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

Jordyn: Hey everyone, welcome back to Listing Price. David: Good to be back. Speaker 3: Jordyn, we've got a strange one this week. Jordyn: Okay, get this. The priciest signed contract in LA last week sits on a golf course. Speaker 3: A Trump National Golf Course actually. $18.9 million Rancho Palos Verdes. Jordyn: Cape Point Drive. Seven bedrooms, nine baths, nearly 11,000 square feet. Speaker 3: And that price wasn't always $18.9 million. There's a story behind that number. Jordyn: Ooh, plot twist. And that land's got history, too. We're saving both for the next segment. Speaker 3: Also on deck, citywide luxury contracts took a real hit year over year, and there's a measure you fight tangled up in the timing. Jordyn: Serhant Ben Belack has a theory about why buyers are parking cash until fall. We'll poke at that. Speaker 3: Then 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. Jordyn: I think it matters more than you're giving it credit for. or Speaker 3: We'll see who's right by the end of the hour. Jordyn: Spoiler: David and I don't totally agree on that one. Speaker 3: We rarely do. Jordyn: True enough, it's a loaded show, Bird Streets included. Speaker 3: Loaded is right. All right, Rancho Palos Verdes, up first. Jordyn: So if 320 40 Cape Point Drive in Rancho Palos Verdes just went under contract asking $18.9 million. Speaker 3: That's a number. Jordyn: Wait for it. It sits right on the golf course at the Estates at Trump National with the Pacific and Catalina Island out back. Speaker 3: Golf course frontage and an ocean view? That's rare out there. Jordyn: Seven 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 3: And it topped the entire Eklund Weekly luxury report for LA last week. Priciest signed deal in the city. Jordyn: In a city full of Bel Air teardowns pretending to be mansions. Speaker 3: Right. So let's do the math. 18.9 million on nearly 11,000 square feet. Jordyn: That's a 1717, a square foot. Speaker 3: 1717 and Rancho Palos Verdes? That's Malibu math. Jordyn: Exactly. That's a buyer chasing golf and ocean at the same time, not just square footage. Speaker 3: Nine bathrooms for seven bedrooms feels aggressive, honestly. Jordyn: Aggressive plumbing aside, this house has a whole backstory, David. Speaker 3: The backstory? Jordyn: Oh, you're going to love this. 18.9 was not the opening number. Speaker 3: Wait, how far off is that from where it started? Jordyn: Not telling you yet. Speaker 3: Come on. Jordyn: What 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 3: Hit me. Jordyn: This place first listed a year ago for $23.2 million. Speaker 3: Whoa, that's real money off the top. Jordyn: The 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 3: So call it an 18.5% haircut. That's not a rounding error. That's a seller admitting something. Jordyn: Or a buyer finally showing up with a calculator. Speaker 3: Fair, but 18% off in a year? That's a story, not a footnote. Jordyn: And the land itself has one. This whole community sits where the Ocean Trails golf course used to be before the 1999 landslide. Speaker 3: Hang on, the one that took out the original 18th hole? Jordyn: Swallowed 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 3: Whistle; and rebuilt it into what it is now. Jordyn: Reportedly close to two hundred and fifty million dollars to fix the cliffs and reroute the course. Speaker 3: So the brand premium, if there is one, was expensive to build. Jordyn: Deadline—real talk—that's the part nobody puts on the postcard. Speaker 3: Here'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. Jordyn: The Real Deal flagged that exact irony in their piece. Speaker 3: A housing affordability bill dies, and a house with his name on it clears $18.9 million. Jordyn: Cute, but let's not pretend that's a coincidence anybody planned. Speaker 3: No, but it's the kind of split screen you can't script. Jordyn: Okay, but here's where I push back on your read from earlier. Speaker 3: Go ahead. Jordyn: You framed the cut as the brand losing shine. And I look at the price per square foot and see the opposite. Speaker 3: How 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 3: I'll give you that the numbers strong. I just don't think a year on market in a de-listing screams confidence. Jordyn: Sitting isn't failing. Sometimes it's just the market doing math the listing agent didn't want to do. do. Speaker 3: Fine, we'll agree the buyer got the better end of the negotiation. Jordyn: Absolutely. Speaker 3: And speaking of the market doing math it doesn't like... Jordyn: Oh, 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 3: Rough how? Jordyn: The Eklund Weekly Luxury Report counted 18 new contracts across LA last week. Total asking volume, $137 million. Speaker 3: And the year before? Jordyn: 28 contracts, $247.7 million. Speaker 3: Ooh, so more than double. Jordyn: Dollar 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 3: Yeah, yeah; and people keep asking why, and honestly the transfer tax conversation won't die. Jordyn: Measure ULA again? Speaker 3: Again, 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. Jordyn: