Cesar Millan and his home on Bellaire Avenue

It looks like this dog whisperer has a knack for the real estate business, too.

Cesar Millan, dog behaviorist and star of the “Dog Whisperer,” sold his Studio City home for nearly $2.1 million, $435,000 above what he paid for it five years ago and $206,000 over his asking price, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The 3,800-square-foot abode, built in 2012, contains five bedrooms and four bathrooms. It features a living room with vaulted ceilings, a chef’s kitchen and a master bedroom with a private balcony.

Outside, there’s a covered patio for indoor-outdoor entertainment and a swimming pool.

Lisa Gaber of L.A. Property Investment had the listing. Keller Williams Realty’s Dennis Chernov represented the buyer.

Millan’s title show, “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” was on air for eight years. He’s now the host and producer of “Cesar 911” on Nat Geo Wild. [LAT] — Cathaleen Chen

(Credit: Getty Images)

By a 4 percent margin, Measure H barely slid to victory last night. But proponents of the initiative that tackles homelessness in Los Angeles are celebrating nonetheless.

Along with the voter approved Proposition HHH, which passed on the November ballot, Measure H finally gave L.A. lawmakers the green light for an aggressive, 10-year strategy against homelessness.

While the county has a basic outline of how Measure S funds will be disseminated, there has yet to be an official budget.

A panel of 50 county officials, city lawmakers, and nonprofit experts will iron out the nitty gritty details, Phil Ansell, the head of the county’s Homeless Initiative, told the Los Angeles Times.

By hiking the sales tax by a quarter of a cent, Measure H is projected to raise about $355 million per year over the next 10 years. HHH already instituted a $1.2 billion bond measure to build 10,000 units of permanent housing for the homeless, and now the additional funding will go toward supportive services attached to those units as well as rental subsidies for existing housing facilities.

Backers of the measure said that within five years, the measure will house 45,000 homeless families and individuals into permanent housing and prevent 30,000 more people from becoming homeless.

“Measure H revenue will enable the most comprehensive plan to combat homelessness in the history of Los Angeles County,” Ansell said. [LAT] — Cathaleen Chen

Patrick Leahy and Louie Gohmert

From the New York website: At the first House Judiciary Committee hearing on immigration since Congress reconvened in January, the subject was not President Trump’s executive orders or recent deportation crackdowns, but instead the EB-5 investor visa, a 25-year-old pilot program that has become a pet fundraising vehicle for real estate developers.

Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) joined members of the committee Wednesday to testify on program reform, urging Congress to make major changes that would push EB-5 money into more underserved communities rather than luxury projects in affluent urban neighborhoods.

Both Grassley and Leahy’s testimony cited an uptick in fraud and abuse in EB-5, a program that has enjoyed incredible popularity in recent years as a key means for New York developers to source highly sought after mezzanine debt in their capital stack. The senators decried what they said was a disproportionately small share of EB-5 money going into projects in areas with high unemployment, in part due to the control regional centers have had over “gerrymandering” those areas.

“For some developers, any change to the status quo is a threat to their bottom line,” said Leahy, whose home state of Vermont is also home to perhaps EB-5’s most famous fraud scandal at the Jay Peak ski resort . “And Congressional leadership has allowed a couple of powerful developers who exploit this program’s flaws to derail critical reforms. That is unacceptable. The worst abusers of a government program should not be given veto power over its reform.”

The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), echoed many of Grassley and Leahy’s comments in his own statement and also took a shot at so-called gerrymandering. Goodlatte quoted extensively from a glitzy ad spread promoting the Hudson Yards (developed by Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group) in the September issue of Vogue, a colorful example of how current program rules make it easy to funnel millions into luxury real estate projects.

Patrick Leahy (Credit: Will Parker)

From the New York website: Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) brought up the ways regional centers have created custom TEA districts designed to allow more investors to get in at the current minimum of $500,000, a number that hasn’t budged since the program began 25 years ago.

“The exception swallowed the rule,” Sensenbrenner said.

Without a reauthorization by congress, the EB-5 program will sunset on April 28. The Department of Homeland Security, which administers the program, will continue to take stakeholder input on its proposed rule for EB-5 until that time, but President Trump could direct the department to drop any such rules, which would put more pressure on congress to enact reforms through legislation.

Representatives did bring up the program’s economic benefits and its ability to raise capital for projects that otherwise might not be built. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) mentioned two such projects in her district, which includes the city of San Jose, and urged care in adopting any changes that “would reduce the overall investment” amount.

