Bel Air's $105M Portfolio: Sold for Half

JordynOkay, David. $105 million.

DavidThat's the ask, yeah.

JordynThe bid, 54.4 million.

DavidHalf.

JordynBarely half.

DavidThis is Crown Bel Air we're talking about. 15.9 acres, nine parcels up in the hills.

JordynNine parcels, one owner.

DavidNine gates, one gigantic property tax bill, presumably.

JordynSomebody's accountant is having a rough month.

DavidThe Real Deal reported the bidding closed, and this thing is now the priciest residential contract in the county.

JordynWait, say that again. Priciest contract at half the ask?

DavidHalf the ask.

JordynThat's not a rounding error, David. That's $50 million vanishing between the listing sheet and the signature.

DavidVanishing or just being honest. Depends which side of the table you're sitting on.

JordynYou're listening to Listing Price. I'm Jordyn.

DavidI'm David, and we've got a fire sale story on our hands.

JordynA 159-acre one.

DavidStick around.

JordynOkay, so picture this before we get to the auction stuff. Nine gates, one long private drive that keeps climbing until you're basically staring down at the Bel Air Country Club.

DavidAnd that's just the entrance. The Real Deal reported this whole assemblage traces back to Bassam Alghanim, a Kuwaiti businessman who started buying up lots there in 1979. 1979.

JordynThat's almost 50 years of just quietly buying the next door house. Basically, yeah, piece by piece until he had seven separate homes stitched

Davidinto one property. Seven houses?

JordynWait, so he didn't tear anything down? Doesn't sound like it.

DavidHe kept them standing, kept adding. That's dedication or an obsession, depending who you ask.

JordynThat's dedication or an obsession, depending who you ask.

DavidLittle of both, probably.

JordynOkay, but who has that kind of patience or that kind of cash?

DavidThat same report puts his net worth around 1.4 billion, though that number's from 2018, so who knows where it sits now.

JordynA billion four back then. Sure, buy the whole hillside. Why not?

DavidRight.

JordynAnd I bet the driveway alone eats up an acre.

DavidWouldn't surprise me. With seven separate pools, you've also got seven pool situations, so somebody's got a very busy pool guy.

JordynOne guy, seven pools? No, thanks.

DavidEfficient, at least.

JordynAnd the views, Bel Air on one side, a Hollywood Hills sightline on the other. You've basically got a pool deck at every house looking at a different skyline.

DavidThat's the sell. There's more to it, though.

JordynWait, wait. Before mechanics, tell me about the neighbor situation. You've got that much acreage. Who's even next door?

DavidNobody. That's the point. The assemblage swallowed the neighbors decades ago.

JordynRuthless.

DavidThat same piece also had it heading into Concierge Auctions once it hit the market.

JordynRight. And that's unusual for a listing like this.

DavidConcierge Auctions' own listing page says it was structured as a no-reserve sale, and Josh Altman and Matthew Altman had the listing.

JordynNo reserve, meaning?

DavidMeaning there's no secret floor price protecting the seller. Whatever the top bid is, that's the deal, full stop.

JordynSo Alghanim just trusted the room?

DavidTrusted the auction house's structure more like, and that structure has its own rules for how a bid on a nine-property package actually gets locked in.

JordynExcept he didn't wait around for some perfect private buyer. He went straight to auction.

DavidThat's what stands out to me. A guy who spent nearly 50 years assembling this thing decides the fastest exit is a bidding war with no floor.

JordynIt almost feels like he wanted somebody to just take the whole headache off his hands, gates and pools and all.

DavidMeta track. Assembling nine parcels is one kind of project. Running seven households as a single asset is a different one entirely.

JordynOkay, now I need to know how that actually works. Like, are people bidding on the whole thing at once or piece by piece?

DavidThat's exactly the mechanics we need to walk through before we get to what it actually sold for.

JordynDo it. Okay, so here's how Concierge Auctions actually structures this because it's not just one big bid for the whole thing.

DavidWait, so someone could have walked away with just one house?

JordynExactly. Each parcel goes up individually first. Bidders can win a single mansion on its own.

DavidAnd the package only happens if-

JordynThe reporting on that auction structure says if the combined top bid for the whole quilt beats the sum of all those individual high bids added together, the package sale is one. Otherwise, it just breaks apart into separate sales.

