Piven's $274K Tax Bill and the Hollywood Hangover

Jordyn: OK, so get this. 2008 Hercules Drive, Mount Olympus. Jeremy Piven bought it in 2017 for $6.8 million, just sold it for $6.85 million. 17 months on market, multiple price cuts. David: That's basically flat nine years. Jordyn: Nine years. And then measure ULA takes a $274,000 bite out of the clothes. So congratulations, you probably lost money. David: Dry ocean views net negative return; Ari Gold would not approve. Jordyn: Absolutely not; but that's our deal of the week and it is not an outlier. The real story starts here. David: Because the Piven sale is really a symptom: LA County shed roughly forty two thousand film and TV jobs since twenty twenty two. That's a thirty percent drop according to Labor Department numbers. Disney, Sony, Bad Robot cut over fifteen hundred more in a single week in April. In April. Jordyn: And those are your buyers and sellers in the same zip code. The entertainment money cohort is shrinking on both sides of the transaction. David: So we're going to pull that thread. Mount Olympus versus the Bird Streets, same zip, very different stories. And then the foreign buyer surge that's reshaping Bel Air, but doing almost nothing for the 5 million to 15 million band where the pressure is worst. Jordyn: Right, and we're going to ask the Detroit question. Structural reset or just a bad cycle? The Ankler called it earlier this year "luxury pads, slashing prices, houses sitting for months! David: The data has an opinion on that. We'll get into it. Jordyn: First up, two thousand eight Hercules Drive, the full story—an infinity edged pool, panoramic views to the ocean, and a seller who tried everything, including renting it for thirty five thousand dollars a month. David: And still walked away net negative. Start the clock. Jordyn: two thousand eight Hercules Drive, Mount Olympus: six point eight five million, and a two hundred seventy four thousand dollar tax bill. That's your deal of the week. David: Okay, lay it out, because on paper, nine years of ownership on a prime Hollywood Hills address and the seller barely breaks even? Jordyn: Barely. The real deal reported Piven paid six point eight million back in twenty seventeen-listed January twenty twenty five at nine point five million. and closed at six point eight five million. That's a fifty thousand dollar nominal gain in nine years. David: Nine years. Jordyn: Nine years! And the house is not a dog, David! Picture the driveway at Piven's: gated motor court, flat lot which almost doesn't exist up there, two-story glass conservatory, floor-to-ceiling views from downtown to Santa Monica, infinity pool, fire pit. A room with a drum kit and three Emmy statues on the shelf. David: The Emmys are just sitting there on the built ins? Jordyn: Display case of better days. But okay, real talk, the ULA math is what actually ends this story. Measure ULA Los Angeles's transfer tax hits at four per cent on the full sale price above five point three million, not the gain, the price. David: Which is- Jordyn: Mm hmm, two hundred seventy four thousand dollars, off the top. Top-before agent commissions. David: Wait, Wait, wait. So the 50K nominal gain just got vaporized. Jordyn: And then some—your net negative before you've paid a single agent. David: So what happened to seventeen months? Because a 6,200 square foot modern with views doesn't just sit on MLS for a year and a half unless something's wrong with the pricing or the market. Jordyn: Both. He listed at 9.5, the market said no, dropped to 7.5 by November. There were at least two full delistings in between: agents pull the listing, wait thirty days, relist it as fresh inventory to reset the days on market clock. David: Did buyers check the history? Jordyn: They checked. David: So the reset tactic failed. Jordyn: Yeah. David: And here's what I keep circling back to. This is Ari Gold's house. If Ari Gold's house sits for seventeen months and closes at cost, what does that tell you about buyer demand in the six to ten million dollar tier right now? Jordyn: It tells you the buyers who used to absorb that tier develop Development execs, showrunners, department heads, those people are not writing checks right now. David: Hmm. And that's not a coincidence, is it? Jordyn: That's a data point. One address, one seller, and one brutal ULA bill. But the question is whether this is one actor's bad timing or whether the MLS is full of 2008 Herculeses that nobody's talking about yet. David: Yeah, and the employment numbers might tell us which one it is. Jordyn: So follow the money from the studio lot to the MLS. The U.S. Labor Department data picked up by The Wall Street Journal puts film and TV employment in L.A. at roughly 100,000 jobs as of early 2026. That's down from 142,000 in 2022. David: A 30% drop in three years, and it's not slowing down. Fast Company reported that in a single week this past April, Bro Disney Sony Pictures and Bad Robot announced layoffs total of over 1,500 positions combined. Jordyn: Right. And AOL covered the broader fear. People are calling this a Detroit-style decline, like the auto industry left Detroit. Is entertainment leaving LA? David: Okay, that framing is bleak, but here's what it means for real estate specifically. The income profile of Hollywood Hills sellers maps almost directly back. directly onto mid- to upper-studio employment. Development executives, showrunners, department heads—these are people Yeah. whose whole compensation was built on deals that no longer exist. Jordyn: And when the deals stop, the mortgage math