Simon Ziff of Ackman-Ziff and Bruce Mosler of Cushman & Wakefield are the latest additions to The Real Deal‘s Future City 2020 in the Bahamas.
They will join REBNY president Jim Whelan, JDS’ Michael Stern, Gil Dezer of Dezer Development, Young Woo of Youngwoo & Associates and many more industry titans for the three-day event from February 23rd to 25th at the luxury Baha Mar resort.
Future City is an exclusive retreat that gives 200 C-level executives a chance to learn from and network with the biggest dealmakers and innovators in the country, with an emphasis on the ways tech is changing real estate.
VC funding for Proptech hit record levels in 2019 as new technology helped real estate revolutionize. Last year’s sessions included workshops like “How to get on the venture capital train” and “Construction innovations changing the development landscape.”
The event also features cocktail parties, group meals, and keynote speeches throughout. Plus, Future City’s luxury venue provides additional activities that will include golf, fitness, poker, backgammon, and more.
If you are VP level or higher, please email FutureCity@TheRealDeal.com for further details. Space is limited and subject to approval.
Former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son (Credit: Getty Images)
For WeWork’s investors, better late than never.
SoftBank’s $3 billion tender offer to WeWork is set to launch this week, following weeks of delays, according to Reuters. Masayoshi Son’s firm was expected to launch its offer earlier in November but delayed the move while it tried to make technical revisions to the offer documents.
The $3 billion offer for WeWork shares includes up to $970 million for those owned by co-founder Adam Neumann. Last week, Bloomberg reported that SoftBank was considering reducing the size of the package, which had drawn ire from WeWork employees because of the huge payout to Neumann. But that was a move that could have resulted in litigation.
The deal will now move forward at the previously announced price of $19.19 per share. The offer is a crucial part of the $9.5 billion rescue package that WeWork and SoftBank agreed to in October, which gives it control of roughly 80 percent of the company and staved off a potential bankruptcy. [Reuters] — Eddie Small
Jamie Duran is the president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in Southern California. She oversees more than 4,500 agents and 200 employees spread across 58 offices in the region. A self-proclaimed “Valley Girl,” Duran grew up in Studio City before attending California State University, Northridge. At 19, she started dabbling in real estate, flipping homes with her father. Since then, she’s worked in almost every aspect of the industry in her three-decade-long career at Coldwell. Earlier this year, she was named one of the most influential women in residential real estate by Swanepoel Power 200. But her brokerage has had its share of challenges recently, with parent company Realogy’s stock price hitting record lows and a handful of local star brokers moving to other firms.
As Coldwell forges ahead, Duran talks future plans for the brokerage in L.A., in an interview that has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How did you get involved with real estate?I studied business at Cal State Northridge and got interested in it then. My dad also had a great idea for me to get my license so we could start flipping homes. He had done some seminar and came to me and said, “I know all the tricks of the trade now. If you get your license, we’ll start flipping homes.” And we did and did really well.
What happened next?Him, being an entrepreneur, flipped the switch one day and started a wine business. I helped him run his business and started real estate at the same time.
How long did you flip homes for? Two years. I was at Jon Douglas Co., flipping homes, then realized at that point that to really make money in the business, you really should be selling as well. So I started doing both.
When did you make the switch to management?I was tapped on the shoulder to do some training in the office. I became very good at that, so I became the training director, then regional training director. One thing led to another. At the time that I was tapped to be a manager, I was actually starting a family and it just seemed not as crazy — I thought — as selling real estate. It was just as crazy.
You were recently promoted to president. How has your day-to-day changed since taking that position?Mostly the mileage on my car. It’s a bigger span, and people often ask, “How do you possibly fit all this in a day?” I don’t watch television. I do enjoy social media, but I also don’t stay on all day long. It’s about time management.
You’re one of four women in a local leadership role at NRT [which owns Coldwell Banker]. What’s that like?It’s so strange being in this position because I don’t look at the diversity of our company or our industry until somebody points it out. What I do notice is that when I have an opening for the leadership roles, we don’t get as many [females] coming to us. That’s what drives me crazy. We don’t have enough of those women coming forward and putting their hands up to say, “I can do that job.”
You’ve been with the same company for three decades. Would you advise young agents to do that today? I think every company is different for everyone. I really believe in a big, solid company with a big, solid brand because I believe it offers the most, not just for the agents, but to the consumer.
Coldwell has lost some big agents recently, including top agents such as Chris Cortazzo and Ginger Glass to Compass. Why is that? I think everyone has a reason for moving that is more personal than it has to do with the company. My biggest question when people make a move is, “Is that in the best interest of your own client?” If it was just for personal reasons, for whatever those reasons are, I get that. But is it really in the best interest for the client?
Is there anything Coldwell is doing to mitigate the loss of talent? What we are doing and continue to do is to provide a really good environment for our agents. But you’re going to have attrition. There’s competition out there, and it’s healthy. We just want to attract the people that understand our value proposition and want to be with us. If they don’t want to or don’t get it, that’s OK too.
We have seen the traditional brokerage model upended recently, with tech-driven startups and online brokerages in the mix. Does Coldwell ever feel as though it is behind in this regard? I feel that the Coldwell brand is traditional but extremely innovative. We’re always challenging our resources and our own tools and pushing the next best thing internally. Sometimes that takes a little bit longer than companies that go out there and deliver. I’m OK with being a little slower to execution and making sure that we have it done right.
You’d mentioned it was because of the noisy Metro rail construction nearby. Was cost-cutting also a factor? I wish. We are not out of that lease yet, so we are going to have to sublease. We’re going to be spending a lot of money in the environment, so there’s a lot of expenses. I’m not looking forward to any huge savings.
Sales in L.A. are slowing. Does that scare you?It doesn’t scare me as a leader. I know that if anybody can weather the storm, we have the biggest umbrella. You have to tweak things and make sure that you are doing all the right things as a business owner. Sometimes that means spending money in a different way.
What’s it like overseeing 4,500 agents and three kids?Four kids if you count my husband. Thankfully, my kids are older and they can take care of themselves a bit more. It really has been a joint effort, and you have to have that support both at home and [work.] It is not a one-man show or a one-woman show. It is definitely a team effort.
I’ve heard you’re into morning affirmations. Can you share any of those?There’s a book called “The Miracle Morning” that I stumbled upon. It’s a few minutes of my day in the morning of gratitude, affirmation and serious quiet meditation. It’s just about making sure that “I am strong, I am healthy, I am happy and I’m going to have a great day.” Taking five minutes of white space in your head is so important. I should probably have more, but I’m happy to get the five minutes.