Arbitrary how? Speaker 3: His 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. Jordyn: Okay, but arbitrary is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Speaker 3: Fair, 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? Jordyn: Pulled. It's off the ballot. Speaker 3: So the rates stand as is heading into the fall. Shut up!" said the Jordyn: Shut up!" said the Speaker 4: woman. Jordyn: The one lever that could have eased this just got taken away? David: For 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. Jordyn: It gets pushed where? David: Q4. Fourth quarter becomes the new spring. Jordyn: That's wild—we're basically watching a whole market recalibrate itself around a tax bill. David: Which 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. Jordyn: Cute strategy—doesn't fix eighteen contracts, though. David: Now it doesn't—and ULA isn't even the only headwind right now. Jordyn: Ooh, plot twist—what else is squeezing this? David: Well, the money side: rates just did something nobody in this business wanted to see. Jordyn: Wait for it. David: The Fed just flipped the script entirely. Yep, and that changes everything about how we read this week's numbers. Speaker 3: Switching gears here, while everyone's still fighting over ULA, the Fed dropped its own bombshell. David: June 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 3: Flipped how? David: Nine of eighteen officials now project at least one hike before year end; back in March almost everybody had cuts penciled in. Speaker 3: Wait, wait, from cuts to hikes? David: Mm-hmm. Speaker 3: That's a hard turn. David: It 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 3: Okay, 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. David: Sure, 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 3: Fine, I'll give you that one. David: And builders financing spec houses in the Bird Streets or Bel Air feel every point stack up over a two year build. Speaker 3: So the hike skips the penthouse and hits the foundation. David: Not bad, and it's nagging me; we just heard Conklin Speaker 4: talk. David: Contract volume down forty eight point three per cent. Speaker 3: Right, the ULA number. David: What 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 3: So the market front ran the Fed? David: I can't prove it, but the timing lines up too cleanly to wave off. Speaker 3: Two suspects, one crime scene. David: Something like that. Speaker 3: So September is the date everybody circles. David: September meeting watched that dot plot move again. Speaker 3: And if the hike actually lands Belack's Q4 buying season- David: Gets a lot messier to call. Jordyn: Switching gears, if Q3 stays this dead, what actually breaks it open? David: Belack's bet in Q4 becomes the real spring season. Everything stalled this summer just lands in the fall instead. Jordyn: Calling October spring buying feels like a stretch, David. David: It's not the calendar, it's the backlog. Sellers waiting out ULA math, buyers waiting out the Fed—they're all just parked. Jordyn: So the whole market's playing chicken with itself. David: Pretty much—which is why I'm watching whether that ULA cap measure actually resurfaces before November. Jordyn: Oh, it's not staying dead. HJTA doesn't pull a measure and just disappear. David: Maybe not this cycle, though. Signature deadlines are brutal, and they already burned one shot. Shot. Jordyn: Fair; but if it qualifies, every eight figure listing recalculates overnight. David: And, separately, does Warsh's pivot actually spook cash buyers or just the builders carrying construction loans? Jordyn: My bets it barely dents it; nobody buying a golf course estate is checking mortgage rates. David: Right. Sure, but sentiment isn't free for even cash buyers; confidence moves markets too. Speaker 3: Confidence may be, but closed contracts-I still think that's a jumbo loan problem, not a Trump National problem. David: We'll know more after September's meeting. Speaker 3: So watch the ballot box, watch Warsh, and watch whether anybody besides one golf estate actually signs anything. David: One estate closes and the rest of the market takes the quarter off. Speaker 3: Okay, so before we go, Cape Point. David, be honest, did that discount surprise you? David: A little landslide history, presidential branding, and it still lands under eighteen nine. That math tells its own story. Speaker 3: Told you it wasn't a straight discount. It's the market finding the real number. David: Fair. Speaker 3: Which David: And that ULA slowdown ties in right in. Sellers waiting, buyers waiting, everybody watching November. Speaker 3: Which loops back to Warsh and the Fed. Cash buyers bear- To barely blink but builders-that's the squeeze to watch. David: So heading into fall, watch the ballot fight, watch rates, watch whether Bel-Air's surge actually shows up. Speaker 3: That's the whole Q4 story right there. David: New episodes drop every Tuesday. Follow Listing Price wherever you're listening. Speaker 3: And if you've got a deal or listing we should dig into, send it our way: David: Thanks for hanging out with us. Speaker 3: See you next week.