changes. The listing goes up. David: Exactly. You don't need to be Jeremy Piven to feel it. You just need to be the line producer who had three steady years and now has zero. Jordyn: Okay, but I want to push back a little. Is this actually a supply flood or is it just. Is it just normal turnover with a compelling narrative attached? David: I was waiting for that. Jordyn: I'm serious. People sell houses. People always sell houses. David: Sure, but normal turnover doesn't explain Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's Beverly Hills compound, listed at $68 million in July 2024. Still sitting, they cut to $52 million. That's a $16 million haircut, and the place is never once sold. Wait, they bought it for just under sixty one million in twenty twenty three, right? So even at fifty two million they're underwater. Jordyn: Underwater and paying carrying costs on a twenty million dollar mortgage. That's not a narrative. That's a balance sheet. Problem. David: Hmm, Okay, so Brentwood has the same disease that Mount Olympus has. Jordyn: Different zip code, same diagnosis. And the pricing data backs it up. Todd Jones Real Estate published Q1 2026 numbers showing Hollywood Hills homes above $5 million averaging 65 to 80 days on market, with price reductions more common than any point since 2019. David: 65 to 80 days, and that's before the relisting resets inflate. Inflate the number? Speaker 3: Just so too bad? David: So too bad. Speaker 3: The actual days on market is probably worse. David: So you've got a supply problem stacking on top of a demand problem. The sellers are the same cohort as the buyers. Entertainment money sellers, entertainment money buyers, Speaker 3: Yeah. David: and that cohort just got thirty percent smaller. Speaker 3: Exactly. The Ankler put it plainly; luxury pads, slashing prices, houses sitting for months, executives growing cautious. This, that's not a bad quarter. That's a structural shift. David: And the question nobody's fully answered yet is this is a cycle or is it a reset? Like does entertainment employment bounce back or has the industry repriced permanently? Speaker 3: Which, funny enough, is exactly the question you'd ask standing at the corner of Mount Olympus and the Bird Streets, two neighborhoods that look the same on a map, but are selling very differently right now. David: Yeah, because the buyer profile up there is not the same street to street. Street to street. Speaker 3: Not even close. And that's where the geography gets interesting... Jordyn: Okay, so flip the map for a second. Same zip code, completely different market. David: Mount Olympus versus the Bird Streets, two submarkets that get lumped together constantly. Jordyn: And they are nothing alike. Drive up Hercules Drive into Mount Olympus, the lots are flatter, the streets are wider, the construction is mostly nineteen seventies and eighties, gated compounds, big square footage. David: The Bird Streets are a different planet. You cut up Doheny, the road narrows, the driveways get steep, the architecture Speaker 4: - David: Architecture Gets Serious Speaker 3: Haluk Akakce glass boxes Prouve-influenced steel frames-the kind of stuff that has its own Wikipedia page. David: And that architecture difference explains the buyer difference: Todd Jones Real Estate put it plainly: "The Bird Streets draw a different buyer than the rest of Hollywood Hills: tech and finance money, not entertainment money. Speaker 3: Which matters right now, a lot. David: Because entertainment money is the cohort that just shrank thirty percent. Speaker 3: Exactly. Mount Olympus is sitting in that pocket. The Bird Streets? Average sold price around 7 million, buyers coming from New York, internationally. That pool hasn't contracted the same way. David: So then why are Bird Streets listings sitting? Speaker 3: Because of the DOM reset game. That's the other thing. The real deal covered Piven's Hercules Drive property going on and off market multiple times, and his situation is not unique. David: Agents delist after 30 plus days, wait out the clock. Buck relists his fresh inventory. The days on market number goes back to zero. Jordyn: And buyers see right through it. Pull up any Hollywood Hills listing above $5 million that's been active since 2025, run the full listing history. The number on the page is fiction. David: Cumulative days on market is the number that actually matters. The MLS shows you DOM. CDOM is what you want. Jordyn: And sellers know exactly which one buyers are looking at. David: So what's the practical read here? Two different problems. Jordyn: Mount Olympus has an entertainment seller problem. Too many people listing at 2022 prices in a 2026 market. Bird Streets have a different issue. David: Foreign and out-of-state capital is circling, but it's not landing at 7 or 8 million. That money shopping Bel Air, Holmby Hills, 50 million and up. Jordyn: So the Bird Streets are caught in the middle. The natural buyer is an entertainment money, but the foreign capital coming in is fishing in a price pond two or three times higher. David: One neighborhood's got a seller problem. The other's got a buyer mismatch. Same zip code, same elevation, completely different math. Speaker 3: Which actually sets up the next question perfectly: that foreign buyer surge everyone keeps citing, is it landing where the pressure actually is? So the foreign buyer story, everyone's leading with it, like it fixes everything. David: Right, and look, the data is real. Realtor.com found that by December 2025, nearly one in nine luxury home searches in the LA metro was coming from abroad. 