kass shared the listing.
Word has it that there’s been at least a dozen showings, which is saying something because no one gets in the front door without proof they have the means to buy it.
-- Posted by guest blogger Annette Haddad