Trump National's $18.9M Deal Tops a Down Market

JordynHey everyone, welcome back to Listing Price.

DavidGood to be back.

Speaker 3Jordyn, we've got a strange one this week.

JordynOkay, get this. The priciest signed contract in LA last week sits on a golf course.

Speaker 3A Trump National Golf Course actually. $18.9 million Rancho Palos Verdes.

JordynCape Point Drive. Seven bedrooms, nine baths, nearly 11,000 square feet.

Speaker 3And that price wasn't always $18.9 million. There's a story behind that number.

JordynOoh, plot twist. And that land's got history, too. We're saving both for the next segment.

Speaker 3Also on deck, citywide luxury contracts took a real hit year over year, and there's a measure you fight tangled up in the timing.

JordynSerhant Ben Belack has a theory about why buyers are parking cash until fall. We'll poke at that.

Speaker 3Then there's the Fed, new chair, hawkish pivot, and we're asking whether a rate hike even reaches cash buyers up in the Bird Streets.

JordynI think it matters more than you're giving it credit for. or

Speaker 3We'll see who's right by the end of the hour.

JordynSpoiler: David and I don't totally agree on that one.

Speaker 3We rarely do.

JordynTrue enough, it's a loaded show, Bird Streets included.

Speaker 3Loaded is right. All right, Rancho Palos Verdes, up first.

JordynSo if 320 40 Cape Point Drive in Rancho Palos Verdes just went under contract asking $18.9 million.

Speaker 3That's a number.

JordynWait for it. It sits right on the golf course at the Estates at Trump National with the Pacific and Catalina Island out back.

Speaker 3Golf course frontage and an ocean view? That's rare out there.

JordynSeven bedrooms, nine bathrooms, almost 11,000 square feet. The real deal broke it down in their June 27th piece. They call it Villa Cape Point.

Speaker 3And it topped the entire Eklund Weekly luxury report for LA last week. Priciest signed deal in the city.

JordynIn a city full of Bel Air teardowns pretending to be mansions.

Speaker 3Right. So let's do the math. 18.9 million on nearly 11,000 square feet.

JordynThat's a 1717, a square foot.

Speaker 31717 and Rancho Palos Verdes? That's Malibu math.

JordynExactly. That's a buyer chasing golf and ocean at the same time, not just square footage.

Speaker 3Nine bathrooms for seven bedrooms feels aggressive, honestly.

JordynAggressive plumbing aside, this house has a whole backstory, David.

Speaker 3The backstory?

JordynOh, you're going to love this. 18.9 was not the opening number.

Speaker 3Wait, how far off is that from where it started?

JordynNot telling you yet.

Speaker 3Come on.

JordynWhat makes a seller pull a listing and come back lower? Is that a discount or is that a house finally telling the truth about itself? Okay, David, you wanted the number, here it is.

Speaker 3Hit me.

JordynThis place first listed a year ago for $23.2 million.

Speaker 3Whoa, that's real money off the top.

JordynThe Real Deal's report from June 27th says it got pulled in November, then came back last month at just under $18.9 million.

Speaker 3So call it an 18.5% haircut. That's not a rounding error. That's a seller admitting something.

JordynOr a buyer finally showing up with a calculator.

Speaker 3Fair, but 18% off in a year? That's a story, not a footnote.

JordynAnd the land itself has one. This whole community sits where the Ocean Trails golf course used to be before the 1999 landslide.

Speaker 3Hang on, the one that took out the original 18th hole?

JordynSwallowed it whole. Wikipedia's page on the club says Trump bought the bankrupt. Krupp's course for twenty seven million dollars back in two thousand two.

Speaker 3Whistle; and rebuilt it into what it is now.

JordynReportedly close to two hundred and fifty million dollars to fix the cliffs and reroute the course.

Speaker 3So the brand premium, if there is one, was expensive to build.

JordynDeadline—real talk—that's the part nobody puts on the postcard.

