Bel Air's $400M Listing and the Discount Problem

JordynOkay, so get this. 11201 Chalon Road, Bel Air. 400 million dollars, 70,000 square feet, eight flat acres overlooking the Bel Air Country Club, views from downtown all the way to the Pacific. According to Robb Report, it could become the nation's most expensive home ever sold.

David400 million and we are absolutely going there today.

JordynOh, we- We are going there, and here's where it gets good. Just down the street, literally the same road, 10830 Chalon just hit the market for $65 million, 18,000 square feet, Peter Marino on one end, a seven-year personal build on the other.

DavidSo we've got a $335 million gap between two listings on this same block.

JordynSame block.

DavidI mean, I have questions-real questions.

JordynWe all do, and the market context here is rough. Homes.com has been tracking heavy discounts across Bel Air and the Westside, and we're going to dig into whether any of that discount data even applies at four hundred million, or if this is something else entirely.

DavidPlot twist: we've seen this movie before. The one, Nile Niami, started at five hundred million, sold at bankruptcy auction for one hundred and forty one million. One million in 2022. We are not skipping that chapter.

JordynAbsolutely not. And we are both committing to actual price predictions today. No hedging. No, the market is complex. Numbers.

DavidOh, I have a number.

JordynOh, you always have a number.

DavidAnd you're probably going to disagree with it.

JordynOh, almost certainly. All right. Let's start at 11201 Chalon Road. $400 million. Is it a price or is it a... Is it a press release?

Speaker 3Oh.

JordynOkay, so get this. 11101 Chalon Road, Bel Air, $400 million. There's a hammam inside, a beauty salon, an indoor pool in a flat eight-acre promontory with views from downtown all the way to the Pacific.

DavidI'm sorry, a beauty salon?

JordynA beauty salon, full service, in your house.

DavidI mean, at $400 million, you'd better have a beauty salon. You'd better have a stylist on retainer.

JordynAccording to Robb Report, this thing is 70,000 square feet across multiple structures, 39 bedrooms, 50 full bathrooms, plus nine powder rooms. Peter Marino designed it. Peter Marino built it. Took roughly a decade.

DavidHmm. Okay, so I have questions. First one, is this a real listing or a press release with a lockbox on it?

JordynThat is the question, right?

DavidBecause 400 million in Los Angeles right now, Homes.com had a piece out this spring noting buyers have serious leverage, luxury properties are sitting, discounts everywhere.

JordynThat's fair, but here's what separates this from your average spec flip, David. The land.

DavidThe land.

JordynFlat eight acres on a promontory in Bel Air that almost doesn't exist—every other estate up there is carved into a hillside, you lose half your lot to slope. This one sits like a mesa, the arrival courtyard alone sets you up before you even reach the front door.

DavidOkay, I'll give you the land; the land is genuinely rare, but the price per square foot math is brutal. Four hundred million on seventy thousand square feet is what, fifty-seven hundred dollars a square foot?

JordynFifty-seven hundred a square foot. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

DavidFor Bel Air—not Monaco, not Mayfair—Bel Air, where the average home price was four point one million dollars as of March, twenty twenty six, per Zillow.

JordynAnd that's where the comps just stop; there are no comps." Listing agents Jack Harris and Michael Fahimian of the Beverly Hills Estates said, and I'm paraphrasing, time and budget were not a factor in building this.

DavidThat is a sentence that has never saved anyone money.

JordynNo, it has not. And look, the ghost of the one is floating over all of this. That Bel Air project launched at $500 million came to market at $295 million, sold at a 2022 bankruptcy auction for $141 million.

DavidSo roughly 28 cents on the dollar?

JordynRoughly.

DavidLook, I'm not saying this compound isn't extraordinary. I'm saying extraordinary and $400 million are not- Are not automatically the same sentence.

JordynRight, and the seller clearly knows the price needs a story behind it, not just the square footage, which gets at something worth looking at more closely: who actually designed this thing and why that name might be the whole argument for the ask. So, Peter Marino, that name keeps coming up, and I want to actually sit with it for a second.

DavidPlease, because I've been biting my tongue.

JordynOkay, so get this. The man designs flagships, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior, globally. That is his world. This house at 11201 Chalon is, according to Robb Report, reportedly his only built residence in Los Angeles.

DavidAnd that's supposed to justify a $100 million premium, or-

JordynI mean, pedigree has a price. Mediterranean Revival at 70,000 square feet, warm stone, arched colonnades in a market drowning in stark white contemporary boxes, that is a deliberate choice.

DavidOkay, fair. The aesthetic is genuinely different, I'll give you that.

JordynThank you.

DavidBut here's my thing. A buyer at $400 million is not buying because the architect dressed Chanel windows nicely.

JordynNo, no, no. They're buying the one-of-one story, the thing you cannot replicate. replicate.