Members of committee then heard testimony from a panel of stakeholders, researchers and critics. Angelique Brunner, owner of EB-5 Capital and spokesperson of the EB-5 Investment Coalition, criticized proposals by the Department of Homeland Security that would allow the government to assign Target Employment Areas (TEAs) by census district. Over the course of the hearing she stated several times that proposals to raise the minimum investment threshold for a green card from $500,000 to $1.35 million is more than the market can bear and insisted the number should be less than $1 million.

During the Q&A after the panel, the only member of the committee who appeared uncritical of the current TEA system, which allowed Hudson Yards to be drawn together with a public housing complex in Harlem, was Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). He agreed with Brunner’s assessment that workers’ commuting patterns should be factored into an analysis of the benefits of projects that may not physically lie in underserved neighborhoods. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who was not at the hearing, has expressed similar views.

Focusing on census tracts as the DHS rules propose, Brunner said in the exchange, “completely ignores any principle of economic development.”

“You really have to look at the [wider] area in a whole different light,” she said.

When the panel was asked by Rep. Darrell Issa (D-CA) if, in the event EB-5 was was started from scratch, would if it be better if money only benefited underserved areas, all the panelists, which in addition to Brunner and Walls included a representative for the Government Accountability Office, a policy director at the Center for Community Progress, and a fellow at the anti-EB5 Center for Immigration Studies, responded with “yes,” although how “underserved” should be defined is still what’s up for debate.

There were still other members of Congress who seemed to reject the basic premises of an investor visa program. Tea Party favorites Rep. Steve King (IA) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) both expressed concerns over the possibility of unwittingly allowing criminals or terrorists to enter the country through the visa program.

King asked the panel if Saudis sympathetic to terrorism or those tied to drug cartels might try to get entry to the US through EB-5. If such people were strategizing entry, King said, they “would look at the EB-5 program as the perfect tool for access into American society.” King also expressed skepticism that the price of an American green card should be below $1 million, citing much higher costs of entry in some other developed nations.

Gohmert later chided the committee for spending its time trying to peg a price on “prostituting our own visas” instead of “…figuring out whether these people are going to be good and moral…”

“America has degenerated to the point that our soul is for sale,” Gohmert continued. “…Give us your immoral, your degenerate, as long as they have money, the message is we want them in America and we’ll give them a visa to get their money.”

After the hearing, Ron Klein, a former Florida congressman and lobbyist for Holland & Knight, whose clients include the US Immigration Fund, a major EB-5 regional center, told The Real Deal that a lack of attendance by committee members was part of why the proceedings sounded so one-sided. And many of the members don’t have very extensive knowledge of how EB-5 works, Klein said. “I don’t think you necessarily got a broad representation of the people who have been paying attention on EB-5,” he said.

Beverly Park Terrace home, Bambang Trihatmodjo (The Agency/Getty Images)

A massive Beverly Hills estate registered under an entity owned by the ex-wife of Bambang Trihatmodjo, son of Indonesian dictator Suharto, may soon be taken off the market.

The 20,162-square-foot mansion on Beverly Park Terrace went under escrow Sunday after more than a year on the market, The Real Deal has learned.

It first listed for $35 million before its asking price was more recently chopped to $30 million, or $1,455 a square foot. The property also has HOA fees of $2,500 a month, according to the listing.

While the final sale price is unknown, a spokesperson with listing brokerage the Agency confirmed the property entered escrow this week.

The buyer is also Indonesian, sources told The Real Deal.

Located inside the exclusive Beverly Park community with neighbors such as Rod Stewart and Sylvester Stallone, the 10-bedroom, 15-bathroom mansion has a two-story wood-paneled library and wet bar. There’s also a custom-built playground, tennis court and hand-cut mosaic pool and spa on the sprawling 5.66-acre lot.

The mansion, built in 1994, is considered to be one of the original Beverly Park homes and was built by a family member of Suharto, sources said.

Trihatmodjo’s father Suharto was Indonesia’s second president, holding office for 32 years. His dictatorship was one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century and it’s estimated he embezzled $15 to $35 billion from state coffers, according the New York Times. However, the country saw economic growth and stability during his reign.

Trihatmodjo became chairman of a conglomerate of roughly 90 companies during his father’s presidency with interests ranging from shipping and cocoa to hotels and even condoms.

Trihatmodjo was reported to be the owner of the property as late as March 2016. However, the home is now owned by a company registered under Trihatmodjo’s ex-wife, Halimah, according to property records.