Before California’s landmark rent control law goes into effect on Jan. 1, roughly three dozen cities and counties have passed emergency measures aimed at preventing tenant evictions.
The moratoria comes after scattered reports surfaced of landlords dramatically increasing rents and kicking tenants out, according to the Los Angeles Times, which cited data provided by the advocacy group Tenants Together.
Los Angeles is the largest of the local governments to impose a measure preventing evictions ahead of the Jan. 1 law. Other cities and counties range from the Silicon Valley to Central Valley and tiny cities in Los Angeles County.
On Oct. 8, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 1482, which set rent caps and implemented “just cause” eviction rules, making California the third state in the nation to pass such legislation.
The law will cap annual rental increases for multifamily properties to 5 percent plus the consumer price index (estimated at up to 3.5 percent) over the next decade. It’s aimed at halting landlords who were raising rent prices to an average of $2,320 per month amid growing demand, according to a Marcus & Millichap report.
The state law, authored by Assemblyman David Chiu, requires that landlords on Jan. 1 reduce rents to March 2019 levels. But it also permits them an allowable rent increase under the new cap, which is 8.3 percent in the Los Angeles area.
Attorney Dennis Block, who represents landlords, argued last month at a conference that landlords were protecting their investments by hiking rents and issuing evictions before the state law takes effect, according to the Times.
“The governor of the state of California and our wonderful state Legislature created a situation where they’re telling landlords to evict tenants,” Block told the Times. “Any problems that tenants are having, they should talk to their legislators who created this insanity.”
Others said tenant groups have exaggerated the number of evictions, and that politicians were pandering to renters.
Daniel Yukelson, the executive director of the Apartment Association of Great Los Angeles, said he doesn’t believe there have been mass evictions, and argued that it’s not worth the expense and time for a landlord unless it’s as a last resort. [LAT] — Pat Maio
Robert Shapiro and the property at 1357 Laurel Way (Credit: Zillow)
Another mansion that belonged to disgraced Woodbridge Group of Properties CEO Robert Shapiro has sold, this one for $18 million.
The seller of the Beverly Hills mansion was listed as Woodbridge Wealth, one of the many firms created by Shapiro, who was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison last month for masterminding the $1.2 billion fraud.
The property is among many in the Woodbridge portfolio that independent managers — led by Frederick Chin — are now in charge of selling off to recoup money for defrauded investors. Chin was the signatory on the 1357 Laurel Way purchase.
The 11,225-square-foot home is located at 1357 Laurel Way, property records show. The sale price was pegged at $1,604 per square foot.
The buyers were Susan and Dan Gottlieb, prominent conservationists who run the Gottlieb Native Garden at Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The couple also founded G2 Gallery nature and wildlife photography in Venice, which closed in 2017.
The Gottlieb Native Garden
The entire Laurel Way property encompasses 22,061 square feet. The ultra-modern house was by McLean Design, whose owner, Paul McLean, has designed some of the priciest spec homes in Los Angeles. It features floor-to-ceiling windows, and an L-shaped pool among other features.
In all, more than 7,000 property investors were defrauded over five years until Woodbridge went under in late 2017 amid a wide-reaching federal investigation into the scheme. The investors were all promised high returns, instead, Shapiro and the company bought those properties themselves through a web of legal entities to obscure ownership.
In November 2018, Shapiro agreed to pay a $120 million settlement for running the alleged fraud. He, his wife, and others involved in the scheme will pay a total of $892 million to the SEC to compensate victims.
One of Katerra’s co-founders and board members has quietly left the construction tech startup amid reports of layoffs and abandoned projects.
Fritz Wolff, who also heads his family’s eponymous private equity firm, the Wolff Company, is no longer a board member but “maintains an advisory role as a co-founder of Katerra,” a company spokesperson confirmed on Monday. Wolff disappeared from Katerra’s website sometime in the past month. He could not immediately be reached for comment.
The SoftBank-backed company, as with the conglomerate’s other investments that have not yet turned a profit, has been facing heightened scrutiny in the wake of WeWork’s botched initial public offering. The Information reported last month that Katerra — based in the San Francisco Bay Area — pulled out of at least half a dozen apartment and hotel projects in the U.S. this year and laid off more than 100 employees. And in the last four years the firm has run through three CEOs and is on its third CFO.
Last year, Wolff told the Journal of Business that his family’s firm and Katerra planned to build thousands of apartments in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area of Washington state and Idaho over the next few years. He referred to Katerra as a “servicer” that worked on Wolff’s pipeline of investments. He also said that the Wolff Company would serve as a customer of Katerra’s newly-opened cross-laminated timber factory in Spokane. A spokesperson for Katerra said the company continues to work on projects with Wolff.
Katerra, which has a rumored valuation of more than $4 billion, bills itself as a tech company that serves as a construction supplier, builder and designer. The company, which has received more than $1 billion from SoftBank, has seen considerable executive turnover since launching in 2015. The company has had three CEOs and is now on its third chief financial officer.
Last month, CEO and co-founder Michael Marks told The Real Deal that if the company goes public, it would do so sometime in or after 2021.
Mohamed Hadid and his spec mansion (Credit: Getty Images)
A Santa Monica judge has ordered Mohamed Hadid’s Bel Air “Starship Enterprise” spec mansion demolished to its foundation slab and put into receivership.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Craig Karlan ruled from the bench Wednesday that Hadid must tear down his illegally built creation, siding with a plaintiff group of Bel Air neighbors led by Judith and John Bedrosian.
The demolition order, which TMZ first reported, might be the beginning of the end for Hadid’s 30,000-square foot home at 901 Strada Vecchia that has triggered not just multiple lawsuits, but also a criminal case and FBI probe.
Karlan’s ruling comes a few weeks after City Attorney Mike Feuer also demanded the building torn down in a simultaneous criminal case against Hadid.
A Van Nuys criminal court judge has yet to rule on Feuer’s request, and it is not clear how the civil ruling may affect the criminal case. Messages left with the city attorney’s office Monday were not returned.
In his oral ruling, Karlan cited assertions from the city attorney and Department of Buildings that the building was structurally unsound and could not be fixed using the beams and columns now holding up the edifice.
The judge also noted it was not in dispute that Hadid built the mansion without city approval.
In ordering the building razed, Karlan invoked a state civil procedure code that lets judges appoint a receiver in cases, “necessary to preserve the property or rights of any party.”