18.2%. That's not nothing. Speaker 3: So that these agents are literally touring Brazilian families with $80 million budgets. Japanese investors are closing deals. Jordyn: Canada leads international traffic at 29% of foreign views, the headline rates itself. David: And then you ask where that money actually lands. Jordyn: Yeah, exactly. It lands in Bel Air, Holmby Hills, Malibu, maybe a Trousdale compound if the stars align. David: Not on Hercules Drive. Jordyn: Not on Hercules Drive. A $6.85 million modern in Mount Olympus is not the property of Brazilian family with an Speaker 3: With an $80 million budget flies into LA. Those are two completely different markets wearing the same ZIP code. David: Okay, so follow the money. Foreign capital in L.A. is operating in the 50 million plus band; the entertainment seller pressure is concentrated between five and 15 million. Those two stories don't actually touch. Jordyn: And nobody wants to say it out loud because the foreign buyer surge sounds like a solution. David: It's the skin care equivalent of, there's a new serum that works great on mature skin; your skin is 22. Jordyn: Cute, but unnecessary. Okay, and here's the layer that makes this messier for foreign buyers who are writing checks in that 5 million to 15 million dollar range inside city limits. David: The ULA. Jordyn: The ULA. You're buying a $7 million Hollywood Hills home? That's a $280,000 transfer tax on day one, on top of the purchase price. And unlike a domestic buyer who might write that off against future appreciation or future California income, a foreign buyer isn't voting here, probably isn't filing state taxes here, and is running a pure return calculation. David: So the math looks different when you're not anchored to this market long term. long term. Jordyn: Completely different. UCLA research estimated ULA reduced the odds of a property selling above the $5 million threshold by as much as 55%. That's before you layer in a buyer who doesn't have emotional ties to the neighborhood. David: So the neighborhoods that actually benefit from foreign demand-Bel Air, Holmby Hills, the Malibu waterfront-those are largely outside ULA's city limits anyway. Speaker 3: Beverly Hills, Malibu, no ULA; the foreign capital flows right past the threshold and into markets that were never the problem. David: And Mount Olympus, Silver Lake, Los Feliz-the neighborhoods absorbing real seller pressure-they're inside city limits, inside the tax, and waiting for a buyer. Jordyn: Who may not be coming? David: Which raises the question nobody's fully answered yet. Is this a pricing dislocation that corrects over 18 months, or is something more permanent happening to these neighborhoods? Jordyn: That's the question, and that's exactly where we're landing next. David: Okay, but David, Bel Air is not Detroit. The West Side has tech money, international capital, and physical scarcity. You can't reprice your way out of the Pacific Ocean. Jordyn: No argument on the trophy tier. That's insulated. What I'm saying is the middle doesn't have that floor. David: Right, and that's where I'll meet you. The DP, the writer's room coordinator, the mid-level development exec, those people live in Hollywood Hills, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, not Bel Air. there, and thereby her pool just shrank the same Jordyn: And David: Thirty Percent their income did. Jordyn: Which makes it structural not cyclical when the buyer class and the seller class are the same shrinking cohort. David: Two, you don't get a recovery, you get price discovery until someone new shows up. Jordyn: And nobody new is showing up in that band. The Ankler reported houses are sitting for months with execs growing cautious; foreign capital, as we established, lands at fifty million plus. It doesn't backfill a seven million dollar Mount Olympus listing. Listing. David: So where does that leave us? Twelve to eighteen more months of elevated inventory in that five to twelve million Hollywood Hills range. Sellers repricing because they have to, not because the market found a bottom. Jordyn: Cycle or reset? I think it depends entirely on whether a replacement industry anchors in L.A. within the next three years. And I don't see one forming. David: If you're sitting on a seven to ten million Hollywood Hills home right now, mount... Mount Olympus is your problem neighbourhood; no view premium, entertainment income seller, zero foreign buyer interest, and a ULA bill on top-that's where the pressure is sharpest. Speaker 3: Okay, that's a wrap on today's episode and what a thread to pull. Jordyn: Ari Gold's house a two hundred and seventy four thousand dollar tax bill and a thirty per cent employment crater, Mount Olympus was doing a lot of work today. David: It really was, and that's the honest takeaway. The Piven deal isn't a celebrity footnote; it's a price discovery signal for every seller sitting in that seven million to ten million band right now. Jordyn: Right, the relisting clock reset trick, the Affleck-Lopez comp, same problem, different zip codes. Entertainment money bought these houses. That same cohort isn't riding to the rescue. David: And the foreign buyer surge? That's Bel Air at 50 million plus. It's not filling the Mount Olympus gap. Jordyn: Not even close. David: Alright, new episodes drop every Tuesday. Follow Listing Price wherever you listen. Got a deal or a listing we should be covering? Drop us a line. Jordyn: We'll be back with more. Thanks for riding along, everybody. David: See you next week.