Farrah Aldjufrie, Mauricio and Eduardo Umansky of the Agency have the listing.

Bill Shanahan of CBRE

From the New York website: China supplanted Canada for the first time last year as the most active foreign investor in U.S. real estate. But so far this year, some Chinese institutional investors such as insurance companies have been silent, and the yuan’s appreciation against the dollar could shift Chinese buyers toward markets in Asia.

But if the big guns from China pull back from New York, there could be investors from Germany, Korea and Japan game to fill the void. Investors from those countries may be able to take advantage of arbitrage between overseas and local interest rates and make big-ticket deals, according to CBRE.

“We think the amount of Chinese investors that falls off may be enhanced by German investors and Japanese investors, in particular, as negative interest rates are driving capital out of those countries,” Spencer Levy, head of research in the Americas for CBRE, said Tuesday afternoon as the company released the results of its annual investor survey.

Bill Shanahan, co-chair of CBRE’s capital markets group in New York, said that’s exactly what he sees with Korean investors. Last year a group of South Korean insurance firms invested roughly $220 million in mezzanine debt for AXA Financial’s 787 Seventh Avenue.

“Korea has a 200-basis point negative arbitrage on currency,” he said. “One of the things they do is they borrow heavily here . . . because it’s a hedge in U.S. dollars.”

In CBRE’s survey of investors, about 40 percent said they planned to buy either the same amount or more property this year. About 30 percent of respondents said their largest motivation will be seeking yield spreads.

In September, North Carolina-based apartment REIT Bell Partners teamed up with the German firm HANSAINVEST to create a $1 billion fund focused on multifamily properties in the U.S.

And Shanahan said Germany’s Union Investment Real Estate, which entered the New York hotel market late last year with the purchase of Courtyard the New York Downtown Manhattan/World Trade Center for $206 million, is poised to invest more overseas.

“About two months ago, Union, probably for the first time in six or eight months, opened up one of their funds,” he said. “They got $800 million in a month and had to shut the gates because they can’t place the capital. They’re promising all their investors returns. So if you have all this cash laying around and it’s in a German bank – you’re basically getting no return – it’s a drag on the fund.”

“It’s also the same for Korea and it’s also the same for Japan,” Shanahan added, who said Japanese buyers are becoming more interested in New York City multifamily properties. “Rates in those home countries are either negative or they’re very, very low.”

Late last month, Japanese trading conglomerate Mitsui & Co. acquired a 20 percent stake in Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm CIM Group. Another Japanese conglomerate, ASO Group, made a splash by purchasing one of L.A.’s most notable properties, the Google-leased Spruce Goose hangar in Playa Vista.

W Hotel Hollywood (via We First)

That didn’t take long.

A joint venture between HEI Hotels & Resorts and Gatehouse Capital was just launching efforts to market the W Hollywood Hotel when Host Hotels & Resorts made an offer that could not be refused.

The Bethesda, Maryland-based REIT agreed to pay roughly $220 million, or $721,300 per room, for the leasehold interest in the 305-room hotel, REAlert reported. Eastdil Secured brokered the sale.

HEI and Gatehouse developed the hotel and an adjoining condominium tower in 2010. They tried to find a buyer for the hotel in 2015, without success. Since then, Los Angeles-area hotels have seen their revenue per room increase.

The property is managed by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which owns the luxe W brand. In addition to its rooms, it makes money from seven billboards and and 10,000 square feet of street-level retail on the property, in the smack center of Hollywood.

The hotel has upscale restaurants and bars; a rooftop pool; a spa; and 33,000 square feet of event space. [REAlert] — Hannah Miet

From left: Airbnb Founders Nathan Blecharczyk, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: Airbnb might be getting into the long-term rental business.

The home-sharing startup has asked McKinsey & Co. to research the market and conduct a competitive analysis of Craigslist, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources.

The $31 billion company has a sublet section on its website since 2011, which lists apartments and houses to rent by the month in more than 5,000 cities. But the feature isn’t advertised on the website, and is not exactly fine-tuned. It requires renters, for example, to put in an end date for their stays. An expansion into long-term rentals would likely require Airbnb to work out some kind of option for renters to pay for things like utilities and recurring service fees.

A spokesperson for Airbnb declined to comment, saying only that the company is constantly considering dozens of new initiatives and new product categories, many of which never become actual products.

“Examining different parts of the market is standard operating procedure, and we don’t have any announcements to make,” spokesperson Nick Papas told Bloomberg.