Karlan also requested a proposed order from plaintiff lawyers Ariel Neuman and Shoshana Bannett of Bird Marella that would name a receiver for the property.
The judge’s order followed oral arguments in which Hadid’s lawyer Bruce Rudman of Abdulaziz, Grossbart and Rudman said his client had had neither the $5 million needed to demolish his estate, nor even the $500,000 to put it into receivership. Messages left with Rudman on Monday were not returned.
A native of Palestine, Hadid made his real estate fortune in the Washington D.C. area in the 1980s before expanding out west. He developed a handful of Southern California multi-million dollar mansions including Le Belvedere in Bel Air, which sold for $50 million in 2011.
Hadid is father to supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid.
From left: Rexford co-CEO Michael Frankel, 12752-12822 Monarch St. in Garden Grove, 508 East E St. in Wilmington and Rexford co-CEO Howard Schwimmer (Credit: Google Maps)
Already one of the most active industrial buyers in the Los Angeles area, Rexford Industrial Realty paid $56.1 million for two warehouses and a property where it has development plans.
This year alone, Rexford has acquired more than $850 million of industrial properties in Southern California.
As part of its latest purchase, the real estate investment trust paid $34 million for a roughly 275,000-square-foot building in Garden Grove, the company announced.
The property, at 12752-12822 Monarch St., is on 11.1 acres and 93 percent leased. Industrial vacancy rate in that Orange County submarket hovered around 2 percent at the end of the third quarter, according to CBRE.
Sawtelle-based Rexford also paid $15 million for a 57,522-square-foot warehouse near the Port of Los Angeles. The property is located at 508 East E St. in Wilmington.
And with its $7.2 million purchase of a property in Azusa, Rexford will build a 97,000-square-foot warehouse. The property is located at 415 S. Motor Ave. in the San Gabriel Valley.
Last month, the firm paid $41.3 million for a 92,000-square-property in Commerce. The seller was industrial giant Prologis.
The latest deal comes at a time when L.A. County’s red-hot industrial market is showing some signs of slowing down, though not for lack of demand. Investment sales in the sector are on pace for a record year, with over $7.4 billion worth of industrial properties trading in L.A. and neighboring markets this year, according to CBRE.
But a lack of supply may slow that activity, according to a report from NAI Capital, which indicated that low availability and high pricing may be discouraging leasing.
Michael Bloomberg’s candidacy for president has an obvious appeal to the business community but not to the left-leaning voters expected to decide the Democratic primary for president. His record on real estate issues shows why.
As mayor from 2002 through 2013, Bloomberg’s pro-development policies were credited by business interests for powering New York City’s comeback and denounced by critics for increasing homelessness and inequality. Even decisions that seemed moderate or progressive at the time no longer do in the context of today’s politics.
Bloomberg presided over the construction of 40,000 buildings. His 120 rezonings set the stage for glassy towers in downtown Brooklyn, Williamsburg and Long Island City that are cheered by some for fostering the city’s rise and blamed by others for widening the chasm between the wealthy and everyone else. His administration encouraged but did not mandate affordability in new housing — a choice unlikely to impress Democratic voters next year.
Bloomberg was also known for putting city resources toward megaprojects, including the new Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards. The Yankees were allowed to use $866 million in tax-exempt financing, Citi Field got $100 million, Atlantic Yards — including Barclay’s Center — got $205 million for infrastructure and other elements and Hudson Yards got a $2.4 billion extension of the No. 7 subway line, among other benefits.
In 2004 the city made a $50 million commitment toward the creation of the High Line. Cornell Tech — among the few highlights of Bloomberg’s third term — grew on Roosevelt Island from his promise of free city land and up to $100 million in infrastructure work.
“He made it very clear that New York was open for business,” said developer MaryAnne Gilmartin, praising Bloomberg for encouraging “big, bold and audacious thinking.”
But one tenant leader saw the same record in the opposite light.
“No one has done more to accelerate the homelessness and displacement crisis in New York State than Michael Bloomberg,” said Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All. “For 12 years he funneled public resources — land and money — to his corporate, billionaire friends.”
Some say Bloomberg was in bed with developers such as Related, whose Hudson Yards development was supported by $6 billion worth of city and state subsidies, tax breaks and infrastructure. Bonds for the subway project were funded by the property tax revenue it was predicted to generate. It was the first addition to the subway system since 1989 and unique in that the city paid for it, despite the Metropolitan Transportation Authority being a state entity.
Bloomberg was also seen as close to Tishman Speyer’s Jerry Speyer, who has a stake in the Yankees and sits on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In 2006 the firm purchased Stuyvesant Town for $5.4 billion, a jaw-dropping price that meant Tishman Speyer would have had to push out many rent-stabilized tenants to generate a profit. That was the largest of many such acquisitions that private interests made without the mayor raising alarms, even as advocates for rent-regulated housing did.
Critics also tied Bloomberg’s policies to rising income inequality and a 69% increase in the city’s homeless-shelter population during his three terms, according to Coalition for the Homeless. The mayor attributed the jump to improved conditions in shelters making them more attractive, and in 2013 famously said, “Nobody’s sleeping on the streets.”
It was also under Bloomberg’s watch, in 2004, that the city ended regular funding for the New York City Housing Authority. A year later, Bloomberg also ended the policy of giving the homeless priority for NYCHA apartments — believing it encouraged people to enter the shelter system — and the authority stopped conducting lead inspections in 2012.
Weaver noted that tenants make up an “extremely important” bloc of the democratic base, and are not likely to vote for a “technocratic billionaire who spent 12 years allowing landlords to run New York.”
But Seth Pinsky, who served as president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation under Bloomberg, stressed that the administration’s policies were designed to have broad economic impact.
Bloomberg “recognized the city was growing and appropriately said, ‘If a city is going to grow and accommodate employment, we have to have development,’” Pinsky recalled. “The real estate industry happened to be the beneficiary.”
Bloomberg, in 2007, also became the first New York mayor to have a sustainability policy, the premise of which was to accommodate more people in the city because their carbon footprint would be smaller there than in the suburbs. At the same time, his 70 or so “contextual rezonings” locked in low-scale development in many communities, while allowing for bigger buildings on some commercial streets and near mass transit.
The mayor was appreciated by business interests for his approach to governing. That is, having funded his own campaigns and not seeking support from the county Democratic organizations, he didn’t have to repay political favors when staffing or running his administration.
“The most pro-development thing Mike Bloomberg ever did was do a good job being mayor,” said Jordan Barowitz, a former deputy press secretary for Bloomberg and now vice president of external affairs at the Durst Organization.
