Steve Harvey will be on vacation until...
Steve Harvey will be on vacation until Aug. 20. While he’s gone, this space will be filled with excerpts from his book “The Best of Only in L.A.,” just published by the L.A. Times Syndicate. Here are some items from the “Real Estate” chapter:
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DON’T MESS WITH THIS CHEF: An L.A. high-rise condo development offered buyers a four-course dinner for six designed by the building’s “Cordon Bleu chef Derek Chadwick,” complete with crystal, fine china, linen and fresh flowers.
Anyone with a complaint about the service could take it to the building’s security chief. That was also chef Chadwick.
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FLUSHED WITH PRIDE: The ZIP Codes with the highest average number of bathrooms per house, calculated by Dataquick Information Systems:
* 90210 (Beverly Hills): 4.12.
* 90077 (Bel-Air): 3.85.
* 91361 (Westlake Village): 3.73.
* 90020 (Hancock Park): 3.61.
* 91302 (Calabasas): 3.40.
* 91436 (Van Nuys): 3.22.
* 90049 (Bel-Air): 3.13.
* 91301 (Agoura): 3.12.
* 90212 (Beverly Hills): 3.09.
* 90024 (Westwood, Holmby Hills): 3.02.
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CHATTY PROPERTY: In Encino, the houses themselves spoke through recording devices embedded in the lawn signs. “The house told me the price was $399,000,” reported visitor Greg Horbachevsky. “I told it, ‘I can’t hear you.’ ”
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CAR WITH A VIEW: The owners of a house listed for $500,000 found they had an aesthetic problem when it came time for potential buyers to visit: a woman was living in a car parked outside their residence. In fact, she had been camping out there for several years.
The couple offered the woman $100 to take a vacation. She indignantly refused, telling the couple: “You haven’t been good neighbors. You’ve never even invited me into the house. You’re so chummy with the other neighbors. And you’ve known me longer than them.”
A few days later, the car-dweller, apparently recovered from her snit, gave the couple the name and phone number of someone who might want to buy the house. It was the neighborly thing to do.
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LIST OF THE DAY: Some unusual real estate listings:
* A rental ad in the Hollywood Reporter boasted that the lucky occupant would be able to “walk to Spago.”
* A house for sale in Torrance came complete with “walking closets.”
* The features listed in an ad for a mobile home included a “putty green.”
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IDEAL FOR PROCRASTINATORS: A Manhattan Beach man whose home was on the market for $669,000 posted a sign that said: “Dropping Our Price $1,000 a Day or 69 Cents a Minute.” Naturally, no one bit right away--or later, for that matter. After 70 days, he quit dropping the price.
miscelLAny:
Is nothing sacred? Several business cards bearing the name of a Santa Monica real estate agent were found in the city’s public library, inserted between the pages of such books as “How to Cash In on the Coming Housing Boom.”