The company recently bought the Canada-based short-term luxury rental website Luxury Retreats International for a rumored $200 million.

McKinsey is expected to present its findings to Airbnb’s senior leadership next month.

Craigslist has about 60 million U.S. visitors a month, according to the internet research firm ComScore, which is a huge user base Airbnb would look to tap into. Despite Craigslist’s popularity, however, the website looks much like it did when it launched more than 20 years ago, and doesn’t vet its listings.

A study from New York University in March 2016 found that Craigslist fails to identify and remove more than half of the phony rental listings on the site. [Bloomberg] – Rich Bockmann

801 Tower, 1501 Hughes Way and 515 S Flower Street (SBHG/CommonWealth Partners/Daum Commercial)

Specialty insurance group Tokio Marine HCC signed an 11-year lease at Downtown Los Angeles’ 801 Tower.

Tokio will take up 32,000 square feet at the 25-story office tower on S. Figueroa Street, joining current tenants such as Anthem Blue Cross of California and China Trust Bank.

The 462,626-square-foot office tower owned by Barings Real Estate Advisers was built in 1991 and features creative and traditional office floor plans.

Tokio plans to move out of its current space at 601 S. Figueroa Street in May.

John Eichler and Tyler Stark of Cushman & Wakefield represented the landlord. Mike Catalano and Luke Raimondo at Savills Studley represented Tokio.

Stars Behavioral Health Group (SBHG) is stretching out. The company announced it has expanded its corporate offices at 1501 Hughes Way in Long Beach from 11,344 square feet to 17,713 square feet.

The four-story office building is owned by Brookfield.

Tom Sheets of Cushman & Wakefield and Eric Adams of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank represented the landlord. Jeff Coburn and West Dunlap of Lee & Associates represented tenant SBHG.

Sheets said the SBHG was initially considering a move to another building in Long Beach but decided to stay – becoming a full floor tenant. Brookfield agreed to build out their expansion space, Sheets said in a release.

Northwestern Mutual Los Angeles inked a new deal to consolidate into the 34th floor of the City National Plaza at 515 S Flower Street.

The firm, which occupies two-and-a-half floors in the building, will move out of those offices and into its 25,000-square-foot office space in July.

The redesigned floor follows the free-addressing model in which office spaces are unassigned, allowing the financial consulting firm to add additional employees while reducing its overall space.

The two-building, 2,639,493-square-foot property is owned by CommonWealth Partners.

Kevin Bender of CBRE represented Northwestern in its 10-year lease.

Dan Emmett of Douglas Emmett, Jonathan Gray of Blackstone and the building at 1299 Ocean Boulevard

It’s hard to outbid Douglas Emmett.

The company, known for paying top dollar and holding assets long-term, is in contract to purchase the Wilshire Palisades building for about $287 million, or $1,400 a square foot, sources told The Real Deal. If the deal to purchase the property from Blackstone Group closes, it would be the highest per-square-foot sale price in Santa Monica’s history.

Other bidders for the 11-story, 205,000-square-foot, ocean-facing property at 1299 Ocean Avenue included Boston Properties, sources said. But Douglas Emmett (DEI) blew the pack away by offering a stiff premium – when TRD wrote about the building being shopped around last month, sources familiar with the property said they expected it to trade for about $238 million, or $1,165 a square foot.

The deal is expected to close in the coming months, sources said.

The mega-landlord’s joint venture partner on the deal is Qatar Investment Authority, sources said, but this could not be confirmed. QIA, the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, was DEI’s joint venture partner on a $1.34 billion acquisition of a Westside office portfolio from Blackstone last year.

DEI is also in talks to acquire the 86,700-square-foot office at 429 Santa Monica Boulevard from Blackstone for more than $73.7 million, or $850 a square foot, sources said. QIA is said to be a partner on that deal as well. 

Eastdil Secured has the listing for Wilshire Palisades but its brokers could not be reached for comment, nor could HFF’s Ryan Gallagher, Andrew Harper, and Michael Leggett, the brokers marketing 429 Santa Monica.

The current per-square-foot price record in Santa Monica is $1,165, set by Oracle’s purchase of 2700 Colorado late last year.

DEI could not immediately be reached for comment. Blackstone declined to comment.

No on S protestors (Via southpark.la)

Less than a third of Los Angeles voters cast their ballots in favor of Measure S in Tuesday’s election — a thunderous defeat for the little anti-development initiative that grew into a citywide movement.