Pinsky and Barowitz both said Bloomberg made considerable demands of developers to ensure they built affordable housing and created public amenities as they benefited from favorable policies. Barowitz said the administration jump-started mixed-income development by becoming among the first to champion inclusionary housing in New York City.
However, Bloomberg rejected making inclusionary housing mandatory, preferring instead to allow developers to erect larger buildings if they included enough reduced-rent apartments. He even scuttled early efforts for voluntary inclusionary housing before implementing it in 2005 after pushback from affordable housing advocates upset by a Park Slope rezoning.
Ron Moelis, co-founder of L+M Development Partners, cautioned against thinking about inclusionary housing in 2019 terms. He noted that the mayor’s plan for inclusionary housing was “much more transparent and accretive” than the policies that preceded it.
“He put together an affordable housing policy that was probably the most robust in the country and put funding behind it that allowed New York City to take the lead in the building and preservation of affordable housing in a meaningful way,” Moelis added.
“It was also a time when development in the city wasn’t as robust, especially in the boroughs,” Moelis added. “The discussion wasn’t about gentrification, it was about incentivizing people to invest in neighborhoods. It was the forerunner of what Bill de Blasio did at the beginning of his administration, which was mandatory [inclusionary housing].”
Moelis said L+M undertook a number of residential developments that never would have happened prior to Bloomberg’s affordable housing policies. But a 2011 study found that of the 170,000 affordable units developed during Bloomberg’s administration, all but a third were too expensive for the majority of local residents. (That same criticism has been leveled at de Blasio’s housing policy.) Research also showed that many developers built purely market-rate housing rather than including affordable units in exchange for a density bonus.
Some say that under Bloomberg, New York increasingly became a city of “haves” and “have nots.”
“You have this tremendous wealth disparity where poverty is disproportionately placed on people of color and women,” said developer Don Peebles, who has publicly backed Joe Biden’s White House bid and donated to the campaigns of candidates Sen. Cory Booker and Deval Patrick.
Peebles gave Bloomberg credit for “saving” New York in the wake of 9/11 and for steering the city through the financial crisis, which came at the end of his second term. But he said during Bloomberg’s final four years, the administration did not do enough to promote inclusiveness. “It’s a heck of a challenge to change the seating at the table of wealth and power — it requires affirmative steps to do it,” he said.
“Anyone with $50 billion of personal wealth is not an underdog,” he added. “My question is whether the message is one that will resonate with the Democratic Party.”
Goodwin Gaw with the Bradbury Building, Hollywood Roosevelt and Hollywood and Highland. (Photos by Alamy)
If the prevailing wisdom is that a) retail real estate is suffering and b) Chinese investment is on the wane, then Goodwin Gaw’s recent investment is a head-scratcher.
Over the summer, his real-estate-focused private equity firm, Hong Kong-based Gaw Capital, bought the L.A. shopping center Hollywood and Highland for $325 million. That it was the country’s largest single-address retail transaction outside of New York in years only fueled the intrigue.
The property is smack dab in the middle of L.A.’s bustling tourism district and it’s packed with dozens of shops, which haven’t exactly thrived in the face of e-commerce. In fact, lenders say the mall is about 80 percent occupied.
What was even more surprising for some was that Gaw Capital — one of the biggest firms of its kind in Asia, with $23 billion under management and a portfolio that stretches from Vietnam to England — was making a huge bet on American soil at a time when other Chinese real estate companies were pulling back amid a deepening trade war.
The firm’s home city has been convulsed by months-long street protests that have led to injuries and arrests and even shut down the airport. Perhaps Gaw was freshly bullish on overseas markets as some sectors of Hong Kong were struggling.
The reality, as it turns out, is more nuanced.
While Gaw Capital owns a number of other flashy properties around the globe, including New York’s Standard Hotel, in L.A. it’s been a major if unshowy player for decades, with about two dozen holdings.
Indeed, the company’s California-born chair, the 50-year-old scion of a wealthy real estate family, actually did his first deal in Hollywood at the age of 26, when he purchased the run-down Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel and turned it into a see-and-be-seen destination.
He is that rare Asian investor to have a foot firmly planted on both sides of the Pacific, according to brokers who have worked with him.
Prone to a very long-term buy-and-hold strategy, in neighborhoods that others might dismiss as too dicey, the limelight-shunning Gaw tends to downplay current events and market gyrations when investing.
“If you buy right, and you have the right concept for buildings, they turn around pretty quickly,” he told The Real Deal. “And I don’t usually divest unless I can find something more interesting.”
The Hollywood and Highland deal, brokers explain, could fit his general pattern of behavior.
“Goodwin is brilliant in that he can see around the corner before anybody else,” said Hal Bastian, a commercial broker with Amalgamated Metropolitan Properties who was worked Downtown since 1994. Bastian owns a unit in the Douglas Building, a five-story 1898 property Gaw Capital converted into a 50-unit condo in 2005.“He does things first-class.”
California connections
Goodwin’s U.S. roots run deep. Born in San Francisco in 1969, when his parents were studying at the University of California, Berkeley, he later attended boarding school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey before picking up two degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1993, he earned a master’s in construction management at Stanford.
L.A. was next. For a few years, Gaw worked as an asset manager for Kennedy Wilson, a commercial real estate firm, helping Japanese investors divest themselves of U.S. real estate after their buying spree in the ’80s, he said.
In 1995, he made the deal for which he may be best known, the purchase of the Roosevelt, a 12-story hotel on Hollywood Boulevard. Built in 1927, the Spanish Colonial-themed hotel had hosted the first Academy Awards in 1929 but had become run-down by the mid-20th century.
Christina Gaw (Getty Images)
To buy it for $9.5 million from Clarion Hotels, Gaw raised some money himself, he says, though $1 million came from his father, the late Anthony T. Gaw, the billionaire founder of Pioneer Global Group, a Hong Kong real estate conglomerate with telecom holdings. East West Bank, founded in 1973 to serve California’s Chinese-American community, contributed financing.
After a $20 million renovation, the hotel morphed into a celebrity-packed hotspot, attracting the likes of Paris Hilton and Courtney Love to raucous parties that often drew police and ambulances as well.
In 2017, the 335-room property collected $50 million in revenue, according to news reports. That was up from $8 million in 1995. A spokesperson declined to provide more recent data.
Partial to jeans paired with jackets and shirts without ties, Gaw reads more tech bro than real estate mogul when he’s spotted on the property. And while he may have a sixth sense for soon-to-be-hip enclaves, he’s not the kind of executive to end up in gossip pages himself.