DavidHmm. Or they're buying it because it's already built and they don't want to wait 10 years.

JordynDavid, those are not mutually exclusive.

DavidChill fair enough.

JordynNow here's where it gets good because while we're arguing about the $400 million number, The Real Deal reported a second listing sitting on the same road, 10830 Chalon, different property entirely,

DavidSame street.

Jordynsame street, contemporary, about 18,000 square feet. overlooks the 12th fairway of the Bel Air Country Club, indoor lap pool, private wellness wing. The seller, per The Real Deal, bought the site in 2012 for $3.4 million, spent seven years building it as a personal residence, change plans, now it's asking $65 million.

DavidOkay, so you've got two Chalon Road listings, simultaneously $335 million apart.

JordynThat is a live side-by-side experiment in what architect pedigree does to a price.

Davidis-or what a promontory view does, because one one two o one is sitting above the city with sightlines to the Pacific. one o eight three zero is looking at a golf fairway.

JordynWhich is gorgeous, don't get me wrong.

DavidSure, but there's gorgeous and then there's ocean to downtown; those are not the same conversation.

JordynAnd that's exactly Exactly the argument-is the three hundred and thirty five million dollar gap the architect, the view, the sheer scale?

DavidProbably all three, but I'd bet the fairway view is worth maybe fifty million dollars in a good market, not sixty five million right now.

JordynYou'd price it below ask?

DavidIn this market, without question. And speaking of what this market is actually doing to luxury prices right now, we've got some numbers coming up that are going to reframe this whole conversation.

JordynNow flip that on its head. The view premium, the architect identity, none of that matters if the market won't pay.

DavidRight. And the market right now is sending a very clear message.

JordynOK, so get this. Homes.com just ran a piece on LA luxury discounts. They tracked the top five LA County transactions in April. Range was $22 million to $41 million. Four of the five sold below asking by double digits.

DavidFour of the five. And three of those spent months on market first.

JordynMonths!

DavidSo if you're at the 30 million tier and you're taking 15-20% off, that's real money walking out the door.

JordynMillions of dollars of real money, yes.

DavidBut here's where I want to get specific, David: MrWestside.com was showing 99 luxury listings in 90077 as of early May. Average days on market: 98. Median list price: 10.5 million dollars. That's not a hot market, that's a waiting room.

Speaker 3ROOM.

JordynA waiting room with a sommelier!

DavidExactly; and the discounts at individual properties are brutal. A Bel Air estate recently sat for eight and a half months, first time it had changed hands in decades, and closed thirty five percent below asking.

JordynThirty five percent!

DavidAnd Holmby Hills property designed by Paul Williams, the architect, an absolute legend, sold thirteen percent below ask, twenty days on market.

JordynOkay, wait, Paul Williams, iconic name, real pedigree. And it still came in thirteen under?

DavidThirteen under. And a Benedict Canyon home in Beverly Hills, ten months on market, forty two percent below list.

JordynA forty two percent?

DavidThese aren't flukes. Coldwell Banker Realty data had Westside deals at five million and up in February down thirty percent year over year.

JordynThirty percent!

DavidUh huh.

JordynAnd then there's La Fin, one two zero zero Bel Air Road, cut from a hundred thirty nine million to all the way to just under a hundred hundred million dollars after sitting since twenty twenty two

DavidCut from one thirty nine million, still sitting.

JordynSo now I want to push back on something because those comps, the thirty five, the forty two percent discounts, those are in the twenty to forty million dollar range. You can't just apply that math to four hundred million.

DavidI'm not sure the level changes the logic, though.

JordynIt has to. The buyer pool at four hundred million is maybe fifty people globally. That's not a market. That's a dinner party.

DavidA very expensive dinner party.

JordynAnd at $400 million, you're dealing with Measure ULA, 5.5% transfer tax on anything above $10.9 million inside the City of LA. That's $22 million gone before escrow closes.

DavidWhich buyer at that level is going to factor into their offer? Hard.

JordynSo the 35% comps aren't directly transferable, you're right, but the direction is. Nobody in this market is paying ask. Ask.

DavidThe ask is four hundred million dollars. The question is whether that's a price or a press release.

JordynWe've seen this exact movie before, and we know how it ended. So here's the historical hangover nobody wants to talk about: the one.

Speaker 4Ah, yeah, the ghost of Bel-Air listings past.

JordynNile Niami spent a decade building it, told the world it was a $500 million property, listed it at $295 million. Robb Report confirmed it sold at a 2022 bankruptcy auction for $141 million, all in. INTRO

DavidThat's fifty-seven per cent below the final ask, not the five hundred million dream, the actual listed price.

JordynExactly; and the buyer was Richard Saghian, the Fashion Nova founder, who got a hundred and five thousand square foot mansion for less than half what it was asking.

