July
opens with
huge news
-seriously, in the highest closed sale for a home in LA County history at $120 Million. The Holmby Hills mansion built by Aaron Spelling is the largest residence in LA, and one of the largest in the nation --
1,500 sq ft larger than the White House
. This joins a recent rash of other luxury closed sales naming Ellen Degeneres and Adam Levine as players in a $42.5M swap joining another $40M sale the previous week elsewhere. Also, a Trousdale villa closed at $70M in Beverly Hills which kept the ultra-high-end momentum going.
How else the World?
Good question.
Sinking sales volume is prevalent in all other price categories except the lowest.
This year's first 5 months report 230 sales of homes above $5M. Last year’s same 5 months saw 273 sales --a noticeable cooling. Above $10M the slowdown is more significant with almost 25% drop in number of closed sales.
There is good news among the numbers.
The Westside of LA has seen an increase in listings marking 9,380 available single family homes now, versus 8,868 this time last year. By end of May in 2018, 4,967 homes sold, compared to this year same time with 4,771 sold --- not too bad.
So you see it isn’t falling off the cliff by any means
, just a clear softening / adjustment. And, the median sale price actually rose a tidbit, from $850,000 to $865,000.
And lest we think Ms. Ecclestone had it too easy selling her mansion for $120M, she began trying back in 2015, over 4 and half years ago.
So in the end, nothing is easy!
Hope you ease into a pleasant Summer and enjoy all the benefits this wonderful city & state offer us.
-Ernie