In fact, Gaw — a resident of Hong Kong who’s married and has twin boys — says he mostly ends up at taking a room at the Roosevelt when he’s in L.A. to make sure the property is up to snuff.
A deep-pocketed dynasty
Gaw USA, which had $2.3 billion in assets under management as of the second quarter of this year, is currently investing its third U.S. fund. The $719 million fund drew from institutional sources, like college endowments, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds, according to the firm, which is a bit of a family affair. Gaw’s younger brother, Kenneth, is Gaw Capital’s president and generally is considered the number-cruncher.
The Standard Hotel in New York (Getty Images)
His sister, Christina, who formerly worked for Goldman Sachs, is the chief fundraiser, in charge of capital markets. The fourth managing principal is Humbert Pang, who’s based in Shanghai and handles mainland China investments.
The family matriarch, Rosanna Wang Gaw, meanwhile, chairs Pioneer Global Group, the company founded by Anthony, who died at 57 in 1999. Born and raised in Burma before relocating to Hong Kong, Anthony launched Pioneer as a textile manufacturer, though he later branched out into shipping and banking. Anthony was also an early investor in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China’s largest bank, which took itself public in 2006 in a $22 billion offering.
In 2017, the Gaw family was worth $3 billion, Forbes said.
While equity investors generally favor a single national market, they say Goodwin Gaw, who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and English, straddles both East and West with ease.
“He is considered savvy in both markets by his investors, which is rare,” said Jerry Tang, a managing director of Natixis, which financed the Hollywood and Highland project and provided a $170 million loan for the Standard Hotel purchase, in addition to other deals.
“Goodwin has always been a little bit of a real estate James Bond, a sophisticated quick study who can maneuver in and out of most asset classes in many sought-after markets in varied regions around the world,” said a commercial broker who wished to remain anonymous in order to avoid jeopardizing their dealings with Gaw.
“And he is usually armed with large quantities of ready-to-be-deployed capital,” they added.
As a manager, Gaw likes to delegate. Tang, for one, said he dealt mostly with Gaw’s L.A. office in putting the Hollywood and Highland purchase together. “He’s kind of a low-key guy,” he said. “But he’s connected.”
Historic properties
Interested in reviving down-at-the-heels historic properties, Gaw, after buying the Roosevelt, quickly turned his attention to the Downtown area, along Spring and Main Streets, which was L.A.’s central business district before Bunker Hill’s high-rises sprouted in the 1960s.
In 1996, he bought 818 West Seventh Street, a 12-story brick-and-terracotta 1925 former furniture showroom, along with 611 Wilshire Boulevard, a more modernistic tower, for about $20 million.
No. 818, still an office, its ground level ringed with shops, is today home to Downtown Properties. Founded by Gaw in the mid-1990s, the company manages and leases office, hotel and multifamily buildings in L.A. as well as similar properties in Pasadena and San Francisco.
Gaw was a full-time resident of L.A. until 2003, when he returned to Hong Kong to expand his portfolio. He went on to create Gaw Capital in 2005. Though essentially an offshoot of Downtown, Gaw Capital is now Downtown’s parent company.
A standout in Downtown’s portfolio is the Bradbury Building, a five-story 1893 office building at 304 South Broadway whose skylight-topped, metal-staircase-lined atrium has been a magnet for location scouts for years, serving as a set for movies like “Blade Runner.” Goodwin purchased the building, a National Historic Landmark, for about $6 million in 2003.
Other addresses, though,were converted to condos, like El Dorado at 416 South Spring and the Rowan at 460 South Spring, both in partnership with Tom Gilmore, an L.A. developer.
Gaw’s Downtown moves were well-timed, brokers say. In 1999, the Staples Center opened, giving some suburbanites a reintroduction to the area. The same year, L.A. amended its Downtown zoning to more easily allow apartments to be mixed in with the businesses. It spurred a development mini-boom — even if the area was dicey at night, said Bastian, who moved Downtown in 1994. “We still had people shooting up outside our doors,” he said.
Today Downtown has 80,000 residents, up from 18,000 in 1998, Bastian said.
Gaw’s bet on Downtown was a smart one. It’s also reflective of his philosophy ofbuying existing buildings as opposed to constructing new ones. “In general, I don’t like to underwrite the development risk,” he added. “A lot of times, the development risk comes from not really understanding localized politics.”
After his return to Hong Kong in 2003, the SARS epidemic hit, sinking Hong Kong property values. But instead of writing the city off, Gaw, unrattled by grim headlines, started snapping up real estate, an approach he also took more recently in a post-Brexit-referendum-vote London.
“I actually wish there was more disruption in the property market. We would have bought more. But I just haven’t seen enough disruption,” Gaw told the website Bisnow last month.
Asian angst
True to form, Gaw seems unfazed by the recent retreat by Chinese investors, spurred by the trade war with the U.S. but also more generally by President Xi Jinping’s continuing clampdown on overseas investing.
Gaw is quick to point out that troubled Chinese companies like Anbang Insurance Group and Greenland Group are located in mainland China and not in Hong Kong, which despite being under control of China since 1997 has operated somewhat autonomously. “The Chinese government has nothing to do with Hong Kong,” he said, adding in a post-interview statement, “we are NOT a traditional Chinese investor.”
“If anything,” Gaw added, “I’m looking for any correction in the market to redeploy capital.”
Still, Hong Kong, where Gaw Capital owns several properties — with partners, it bought 625 King’s Road, a 26-story office tower, for $605 million this year — can seem like not such an ideal place for doing business, either. Since June, the city has been wracked by nearly continuous protests, some of which have turned violent and resulted in building damage. And those protests, which began over concerns about a controversial new Chinese extradition law, have already taken a bite out of the office leasing market, according to news reports.
“People are starting to question the credibility of Hong Kong as an Asian hub,” said Edward Pan, a Colliers vice president working with clients looking to move money to the U.S. and Australia. “Hong Kong will never be the same.”
But Goodwin Gaw is staying put. “This is not the L.A. riots,” he said, referring to the 1992 tumult in the wake of the Rodney King case. “This is a bunch of kids playing war games on the weekend.”
2031 E. Mariposa Ave. and GPI’s Cliff Goldstein and Drew Planting (Credit: Google Maps)
GPI Companies nabbed $55.3 million acquisition loan for its purchase of an El Segundo warehouse that toymaker Mattel leases.
Global Atlantic Financial Group provided the debt on the 200,000-square-foot building, located at 2031 East Mariposa Avenue. GPI confirmed the loan deal.