The landslide defeat was largely unexpected, since the vote was projected to be a close one even in the days leading up to the election. “Yes on S” had dominated the billboards and ran an aggressive mailer campaign. So why exactly did Measure S flop?

Jill Stewart, director of the Measure S campaign, attributed the defeat in part to Gov. Jerry Brown’s statements against the initiative last month.

“We were neck and neck until Gov. Brown jumped in and thrashed us in ads,” she told Southern California Public Radio. “We just got slammed at the very end by last-minute, huge money and that is very hard to fight.”

The campaign also undermined its own messaging through misleading mailers, according to No on S consultant Bill Carrick.

The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department sent a “cease and desist” letter to backers of the measure over their use of deceptive “EVICTION NOTICE” campaign ads, which were circulated in late February.

Another mailer featured Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti with the words “I agree” next to his photo, despite the fact that the mayor was a vehement opponent of the measure.

Measure S also had its work cut out given the sprawling nature of the proposal, which called for a two-year moratorium on any development that required land use changes.

“So many people would be severely impacted that I think that’s what really did it in from day one,” pollster Adam Probolsky told KPCC. [SCPR] — Cathaleen Chen

TV exec Fred Silverman and the home on Mandeville Canyon Road (credit: Westside Estate Agency)

Television executive Fred Silverman finally sold his Brentwood home for $17.75 million, just over half its original $30 million asking price.

Silverman, who inspired the character Fred Jones in “Scooby Doo,” bought the 8,000-square-foot ranch-style abode in 1988 for $2.55 million. He first listed it for sale last April and later slashed the asking price by $7.5 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The 2.5-acre compound comprises a five-bedroom, seven-bathroom main residence as well as a guest house with four more bedrooms and four bathrooms.

The main house dates back to 1952 and features a den, a billiards room, a step-down living room and a library. The 3,200-square-foot guest house has beamed ceilings and a living room with a projector and bar.

Westside Estate Agency’s Stephen Shapiro and Richard Ehrlich represented both Silverman and the unidentified buyer. [LAT] — Cathaleen Chen

The site at 1018 W Ingraham Street and Rahim Amidi, co-founder of the Amidi Group

Redwood-based Amidi Real Estate Group, a family-owned firm headed by brothers Rahim and Saeed Amidi, is planning a $20 million, 37-unit mixed-use development in Downtown’s Financial District.

Amidi has owned the 0.2-acre site, a small commercially-zoned parking lot at 1018 W. Ingraham Street, since 1998, according to Mehrdad Jafari, who works for Amidi’s construction arm. One floor would be set aside for commercial space, city documents show.

The developer is requesting a parking variance to allow for off-site parking for the project. The filing was first reported by Urbanize, which did not identify the developer.

Amidi is the firm behind a furnished rental complex at 1010 Wilshire Boulevard, which it built a decade ago, as well as the Hollywood Production Center facilities in Hollywood and Glendale.

The project is across the 110 freeway from FIGat7th, the Downtown shopping center and food court. It’s also just blocks from Japanese developer Mitsui Fudosan’s planned 40-story, 409-unit tower at 754 South Hope Street.

From left: Yale Fox, Richard Sarkis, Michael Mandel, Caren Maio and Hiten Samtani

From the New York website: There may never be a truly easy easy time to launch a startup, but in the real estate tech business the past few years weren’t too bad. As the real estate industry’s profits surged amid a yearslong market boom, executives were more willing to spend on products like virtual space tours or property databases. But now that the market is no longer on the upswing, are leaner times ahead for tech startups?

Richard Sarkis, founder and CEO of commercial property data company Reonomy, said he’s noticed a “paradigm shift” in the way real estate firms buy technology products. As the market slows, technologies that cut costs suddenly hold the greatest appeal. “Increasingly, the conversations are shifting towards ‘convince me that our companies are not only going to drive out top-line growth but are going to help me be more fiscally responsible’,” he said.

Sarkis was speaking on a panel Thursday at a launch event for TRData, The Real Deal’s new real estate research platform. All the panelists make a living selling data tools to real estate firms, and in a discussion moderated by TRD‘s Hiten Samtani, they grappled with the difficulties of doing so in an industry that is reluctant to embrace change.

Michael Mandel, founder of crowdsourced leasing comp database CompStak, was more pessimistic than Sarkis. He argued that an industry increasingly keen on cutting costs may decide that data is not always necessary. “I do think a lot of times people do fall back on their instincts” when making decisions, he said.