DavidThat's a weird incentive structure.

JordynIt's designed so the seller never does worse than the piecemeal total, in theory.

DavidIn theory, but think about who's actually in that room. If you're bidding on the package, you already know the individual numbers are soft. That's the whole reason the package bid even makes sense.

JordynSure, but that also means the package bidder has to clear a real bar.

DavidDoes it, though? Because if the individual bids come in low, say, Nobody wants to live next to six other people's pools-

JordynThere it is.

DavidThe absence of it means the package bid has to clear as too low too. This isn't protecting the seller's downside. It's just making the discount look procedural.

JordynI mean, that's one read.

DavidIt's the read. You dress up a soft market with a mechanism, and suddenly it's an auction result instead of a markdown.

JordynCounterpoint, a mechanism still needs bidders to show up at all. Nobodys forced into that room.

DavidFair. Nobodys forced. But once youre in a No-Reserve Auction, youve already told the market youll take less than ask.

JordynYouve told the market youll take the highest number anyone offers, whatever it is.

DavidSame thing, dressed differently.

JordynAgree to disagree on the dressing. Here's the timeline, though. Bidding opened May first and ran through May thirteenth, so this wasn't a one-night gavel drop. This was two weeks of parcels and package offers getting compared in real time.

DavidTwo weeks of people watching the individual numbers come in and deciding whether to swing for the whole thing.

JordynRight, and that's the pressure point. Every day those individual bids sit low, the package bid gets easier to justify.

DavidWhich loops right back to my point.

JordynThink about it from a single parcel bidder's side, though. You show up, you win one of the nine mansions outright, and then two weeks later find out the whole thing got swept into a package deal. Does that bidder just walk away empty-handed?

DavidThat's the risk you take walking into a no-reserve structure like this. The individual win only holds if nobody blows past the combined number. If the package clears it, the single winner presumably gets outbid on the whole, and the auction house resolves it their way. That's the trade-off for showing up early instead of waiting to see how the whole thing shakes out.

JordynSo there's an entire subset of people in that two-week window who thought they'd bought a mansion and then got outbid by a spreadsheet.

DavidPretty much, which is why I keep coming back to who actually benefits from a structure like that. It's not obviously the seller, and it's definitely not the guy who thought he'd won a single parcel.

JordynIt does. So that's the mechanism. Parcels first, package only if it clears the sum, two weeks to shake out.

DavidSo that's the mechanism. Here's what it actually produced when the bidding closed.

JordynOkay, drum roll. What did it actually close at?

DavidThe Real Deal's report from this week says that top bid pencils out to twelve hundred and eighty-seven dollars a square foot.

JordynWait, per square foot, not the whole number.

DavidPer square foot, and that's before we even get into which addresses are actually in the box.

JordynHold on. There's addresses attached to this now?

DavidOne-oh-five-oh Bel Air Court, one-thousand-thirty-one Bel Air Court. Those are two of the ones named in the filing.

JordynSomebody's about to have their driveway on every real estate Instagram by tonight.

DavidProbably already do.

JordynSo is twelve hundred and eighty-seven dollars a foot good for that stretch of Bel Air? Bad? Ugly? Walk me through it.

DavidOn paper, it reads low for that part of the hill, but you can't really comp it against a single mansion. You're pricing a whole cluster of structures that never gets assembled this way twice.

JordynSo there's no clean comp to hold it against.

DavidThere isn't, which is exactly why an auction house gets to call the number fair and nobody can prove otherwise.

JordynBreak that down for a second, though. A buyer paying twelve hundred and eighty-seven dollars a foot for this isn't just buying square footage, right? They're buying nine addresses and whatever headache comes with managing that as one asset.

DavidRight. And that's part of why per square foot even feels like a strange unit for this deal. You're not really buying square footage. You're buying an assemblage that took someone fifty years to build. There isn't a version of typical buyer here.

JordynSo the number is almost decorative. It tells you something happened, not whether it was smart.

DavidExactly. It's a headline figure more than an appraisal.

JordynOkay, but here's what jumped out at me. The Real Deal says this made it the county's priciest residential contract that week based on the bid price.

DavidThe single highest number attached to any residential contract signed the week of September ninth.

JordynWait, so the discount property still out-priced everything else in the county that week?