CBRE’s Allen Matkins advised the Brentwood-based developer on the financing.
GPI will use a portion of the loan proceeds to renovate the warehouse, which Mattel uses for its research and development division.
GPI paid $84 million for the building, in a deal that closed in September. The seller was New York-based Angelo Gordon & Co.
The East Mariposa property was built in the 1940s as an aircraft fabrication facility, when El Segundo was a hub for aviation-related business. Today, the area has been attracting a growing number of media and technology firms.
GPI has been active in the L.A. area. Earlier this month, the developer closed on $120 million in construction financing to redevelop what had been the Macy’s department store in the former Westside Pavilion. Construction of West End is underway and is projected to wrap up in early 2021.
Jeff Greene in front of his Beverly Hills abode, listed at $129 million (Credit: Zillow)
Billionaire developer Jeff Greene has relisted his Beverly Hills mega-mansion, seeking $129 million for the massive estate. That easily makes it the priciest of the top five residential listings to hit Los Angeles County last week.
Greene is asking $129 million for the 25-acre estate, which is the same amount he was seeking back in 2017. If a buyer is willing to pay that sum, it would be the biggest residential sale ever in L.A. County. The current record holder is Petra Ecclestone, who sold Spelling Manor in Beverly Hills for $120 million in July.
Some of the others include a double penthouse condo at the Sierra Towers in West Hollywood and a new construction in the Bird Streets section of Hollywood Hills.
The data and information was compiled from Redfin and Zillow from Nov. 20-26.
9505 Lania Lane | Beverly Hills | $129 million
Luxury spec home developer Mohamed Hadid built this 35,000-square-foot home in 2002, and sold it Greene for $35 million five years later. Greene poured $25 million into the property — called “Piazza di Amore” — and tried to sell it for $195 million in 2014. The property has been on and off the market several times over the last five years. Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage is the current listing agent. Amenities include wine-producing vineyards, an approximately 10,000-bottle wine cellar, and Turkish-style spa and bath. It also has a 12,500-square-foot entertainment complex with bowling alley, theater, ballroom, and tennis court, and 128-foot swimming pool.
911 Loma Vista Drive | Beverly Hills | $36 million
This 11,000-square-foot Mediterranean-style house is part of the Paul Trousdale developed estates by the Santa Monica mountains. The property, whose price is pegged at $3,273 per square foot, features a Venetian-style stone pool and spa. The owner is unidentified, and in default with $14.5 million in payments past due, according to Zillow. Tomer Fridman of Compass and Branden Williams of Hilton & Hyland are the listing agents.
9255 Doheny Rd Ph 1 and 2 | $33.5 million | West Hollywood
This Sierra Towers double penthouse condo is a combined 7,000 square feet and features floor to ceiling glass with views of downtown, Hollywood Hills, and the ocean. The asking price is $4,786 per square foot. The luxury condo market has had splashy recent sales with pop star The Weeknd and real estate titan Richard Lewis each buying Beverly West penthouse units for $21 million. For this listing, Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency has the listing.
833 Stradella Road | $32.5 million | Bel Air
This hillside mansion was designed by Mark Rios, who completed construction in 2014. The 11,000-square-foot mansion has a “swanky den” and “chef’s kitchen,” according to marketing materials. The listing price pegs it at $2,954 per square foot. Linda May and Drew Fenton of Hilton & Hyland are the listing agents.
1561 Blue Jay Way | $18.9 million | Hollywood Hills
Construction was completed earlier this year on this Bird Street estate. It features a 1,400-square-foot multi-car garage. The house is 2,394 square feet, pegging the listing price at $7,992 per square foot. Amenities include a movie theater, atrium garden, and outdoor kitchen. Amir Jawaherian of The Agency is listing agent.
Here are the upcoming real estate events in Los Angeles next week.
Host: Connect Media Date: Dec. 4 Time: 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Connect Media is holding its Westside Los Angeles event at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, 11461 Sunset Boulevard from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. Attend for networking sessions and discussions on how a boom in projects across different sectors contributed to the evolution of Westside Los Angeles. Spencer Levy of CBRE and Bradley Ross of Madison Realty Capital will be among the speakers at the event.
Commercial Observer is holding its Fall Financing Commercial Real Estate Forum at the InterContinental LA Downtown, 900 Wilshire Boulevard from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This event will provide chances to network along with discussions on the markets with the most emerging lending opportunities. Speakers include Seth Grossman of Meridian Capital Group and Corey Hall of Brookfield Real Estate Financial Partners.
Developers for Long Beach’s soon-to-be tallest building are involved in a dust-up with the contractor that carved out a five-level underground garage for the Shoreline Gateway project.
Tristan Engineering Corp. claimed in a Los Angeles County lawsuit filed this week that the developers on the project shorted the Bloomington, California-based firm by $1.4 million in unpaid bills.
“It’s not uncommon in construction to incur extra costs, and the money doesn’t flow back,” said Scott Holbrook Jr., a lawyer representing Tristan.
Tristan began the work several years ago when it assembled a patchwork-quilt of conveyor belts to haul tons of dirt cut out of the ground for two mixed-use towers on a 1.5 acre-lot at Alamito Avenue and Ocean Boulevard.
The 17-story, $70 million West Tower, better known as the Current, was completed in 2016 with 223 apartments and 6,500-square-feet of retail space.
The Shoreline Gateway, which is a companion to the Current, will share a 10,000-square-foot plaza and eclipse the Long Beach World Trade Center as the city’s tallest building when it opens in 2021.
Construction began last fall on the 35-story, 417-foot tall Shoreline Gateway, which will boast 315 luxury apartments and nearly 6,500 square feet of retail space.
The subterranean parking garage handles 450 parked cars.
The final cost to dig the hole for the towers was $4.4 million, but developers Build Group Construction Co. Inc. in downtown L.A. and Shoreline Development in Irvine, paid Tristan nearly $1.5 million less the original contract for $2.9 million, the contractor claims.
Shoreline Development is a partnership between L.A.-based AndersonPacific LLC, Vancouver-based Ledcor Properties Inc., plus equity partners Winnipeg-based Qualico Developments Inc. and Lantower Residential, a unit of Toronto-based H&R Real Estate Investment Trust.
Tristan claims in its lawsuit against Build Group and Shoreline Development that the extra $1.5 million in work was agreed upon by all of the parties involved.