Speaker 3Here's what gets me, though: The same week this contract signs, Trump declines to sign a b In a bipartisan housing bill, Congress actually passed.

JordynThe Real Deal flagged that exact irony in their piece.

Speaker 3A housing affordability bill dies, and a house with his name on it clears $18.9 million.

JordynCute, but let's not pretend that's a coincidence anybody planned.

Speaker 3No, but it's the kind of split screen you can't script.

JordynOkay, but here's where I push back on your read from earlier.

Speaker 3Go ahead.

JordynYou framed the cut as the brand losing shine. And I look at the price per square foot and see the opposite.

Speaker 3How do you figure?

Jordyn$18.9 million on 11,000 square feet is still north of $1,700 a foot on a Gulf Coast lot. That's not a discount property. That's a property that found its actual price.

Speaker 3I'll give you that the numbers strong. I just don't think a year on market in a de-listing screams confidence.

JordynSitting isn't failing. Sometimes it's just the market doing math the listing agent didn't want to do. do.

Speaker 3Fine, we'll agree the buyer got the better end of the negotiation.

JordynAbsolutely.

Speaker 3And speaking of the market doing math it doesn't like...

JordynOh, you're gonna love this part. Wait till you see what the whole board looked like last week. Okay, zooming out from Cape Point, the full scoreboard this week is rough.

Speaker 3Rough how?

JordynThe Eklund Weekly Luxury Report counted 18 new contracts across LA last week. Total asking volume, $137 million.

Speaker 3And the year before?

Jordyn28 contracts, $247.7 million.

Speaker 3Ooh, so more than double.

JordynDollar volume down 43.8% year over year. YEAR. Contract Countdown: thirty seven point seven per cent. That's not a dip, that's a cliff.

Speaker 3Yeah, yeah; and people keep asking why, and honestly the transfer tax conversation won't die.

JordynMeasure ULA again?

Speaker 3Again, the real deal's June twenty seventh piece quotes Serhant California EVP Ben Belack, and he's blunt about it: he calls the ULA threshold "arbitrary.

JordynArbitrary how?

Speaker 3His argument is the cutoffs punish one class specifically. Specifically, anything over five million gets hit; so sellers price around it, buyers stall, and the whole top of the market just freezes.

JordynOkay, but arbitrary is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Speaker 3Fair, but here's what actually happened politically: the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association was pushing a cap on ULA rates for the November ballot. Was pushing?

JordynPulled. It's off the ballot.

Speaker 3So the rates stand as is heading into the fall. Shut up!" said the

JordynShut up!" said the

Speaker 4woman.

JordynThe one lever that could have eased this just got taken away?

DavidFor now; and Bellack's prediction, per The Real Deal, is twenty twenty six basically mirrors twenty twenty five. The real spring buying season doesn't happen in spring.

JordynIt gets pushed where?

DavidQ4. Fourth quarter becomes the new spring.

JordynThat's wild—we're basically watching a whole market recalibrate itself around a tax bill.

DavidWhich honestly tracks with what we're seeing at the top end in Bel Air and Beverly Hills, too: sellers waiting out the ULA math before they even list.

JordynCute strategy—doesn't fix eighteen contracts, though.

DavidNow it doesn't—and ULA isn't even the only headwind right now.

JordynOoh, plot twist—what else is squeezing this?

DavidWell, the money side: rates just did something nobody in this business wanted to see.

JordynWait for it.

DavidThe Fed just flipped the script entirely. Yep, and that changes everything about how we read this week's numbers.

Speaker 3Switching gears here, while everyone's still fighting over ULA, the Fed dropped its own bombshell.

DavidJune 17th, Kevin Warsh's first meeting as Chair, CNN Business reported the Fed held at 3.50 to 3.75 percent, but the dot plot flipped completely.

Speaker 3Flipped how?

DavidNine of eighteen officials now project at least one hike before year end; back in March almost everybody had cuts penciled in.