DavidEverything. Every other closing, every other signing.

JordynThat's the part that flips the story for me.

DavidRight, because it stops being a story about one owner losing money.

JordynAnd starts being a story about what nine-figure inventory does when the open market won't move it.

DavidExactly. Concierge's no-reserve structure isn't a one-off tactic anymore. It's turning into the standard exit for stalled trophy listings.

JordynOkay, but play that out for me. If auctions become the default exit, does that change how agents price a listing from day one? Like, do you list higher knowing you'll auction it down eventually?

DavidThat's the cynical read, yeah. List the fantasy number, let the market discover the real one at auction, and you never technically failed on the open market because you never really tested it there.

JordynSo the six-month languishing chapter kind of disappears from the story.

DavidIt does. Nobody remembers the stale listing once there's a bidding war headline attached to it, even a bidding war for half the ask.

JordynThat's kind of unsettling, actually. The market forgets discounts fast if you wrap them in the right structure.

DavidFast, which is exactly why I think we'll see more of these before the year's out.

JordynThe backup plan is becoming the plan.

DavidIf you're sitting on something north of fifty, sixty million that's been languishing on the open market, you call an auction house before you cut the price a fourth time.

JordynBecause cutting the price in public tells everyone you're desperate. Running an auction tells everyone you're strategic.

DavidSame outcome, different press release.

JordynBrutal, but accurate.

DavidAnd this isn't gonna be the only listing doing this this year.

JordynWhich means we should stop staring at one hillside and go look at who else signed something this week.

DavidThere's a whole contract sheet waiting.

JordynCountywide. Let's see the scoreboard. Okay, so get this. Zoom out from Crown Bel Air and look at the whole county's contract sheet for the week.

DavidTwo hundred and fifty million dollars in signed contracts.

JordynWait, say that again.

DavidTwo hundred and fifty, and that's up one hundred and sixty-six percent year over year.

JordynA hundred and sixty-six percent? That's not a bump. That's a different market.

DavidMarcy Roth runs this. She's with Douglas Elliman's Eklund Gomes Team, and her weekly tracker is basically the county's contract scoreboard.

JordynRight. So when she says volume's up, people listen.

DavidHer own report frames it as buyers piling in on price cuts, even at the top end.

JordynWhich, plot twist, is exactly what we just watched happen in Bel Air.

DavidThat's my question. Is two-fifty a real thaw, or is it three or four big discounted auctions stacked into one week making the number look hot?

JordynI'd bet on the second one.

DavidMaybe, but volume's volume. The county doesn't care why the check got written, just that it did.

JordynSure, but if you strip out Crown Bel Air's chunk, does two-fifty still look like a headline?

DavidProbably not as dramatic. Still a real number, though.

JordynOkay, so walk me through what probably not as dramatic actually looks like in real terms. Are we talking two-fifty drops to one-eighty, one-fifty?

DavidI don't have the exact split, but even shaving off Crown Bel Air's fifty-four four, you're still sitting on a number that's up meaningfully year over year. It's just not a headline, more of a real trend.

JordynSo there's a real thaw buried somewhere under the auction noise. You're just saying we can't isolate it cleanly from one week's data.

DavidRight. One good week doesn't prove a trend, but it doesn't disprove one either. That's the annoying part about Scoreboard. They're accurate and useless for arguments at the same time.

JordynThat's such a David thing to say.

DavidI'll take it.

JordynFair.

DavidAnd here's the thing about a Scoreboard. It doesn't tell you who won, just who showed up.

JordynOkay, poet.

DavidI'm serious. A signed contract at a discount still counts as activity. Nobody's asking the sellers how they feel about it.

JordynNo way they're thrilled.

DavidDoubt it.

JordynAlthough if I'm a seller watching this Scoreboard, "still counts as activity" isn't exactly reassuring. I want confirmation buyers are paying real prices, not just showing up.

DavidSure, but activity's the precondition for prices recovering at all. You can't reprice a market that isn't transacting.

JordynSo genuine thaw or auction mirage, we're not settling that today.

DavidNope. Jury's out.

JordynEither way, next week's board will tell us more than arguing about this one will.

DavidAssuming it isn't just the same auction story wearing a different address.

JordynFine, but one more name just hit the board this week, and it's got its own tax wrinkle attached.