Representatives for the developers did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The Shoreline Gateway may not hold the distinction as the tallest building in Long Beach for long. Last year, Long Beach announced plans to build a mixed-use tower with 700 residential units that will reach 40-43 stories.
From left: Robert Barth and Stanley Black with 840 Greenway Drive (Credit: Getty Images and Zillow)
Prominent real estate investor Stanley Black is suing his business partner of 34 years, Robert Barth, claiming Barth defrauded him out of $8 million in a Beverly Hills mansion sale.
Black filed the explosive lawsuit Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging Barth concocted an elaborate scheme to siphon millions of dollars for himself through a maze of limited liability companies.
Black founded Beverly Hills-based Black Equities Group in 1985 along with his son Jack and brought Barth on board as CEO. The partners grew the firm into one of the country’s biggest commercial and residential real estate investors, with over 18 million square feet of property across the U.S.
However, the lawsuit charges would appear to strain, if not immediately destroy, their longtime partnership.
According to the complaint, Black says that he and Barth bought a mansion at 840 Greenway Drive in Beverly Hills for $17.1 million in 2017. The duo bought the mansion through a series of LLCs which Black manages and Barth holds interests in.
Black alleges that unbeknownst to him, Barth allegedly transferred the property deed from the original LLCs to Eastwind Financial, an LLC completely controlled by Barth and his family.
The deed transfer happened as Barth was negotiating a sale of the property with Eric Baker, an entrepreneur who founded ticket resale marketplaces StubHub and Viagogo, where he currently serves as chief executive. (Earlier this week, Viagogo agreed to acquire StubHub for $4 billion)
The Barth-controlled Eastwind Financial sold the property to Baker for $25 million. Black alleges that Barth then cooked the books and told Black the property sold for $16.9 million – pocketing the $8.1 million difference.
Black is suing Barth for the $8.1 million plus interest, alleging breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty. Black also alleges that Barth pocketed sundry other fees, including $235,000 Barth earmarked for property “due diligence.”
The Black Equities founder is also suing for punitive damages to “deter future malfeasance” from Barth.
Barth’s current role at Black Equities is unclear. The complaint makes no mention of the pair’s longtime business dealings or present relations. A representative at Black Equities said she didn’t know if Barth still worked for the company, and directed further inquiries to SB Management Corp. – a company Black and Barth founded in 1985, the same year Barth joined Black Equities.
Questions left for Barth at SB Management were not returned. A message left with Black including through his lawyer Howard King, of King, Holmes, Paterno & Soriano was not returned Tuesday. King is perhaps best known for representing celebrity musicians, including Robin Thicke, and artists suing Universal Music Group over master recordings allegedly destroyed in a 2008 fire.
Barth still lists himself as Black Equities’ CEO on his LinkedIn page. He is also co-founder of California Republic Bank, which merged with Mechanics Bank in 2016. He doesn’t appear to have yet appointed his own counsel, court records show.
Cristiano Moura (Credit: Christie’s Real Estate and Shaun King via Instagram)
A Christie’s International Real Estate agent has been accused by a woman on social media of getting into a fight with her in a shared Lyft ride.
On Instagram early Monday Jasmine Yvette accused a man — identified in the comments as Cristiano Moura — of “beating me up and biting me” and referring to her as “one of them uneducated ignorant black bitches.”
A representative for Christie’s International Real Estate acknowledged the incident in an email.
“One of the individuals involved is an independent contractor with a team of agents associated with Christie’s International Real Estate,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “An ongoing investigation is underway, and we are taking the matter very seriously.”
Yvette wrote on Instagram that she entered a shared ride with Moura and he asked her to turn down the volume on her phone. She told him he was clearly looking for someone to bother. The situation quickly escalated, she said.
Yvette wrote that after the altercation, the New York Police Department arrived and told her she had two options: “go to jail because in the state of New York women are not protected if a man has scratches on him … or get in the yellow car and go home.”
“I had to get in the back of another cab and go home feeling belittled, feeling less than and feeling unprotected!” she wrote. “I’ve never had a man full out punch me as if I was another man!!!”
Moura and the NYPD did not respond to requests for comment. Yvette’s account of the incident could not be independently verified, and she deferred to her attorney Lee Merritt for comment. Merritt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the time of publication, Yvette’s post recounting the incident had more than 9,000 likes and more than 1,400 comments. A repost on the Instagram account of Shaun King — a controversial activist and former New York Daily News columnist with a massive social media following — received more than 41,000 likes and nearly 40,000 comments.
Moura was removed from Christie’s website as of Monday.
Other brokers have been thrust into the public eye because of bad behavior. Last year, a MySpace NYC agent was fired after being caught on a cell phone camera shouting racial slurs at a bouncer outside a Bushwick bar. He was fired from his firm. In 2015, a residential broker was charged with driving off with a taxicab while intoxicated.
Weintraub Real Estate president and founder Richard Weintraub and Park Royale Mobile Home Park (Credit: Google Maps)
Weintraub Real Estate Group has filed plans to build a 127-unit apartment building in Van Nuys, at a time when the San Fernando Valley neighborhood is experiencing an increase in multifamily construction.
The Malibu-based developer intends to set aside half of the units in the proposed five-story building as affordable, which could qualify the project for city incentives.
The company bought the property at 7650-7658 North Balboa Boulevard two decades ago, paying $3.4 million, records show. Plans call for partially razing an existing mobile home park — called Park Royale — to make room for the development.
The company’s president and founder, Richard Weintraub, could not be reached for comment.
According to its website, the company has acquired, developed or entitled residential and commercial properties worth a combined $1 billion.
Last year, an entity tied to Richard Weintraub sold off a property in Woodland Hills for $15 million, whose buyer wants to build a 600-unit apartment complex.
In August 2018, Richard Weintraub sold the Malibu estate La Villa Contenta for $50 million to Behdad Eghbali, a founding partner at Santa Monica-based Clearlake Capital Group. The year before that, Beyoncé and Jay-Z rented the estate for $400,000 a month. The property is listed under Weintraub Real Estate’s featured projects.
Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and Realogy CEO Ryan Schneider (Credit: Columbia and iStock)
Five months after Realogy hit Compass with a bombshell lawsuit, the SoftBank-backed defendant is looking to resolve things outside of a courtroom.
In a Nov. 25 motion, Compass asked a New York judge to stay the legal proceedings and compel the two companies to seek arbitration.
The brokerage’s motion argues that the majority of Realogy’s accusations pertain to the Corcoran Group, its successful New York City-based subsidiary.