David Eisenberg, who founded the virtual-floor-plan company Floored and became a CBRE executive when it acquired his startup, said his challenge as a salesperson was to convince landlords who made a lot of money without ever changing their ways to change their ways. “It is more difficult than my previous life [in e–commerce] where we sold software to retailers where the house was on fire and they said ‘Amazon is destroying me and I will pay anything to get your help’,” he said.

“Ideally, the holy grail is that I can say, ‘listen you put a dollar in and five dollars come out,’” said Caren Maio, CEO of Nestio, a leasing management and marketing platform for residential landlords and brokers.

From left: David Eisenberg, Yale Fox and Richard Sarkis

Both Eisenberg and Sarkis said the increasing prevalence of online data makes offering numbers less valuable. Successful data companies of the future, they argued, need to offer novel tools to analyze data rather than just the data itself. Yale Fox, CEO of Rentlogic, said his company was moving toward putting together building data in such a way that it could help investors make better acquisitions.

Fox recently faced a dilemma completely unrelated to market cycles. Rentlogic grades landlords in part on how well maintained their buildings are. Last year, the startup partnered with brokerage Citi Habitats to grade its listings, but was forced to end the partnership after landlords with bad grades came down hard on the brokerage.

“The Real Deal published an article with the headline ‘Citi Habitats partners with anti-slumlord website’ so [Citi Habitats’] Gary [Malin] was getting emails day and night (…) and the relationship ended within a few days,” Fox recalled. But the episode still generated publicity, and Fox said that in the same week a dozen landlords reached out to ask about listing their properties directly on Rentlogic.

Rentlogic isn’t the only company that has felt the collective heat of the real estate industry. Listing site and Zillow-subsidiary Streeteasy recently launched a new feature that allows brokers to pay for putting their name on the platform as a listing agent, and was met with concerted opposition from real estate brokerages. Nestio’s Maio, who operates in the same universe and is partnering with the Real Estate Board of New York on its residential listings system (RLS), said “Zillow is a media company, and they make their money from advertising. So while it’s upsetting, it’s not surprising.”

The panelists also discussed how they expected the real estate industry to evolve in the coming years. Eisenberg said that self-driving cars would change the way that buildings were configured. Maio said that on the residential side, the evolution was rapid.

“I’m not even thinking about 2020,” she said. “I’m thinking about two months from now because the industry is going to look a lot different.”

Brent Hocking, Serra Road home (Getty Images/MLS)

Brent Hocking is ready to leave his Malibu estate behind the guarded enclave of Serra Retreat.

The founder of DeLeón tequila and Virginia Black whiskey is listing his 7,247-square-foot property for $19.9 million, or $2,753 a square foot, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The four-bedroom, four-bathroom contemporary home features a home automation system and a kitchen with black leather stone countertops. And outside is a 72-foot-long pool and tennis court.

Hocking purchased the home in 2014 for $5.5 million, according to property records.

The spirit maker launched Virginia Black last year with hip-hop artist Drake. He sold his DeLeón tequila to an investment group three years ago that included rapper and business mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, the L.A .Times reported.

Sandro Dazzan and Irene Dazzan-Palmer of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage have the listing.

Hocking isn’t the only one looking to leave Serra Retreat.

Down the street is a home registered to Wayne Hughes Jr., son of Public Storage founder Wayne Hughes, whose Spanish Colonial home has been on the market since 2015 with a current asking price of $10 million, The Real Deal discovered. [LAT] — Subrina Hudson

From left: Randy Slaughter and Ryan Flautz

Caruso Affiliated hired Reza Safavi to be its new senior vice president of project management, the West L.A. firm announced Thursday. Safavi was poached from Taslimi Construction, where he worked for 25 years.

In his new role at Caruso, Safavi will guide the scope, timing, budget, and risk management of projects. He will oversee the development of Palisades Village, which received final approval from City Council in June.

At Taslimi, he worked on the 240,000-square-foot redevelopment of the Creative Artists Agency offices in Century City, the renovation of the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and CBRE’s DTLA headquarters.

Meanwhile, Turner Impact Capital has a new senior manager: Randy Slaughter is the new senior vice president of operations.

Slaughter was the director of security at Canyon Partners, according to his LinkedIn. At Turner, he will specialize in risk management and will work out of the firm’s Santa Monica headquarters.

On the creative front, KTGY Architecture + Planning has promoted its executive director of production, Ryan Flautz, to associate principal. He joined KTGY in 2011 and has worked on projects such as townhomes and apartments in northern California. Flautz’ background is in residential design and project management.