DavidRiley Fashion Nova built the drip, Richard bought the compound.

JordynSo now the obvious question is, does 12001 Chalon have a one-shaped shadow hanging over it?

Speaker 4Here's where I push back a little. The one was a spec project that went bankrupt, no certificate of occupancy, unfinished construction. This is different pedigree.

JordynThat's fair. Peter Marino designed it, it's done, it's livable. But the structural math is still brutal. According to the Robb Report piece, we're talking $1.4 million in... and annual property taxes alone.

Speaker 4Per year, just to hold it.

JordynAnd then there's Measure ULA The city's transfer tax hits five point five percent on anything over ten point nine million dollars inside LA city limits on a four hundred million dollar deal that's twenty two million dollars in transfer tax on top of everything else.

DavidTwenty two million dollars to the city before you unpack a single box!

JordynWow! So who actually writes that check? The global buyer pool here is probably Probably fewer than fifty people; most of them already have compounds in Gstaad, in Monaco, in Bel Air already.

DavidHmm, I mean, I get it: but fewer than fifty buyers doesn't mean zero buyers-it means you need exactly one.

JordynPointedly, the one also needed exactly one.

DavidOkay, that landed.

JordynThe Robb Report noted it's been over a decade since the one first made headlines at five hundred million dollars. In that time? M. L. LA has seen six properties publicly listed at nine figures simultaneously, and most are sitting.

DavidSo the cautionary tale isn't that four hundred million dollar listings always fail; it's that they fail when the seller's timeline breaks before the buyer shows up.

JordynAnd at one point four million dollars a year in property taxes plus carrying costs, the clock is ticking from day one.

DavidThe question going into next segment: does this place trade near ask, or does it trace the ones trajectory?

Speaker 4Trajectory and settle somewhere south of two hundred million dollars.

JordynPut a number on it, David.

Speaker 4I'll have one; give me thirty seconds. Oh!

JordynOkay, so David committed to a number last segment. Pay up.

DavidI did. All right. Eleven to one Chalon Road, four hundred million dollar Peter Marino compound. I think it trades somewhere around one hundred and sixty five to one hundred and seventy five million dollars within twenty four months, maybe less if the Bird Streets and Holmby Hills pipeline floods the market.

JordynWow, that is a haircut.

DavidIt's math. The land was thirty five million dollars in twenty ten. Construction reportedly ran over three hundred and fifty million dollars.

Speaker 5Wow!

DavidThe cellar is already under water at ask!

JordynRight, right, but here's my number-I think 1121 Chalon gets to one hundred and eighty five million, maybe a hundred ninety. 90 million. The Al-Thani family connection alone changes the buyer conversation. This goes to a sovereign wealth circle, not an open MLS scroll.

DavidHmm, I'm not sure I buy the premium just because of who built it.

JordynPlayfully, you never buy the premium.

DavidSometimes the math is the math.

JordynOkay, the sixty five million dollar Chalon Road spec next door, one zero eight three zero Chalon, what's your floor?

DavidThoughtfully, I think that one actually trades; seven years of actual build time, overlooking the Bel Air Country Club, eighteen thousand square feet. The real deal piece pointed out Aaron Kirman and David Parnes are repping it, and both of them move product. I'd say floor is forty seven million dollars.

JordynI'll go higher-fifty two million; the gap in new construction between this and anything in the Bird Streets right now is real-nobody knows what's breaking ground up there; and that uncertainty is keeping buyers on the sidelines. The moment supply tightens that fairway view spec looks a lot better.

DavidDeadpan: "So your investment thesis is-Wait?

JordynMy thesis is that 120 active luxury listings in Bel-Air, with a median of 158 days on market, is the setup, not the conclusion.

DavidThat's fair. Jack Harris told Homes.com this estate, quote, could never be replicated.

JordynEvery listing agent says that.

DavidEvery listing agent is wrong. Until one of them isn't.

JordynOkay, that's a wrap on today's episode of Listing Price.

DavidAnd what an episode. 41 bedrooms, a hammam, a beauty salon, and we still couldn't agree on whether $400 million is a price or a press release.

JordynPlayfully, spoiler, I'm still not convinced, but David, your per square foot breakdown, that hit different.

DavidThe math doesn't lie, it just sometimes makes you uncomfortable.

JordynLook, the real takeaway here? Bel-Air is throwing huge numbers at a market that's been handing out 35 to 40 percent haircuts. Something has to give.

DavidAnd the One's Ghost is very much still haunting Chalon Road.

JordynExactly. If you want the full breakdown, the comps, the view premium debate, all of it, go back and listen to the whole episode.

DavidNew episodes drop every Tuesday. Follow Listing Price wherever you listen, and if you've got a deal we should cover, send it our way.

JordynThanks for being here. We'll see you next week.