DavidOh, I like where this is going.

JordynBrentwood Park, big spec build.

DavidAnd LA's mansion tax did not skip this one.

JordynNope. Wait till you hear the number it owes.

DavidDon't tease it. Just tell me.

JordynNext. Okay, one more property before we lock the board.

DavidBrentwood Park, spec mansion, brand-new build, and it just closed at twenty-six million.

JordynTwenty-six million for a spec house? Who's building on spec at that number?

DavidSomebody with nerve. Thirteen thousand and seventy-seven square feet per Hoodline's reporting on the filing.

JordynThat's basically a small hotel.

DavidAnd the county didn't let it walk away clean. Hoodline reported the sale triggers a Measure ULA bite of one point four three million dollars.

JordynWait, one point four three million just in tax?

DavidJust the tax, on top of whatever the builder actually spent to get it built.

JordynSo the buyer writes two checks, one to the seller, one to the city.

DavidBasically, and the builder's margin just took a real hit before they've even banked the profit.

JordynWhat's the actual math there? Like, if you're all in construction plus land at, say, twenty and you sell at twenty-six, that tax bite alone eats over a fifth of your six million spread.

DavidThat's roughly the shape of it. You don't know their exact basis, but any way you slice a six million dollar gross spread, carving one point four three million straight off the top changes whether this project was actually worth building.

JordynWhich is a very different story than spec mansion sells for twenty-six million headline-wise.

DavidCompletely different story. The headline number and the builder's actual outcome are not the same conversation anymore in this city.

JordynSpec building at that price point feels like a bet with a very expensive tax attached now.

DavidIt is, and it's not the only place this week where the number came in lower than the ask.

JordynSwitching gears here, the pricemaxxing thing.

DavidRight. Marcy Roth's report flagged it directly this week. Buyers testing the ceiling, sellers testing patience.

JordynPricemaxxing, like the internet slang for optimizing everything.

DavidSame idea, except in real estate, it's tipping the other way into slashing, not Pricemaxxing.

JordynOkay, but is that a top-of-market phenomenon only, or are you seeing it further down too?

DavidThe report frames it as a high-end pattern specifically. Marcy Roth's write-up was about luxury contracts, so this isn't necessarily bleeding into every price tier, just the tier we cover on this show.

JordynSo agents list high hoping for the Trophy number.

DavidAnd then chase the market down when Nobody bites.

JordynEven at the top end? I figured seven, eight-figure listings had more patience built in.

DavidApparently not this week. Marcy Roth's report called it the theme across the County-wide high end. Cuts everywhere you looked.

JordynSo the mansion tax takes a Bite, and the market takes another one before you even close.

DavidDouble squeeze. Build expensive, sell high, get taxed hard, and still end up negotiating down.

JordynRough week to be a Spec builder in this town.

DavidOne spec house doesn't tell us the whole builder community's underwater, though.

JordynTrue, but if the tax bite keeps landing this hard, that's the kind of thing that changes what people build next.

DavidOr a great week, depending on which side of the escrow you're standing on.

JordynFair. Buyers are clearly calling the shots right now.

DavidTwo signings, two different stories, same underlying trend. Prices coming to meet reality.

JordynBrentwood Park's tax bill just makes it visible in dollars.

DavidExactly the kind of number you can't spin.

JordynThat's the board this week.

DavidTime to close it out.

JordynSo zoom out for a second. Bel Air's giving away nine digits, Brentwood eating a tax bite, and the whole board this week is sellers cutting checks smaller than they wanted.

DavidSame story, different zip code. Everybody's chasing the number down.

JordynDude, it's a fire sale with good landscaping.

DavidFair.

JordynNext week, we're watching to see whether this auction route turns into the new normal for stalled trophy listings, or if Crown Bel Air just ends up being the one everybody name-drops for a year.

DavidEither way, we'll have the receipts, and if the price cuts keep coming, there won't be a shortage of material.

JordynNew episodes drop every Tuesday.

DavidFind us wherever you listen. Follow the show so you don't miss the next one.

JordynAnd if you've got a deal, a listing, a weird neighbor situation, send it in. We want the tip.

DavidWe read everything.

JordynHonestly, weeks like this are why I love doing this job, watching the numbers actually move.

DavidSee you next Tuesday.