Speaker 3Wait, wait, from cuts to hikes?

DavidMm-hmm.

Speaker 3That's a hard turn.

DavidIt is. Forbes says traders are now pricing real odds of a September hike, a total reversal from the one or two cuts investors expected earlier this year.

Speaker 3Okay, real talk. Does any of that touch a guy writing an all cash check for a Holmby Hills compound? He doesn't call alone, officer, David; he doesn't have one.

DavidSure, but look past him; the fifteen million cash buyer doesn't care about basis points. The six million buyer stretching with a jumbo loan absolutely does.

Speaker 3Fine, I'll give you that one.

DavidAnd builders financing spec houses in the Bird Streets or Bel Air feel every point stack up over a two year build.

Speaker 3So the hike skips the penthouse and hits the foundation.

DavidNot bad, and it's nagging me; we just heard Conklin

Speaker 4talk.

DavidContract volume down forty eight point three per cent.

Speaker 3Right, the ULA number.

DavidWhat if some of that softness isn't ULA at all? What if jumbo buyers and builders already pulled back, pricing in higher borrowing costs before Warsh even moved?

Speaker 3So the market front ran the Fed?

DavidI can't prove it, but the timing lines up too cleanly to wave off.

Speaker 3Two suspects, one crime scene.

DavidSomething like that.

Speaker 3So September is the date everybody circles.

DavidSeptember meeting watched that dot plot move again.

Speaker 3And if the hike actually lands Belack's Q4 buying season-

DavidGets a lot messier to call.

JordynSwitching gears, if Q3 stays this dead, what actually breaks it open?

DavidBelack's bet in Q4 becomes the real spring season. Everything stalled this summer just lands in the fall instead.

JordynCalling October spring buying feels like a stretch, David.

DavidIt's not the calendar, it's the backlog. Sellers waiting out ULA math, buyers waiting out the Fed—they're all just parked.

JordynSo the whole market's playing chicken with itself.

DavidPretty much—which is why I'm watching whether that ULA cap measure actually resurfaces before November.

JordynOh, it's not staying dead. HJTA doesn't pull a measure and just disappear.

DavidMaybe not this cycle, though. Signature deadlines are brutal, and they already burned one shot. Shot.

JordynFair; but if it qualifies, every eight figure listing recalculates overnight.

DavidAnd, separately, does Warsh's pivot actually spook cash buyers or just the builders carrying construction loans?

JordynMy bets it barely dents it; nobody buying a golf course estate is checking mortgage rates.

DavidRight. Sure, but sentiment isn't free for even cash buyers; confidence moves markets too.

Speaker 3Confidence may be, but closed contracts-I still think that's a jumbo loan problem, not a Trump National problem.

DavidWe'll know more after September's meeting.

Speaker 3So watch the ballot box, watch Warsh, and watch whether anybody besides one golf estate actually signs anything.

DavidOne estate closes and the rest of the market takes the quarter off.

Speaker 3Okay, so before we go, Cape Point. David, be honest, did that discount surprise you?

DavidA little landslide history, presidential branding, and it still lands under eighteen nine. That math tells its own story.

Speaker 3Told you it wasn't a straight discount. It's the market finding the real number.

DavidFair.

Speaker 3Which

DavidAnd that ULA slowdown ties in right in. Sellers waiting, buyers waiting, everybody watching November.

Speaker 3Which loops back to Warsh and the Fed. Cash buyers bear- To barely blink but builders-that's the squeeze to watch.

DavidSo heading into fall, watch the ballot fight, watch rates, watch whether Bel-Air's surge actually shows up.

Speaker 3That's the whole Q4 story right there.

DavidNew episodes drop every Tuesday. Follow Listing Price wherever you're listening.

Speaker 3And if you've got a deal or listing we should dig into, send it our way:

DavidThanks for hanging out with us.

Speaker 3See you next week.