Because both Compass and Corcoran are members of the Real Estate Board of New York, it said, the two are bound by REBNY rules that require members to settle disputes via arbitration. Both are also bound by REBNY’s universal co-brokerage agreement, which carries the same mandate.
Compass further alleged that Realogy deliberately opted for a lawsuit over arbitration in order to try the case in the court of public opinion. In recent years, Realogy’s stock has plummeted amid competition for top agents from rivals including Compass.
“Plaintiffs have used this case … as an instrument in a public relations campaign targeting Compass,” the filing said. “Unfortunately, however, Plaintiffs here have presented the Court with a dog’s breakfast of a complaint.”
“They have sought to cobble together a variety of unrelated and isolated grievances, some of which bear little direct relation to Corcoran’s claims,” it added.
Compass declined to comment. Realogy did not respond to a request for comment.
Realogy’s lawsuit, filed in July, accused Compass of unfair and illegal business practices designed to beat rivals “at all costs.”
Compass called the suit an “act of desperation” by Realogy and it alleged that Realogy CEO Ryan Schneider attempted to sell the company to Compass — an assertion Realogy vehemently denied.
In a related motion this week, Compass asked the court to dismiss Realogy’s amended complaint, which was filed in September. In its motion, Compass called Realogy’s lawsuit “duplicative and unnecessary” because it essentially repackaged claims from prior lawsuits. (Citi Habitats and Corcoran sued Compass in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Both suits were settled in 2015.)
Compass’ motion accused Realogy of trying to stifle competition, particularly through “sweeping” covenants that try to freeze compensation for agents and employees. Compass said aggressive pricing actually benefits consumers and agents — except for Realogy and others that have “failed to keep pace with the market (and the times).”
It added: “Plaintiffs should not be permitted to use the judicial system to do what they cannot do through fair competition in the market.”
From left: SteelWave CEO Barry DiRaimondo and Griffin Capital CEO Kevin A. Shields
SteelWave just scooped up an empty three-story office building in El Segundo for $63.5 million, adding to its growing portfolio in the Los Angeles area.
The San Mateo-based firm bought the 152,000-square-foot property, located at 2160 Grand Ave., from Griffin Capital Essential REIT Inc., according to brokers on the deal.
Griffin Capital acquired the building for $52.7 million in February 2014, and sold it to SteelWave without any leases on the books. Griffin Capital bought out the sole tenant’s lease prior to the sale, the REIT said in a note to investors this week.
The 6.4-acre property, built in 1999, traded for about $420 a square foot.
Steelwave is likely to opt for a reposition play, potentially targeting creative tenants to fill the Class-A property, said brokers for Newmark Knight Frank, which handled elements of the sale.
An NKF team featuring Kevin Shannon, Ken White, Rob Hannan, Laura Stumm and Michael Moll represented Griffin Capital in the deal. SteelWave did not use outside brokers.
SteelWave, headed by Barry DiRaimondo and Paul Meyer, is known for value-add office investments in the Los Angeles area, where it has about a half-dozen office properties. Among its holdings are One World Trade Center in Long Beach and Marina Park in Marina Del Rey.
Last year, the real estate company sold an office campus in El Segundo to Atlas Capital Group for $39 million. SteelWave and Goldman Sachs had acquired the property, a former Raytheon research facility, in 2016, and undertook an extensive renovation of the property before selling.
El Segundo was once a hub for the satellite and military industry, but in recent years startups have moved there as a lower-cost alternative to Silicon Beach markets like Venice and Playa Vista.
El Segundo continues to be at the center of activity for developers seeking to turn office buildings into creative spaces for the thriving tech and startup firms in the area.
Earlier this month, Continental Development Corp. landed a $55 million refinance on four mixed-use buildings inside its massive retail and office park in El Segundo.
In early 2016, Continental Development began redeveloping several of its properties in Continental Park, turning them into creative office spaces.
In September, GPI Cos. acquired an El Segundo manufacturing complex leased by toymaker Mattel, for $84 million at 2031 E. Mariposa Avenue.
From top left, clockwise: 9601 Oak Pass Road, 915 Amalfi Drive, 915 Amalfi Drive, and 337 S Anita Avenue (Credit: Redfin)
The five priciest homes that sold in Los Angeles County last week totaled $53.3 million, a 70 percent jump from the total the week before.
Two of the properties last week were on Amalfi Drive in the Pacific Palisades. Another notable transaction was a Bird Streets property in the Hollywood Hills. Home sales in that enclave have been sluggish, particularly among ultra high-priced properties.
Information was compiled from Redfin, Zillow, and the Multiple Listings Services from Nov. 21-27.
9601 Oak Pass Rd | Beverly Hills | $22.5 million
Local architect Noah Walker of Walker Workshop designed the 10,381-square-foot ultra-modern mansion. The price penciled out to $2,167 per square foot. Amenities in this six bedroom, 10-bathroom home include a 75-foot lap pool and live concert space. Tomer Fridman and Michael Chen on Compass represented the seller, and Zach Goldsmith of Hilton & Hyland served as agent for the buyer.
915 Amalfi Drive | Pacific Palisades | $11 million
The one-bedroom, one-bathroom property encompasses 6,250 square feet, but features a 38,000-square-foot lot. The deal pencils out at $1,760 per square foot. The sale was $1.2 million higher than what it previously sold for in 2017. David Offer of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California represented seller and buyer.
1233 N. Doheny Drive | Hollywood Hills | $9.2 million
This bird could fly, even amid a sales slowdown and price cuts in the Bird Streets. This 80-year-old, 5,589-square-foot property in the lower Bird Streets has five bedrooms and six bathrooms. The deal penciled out at $1,638 per square foot. Jason Oppenheim and Mary Fitzgerald of The Oppenheim Group represented the seller, and Branden Williams of Hilton & Hyland represented the buyer.
337 S. Anita Drive | Brentwood | $5.5 million
This 5,776-square-foot home has five bedrooms and six bathrooms, marketed as a “gated east coast traditional.” The 13-year-old home includes a butler’s pantry, temperature controlled wine closet, gym and powder room. The sale penciled out at $952 per square foot. Robert Winans of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage represented the seller. Tyler Convery of Jax Real Estate served as buying agent.
1529 Amalfi Drive | Pacific Palisades | $5.1 million
This Amalfi Drive home was built in 1947, and has five bedrooms and four bathrooms. The 3,306-square-foot home was marketed as a teardown, and the sale penciled out to $1,543 per square foot. Fran Flanagan and Wheeler Coberly of Compass were the listing agents, and Cindy Ambuehl of Compass represented the buyer.