From left: Doug Curry, Richard Persichetti, Nick Romito, Harley Courts, Jonathan Greenspan and Katherine Clarke

From the New York website: Real estate is having a Napster moment as the industry wrestles with how to share Big Data — if at all.

That was a key takeaway from a panel on Thursday at the launch of TRData, The Real Deal’s new real estate research platform.

“We don’t want to give away our data set,” said Harley Courts, CEO of Nooklyn, a Brooklyn-based online rental brokerage. “It’s a big, big, big mistake to give away your data.” He was referring to the recent decision by StreetEasy to use user-generated data — a.k.a. listings — from agents with a new feature that directs buyers to agents who pay to be listed as “premier agents.”

Moderated by TRD’s Katherine Clarke, panelists also included Doug Curry, CEO of Xceligent; Jonathan Greenspan, president of On-Line Residential; Richard Persichetti, regional director at Cushman & Wakefield; and Nick Romito, CEO of VTS.

In a wide-ranging chat that touched on data protection and M&A trends, the panelists banded together over a common enemy: CoStar.

“Some companies try to litigate the workflow of the industry,” said Curry, appearing to refer to Xceligent’s biggest rival. On the flip side, he said, Xceligent’s open-source database would be made available to tech startups this spring, and Xceligent’s parent company — DMGI — will identify successful startups as potential acquisition targets.

(To read a recap of the other panel, “Big Data 2020: Exploring the next wave of real estate technology and information,” click here.)

From left: Richard Persichetti, Nick Romito and Harley Courts

Romito said VTS, which announced what it said was a $300 million merger with Hightower in November, is also on the hunt for M&A activities.

“We competed with them [Hightower] for probably two-and-a-half years, head-to-head on almost every deal,” said Romito. “We [realized we] can keep bloodying each other’s noses for the next two years or we can really focus on the North Star and do this thing together.”

On the residential side, data is harder to come by, and the same kind of deal flow may not be attainable, said OLR’s Greenspan.

“If it’s a layup in commercial, it’s a half-court shot in residential,” he said, referring to data collection.

Weighing in on the StreetEasy drama, Greenspan said agents’ instinct to protect their data is being challenged not just by StreetEasy but by owners who want the listings publicized on the listings website. At the end of the day, he said, “It’s their own business and they’re still free. You can choose to have your listings on, or use your power and take them off.”

Jeff Klein, Sunset Tower terrace and pool (Getty Images/Sunset Tower Hotel)

Less than a month after The Real Deal broke the news that the 81-key Sunset Tower Hotel had been quietly listed by JLL’s Jeff Davis, with bids expected to exceed $90 million, a deal is in the works – but it’s a curveball.

Jeff Klein, the hotelier who elevated Sunset Tower to a celebrity haunt, unexpectedly exercised a right of first offer to buy out his former partner’s 80 percent stake in the property for roughly $95 million, or almost $1.2 million a key, sources told TRD.

Klein and an unidentified partner purchased the 80 percent stake from ER Hollywood, an entity controlled by Thai billionaire Thosapong “Mr.T” Jaruthavee, sources said.

The deal is in escrow and expected to close in 90 days. At that price, it would set a price-per-key record for hotel sales in West Hollywood, eclipsing Northwood Investors’ $975,000-per-room purchase of the London.

The New York Post first reported news of the sale earlier Thursday, but did not provide a sales price.

Klein has long held a 20 percent interest in the property. He gave new life to the historic hotel as a glitterati hotspot, playing host to the likes of Vanity Fair’s Oscars party.

Now that he and the partner fully own it, Klein is planning to renovate the hotel’s terrace and guest rooms, sources said. Its Tower Bar, frequented by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Lady Gaga, will remain as-is.

Potential buyers circling the property were shocked by the twist in the deal, sources said.

“They figured he was just some hotel guy, and wouldn’t have the cash to exercise his right,” one source said. “They didn’t think he could get that kind of money together so quickly.”

One potential buyer, a Saudi investor, is rumored to have toyed with a price $25 million higher than Klein’s offer, with a request to live in the top three floors of the hotel, according to sources, who said potential buyers were taken aback when the property they were marketed was pulled.

JLL’s Davis, however, said he did not solicit any official bids during the ROFO period, so any rumor of a price is mere speculation.

“I think this deal was a win-win for both sides,” Davis said. “It’s an amazing asset, Jeff is a great person and an amazing operator.”

Klein and ER Hollywood could not be reached for comment.

Klein and then-partner Peter Krulewitch bought the hotel for just $18.5 million in 2004. In 2015, Krulewitch sold his stake to Mr. T’s entity for $75 million. Klein remained managing partner.

If it closes, the deal would join an elite handful of hotels in Los Angeles County that have surpassed the $1 million-per-key benchmark. Anbang Insurance bought the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel for $1.4 million per key last year. In 2015, the Mani Brothers bought the 80-key Malibu Beach Inn from David Geffen for a whopping $1.7 million per key.

Mayor Eric Garcetti and DTLA (Credit: L.A. Mayor, Hunter Kerhart)

Measure S may have been soundly defeated on Tuesday, but a directive signed by Mayor Eric Garcetti on Thursday morning addresses some of the key issues raised by the failed initiative’s backers.

In a wide-ranging executive directive, Garcetti banned ex-parte communications between developers and planning commissioners — a main concern of the measure’s supporters, who sought to reduce the behind-closed-doors deals they said impact project approvals.

“We will enhance public confidence in our planning process by ensuring that all discussions with Planning Commissioners regarding projects under their consideration are public discussions,” Garcetti wrote in the directive. “Planning Commissioners are volunteers who make critical decision as they represent our city’s diverse communities. Their proceedings must be fully transparent to maintain the public trust.”

An email sent Thursday to Yes on S spokeswoman Jill Stewart seeking reaction to Garcetti’s bounced back as undeliverable. However, in January, the group had hinted that it may have dropped its costly, often-ugly fight over Measure S if the mayor took steps to limit ex-parte communications. Garcetti had pledged to do so in September, but declined to take action during the campaign, leading Stewart to tell the Los Angeles Times in February the mayor’s announcement was a “ploy.”

The directive, officially titled Executive Directive 19, also takes steps to address another major concern of Measure S backers: the outdated general plan and community plans that govern development in Los Angeles. Critics argued the archaic documents have led to haphazard planning and so-called spot zoning, which they say has given rise to developments out of character with their host communities.

On Thursday, Garcetti ordered the Department of City Planning to accelerate the update of the general plan, creating a schedule and program for the process within 30 days and called for a periodic review process to occur every five years afterward.

The program will also include the review and possible updating of Los Angeles’s 35 community plans—the oldest which, covering Hollywood, dates back to 1988. The city council voted in February to create a new ordinance that mandates the community plans be updated every six years.

Garcetti also called for the city’s personnel department to prioritize hiring city planners to speed up the process.

The directive also covers a host of other planning, transportation, and housing items, including: expanding the city’s oversight of the environmental-impact-report process by requiring developers to hire environmental consultants that have been placed on a prequalified list, calling on the city council to pass an affordable housing linkage fee, establishing a Measure M steering to committee and establishing a mayoral task force on planning to ensure that plans for the future growth of the city are aligned with infrastructure improvements.

In a statement on Thursday, Councilmember David Ryu applauded the mayor’s directive to ban the ex-parte communications, and honed in on the need to regularly update the community plans.

However, Ryu said the directive was just one step in cleaning up the planning process targeted by Measure S backers.

“The City Council must also quickly pass comprehensive campaign finance reform, which will restore Angelenos’ faith in the City’s ability to fairly review and approve major development projects,” he said. “We need a campaign finance system that limits the influence of big-pocketed developers and instead, empowers thousands of small donors to have their voices heard.”

The Standard Hotel on the High Line and Andre Balazs (Credit: Getty Images)

From the New York website: André Balazs, founder of the Mercer and Standard hotels, stepped down as chair of the Standard hotels brand.

The hotelier left the board of Standard International, the company that controls five Standard hotels, including the Standard High Line. The hotelier will retain a 20 percent stake in the company as well as a stake in some individual hotels, the Financial Times reported.

Balazs, who launched the Standard brand 18 years ago, described the move as a “friendly parting of ways,” according to the newspaper. The company is in the midst of developing a 270-room hotel in London, and the hotelier told the paper he was “no longer involved with the design or any other aspect of the development of the London Standard.”

Balazs said he’d have more time to work on new projects, namely ultra-luxury hotels.

“The lack of uniqueness in the luxury sector is lamentable,” he told the publication. “I think we changed the affordable category. I think the luxury market is crying for exactly that.”

Balazs spun off the Standard brand from Andre Balazs Properties in 2013. He sold an 80 percent stake of Standard International, the business that runs his hotels, to private investors for an undisclosed price.

In 2014, Standard International paid $400 million, or about $1.2 million per room for the Standard High Line. [FT] — E.B. Solomont