Top Sales: Spec homes and celebrities fuel a red-hot November market [Los Angeles Times]
After a quiet October that saw no deals north of $20 million, Southern California’s luxury real estate market came roaring back in November, with three homes trading hands for more than $30 million including two on the same street.
Here’s a closer look at the priciest deals that went down in Southern California last month.
$47 million Beverly Hills
November’s biggest deal was in the 90210, where Nile Niami’s extravagant spec mansion, dubbed Opus, sold to San Marino real estate developer Bin Fen Cheng for $47 million.
Print
After a quiet October that saw no deals north of $20 million, Southern California’s luxury real estate market came roaring back in November, with three homes trading hands for more than $30 million including two on the same street.
Here’s a closer look at the priciest deals that went down in Southern California last month.
$47 million Beverly Hills
November’s biggest deal was in the 90210, where Nile Niami’s extravagant spec mansion, dubbed Opus, sold to San Marino real estate developer Bin Fen Cheng for $47 million.
Advertisement
It’s a massive sale but far shy of the original $100-million price tag when it first listed in 2017 (alongside a racy marketing campaign that involved a house tour filled with luxury cars and scantily clad women).
And fortunately, 2020 is nearly in our hindsight as well.
There are reasons to be optimistic heading into next year with the first vaccines being administered. A possible return to normal life seems within sight, suddenly. But, clearly, there is still pain all around. There’s the human toll with more than 300,000 deaths in the U.S., an unimaginable number. There’s the financial toll too. In our corner of the business world, many real estate players are struggling to ride out the pandemic and economic storm that have disrupted everything. In our cover story this month, we take a look at HFZ Capital Group, which could possibly implode in one of the biggest boom and bust stories of the era. Ziel Feldman’s firm has continually made big bets since the Great Recession, paying record amounts for land along Manhattan’s High Line and stretching itself with a big portfolio of condo projects.
Kurt Rappaport (Photo by Jeff Newton)
“It’s 10:30 at night, and I’m in a restaurant. My phone is ringing, no caller ID. I answer the call. It’s Larry Ellison.”
Eighteen years on, Kurt Rappaport said he still recalls exactly how the phone call that changed his life went down. He continued: “[Ellison] says, ‘I’m flying in tomorrow. I’ll land in Santa Monica around 10:00 a.m. I’d like to be on Carbon Beach. My friend, David Geffen, lives on Carbon Beach. If there’s anything we can see, that would be great.”
Rappaport had recently co-founded Westside Estate Agency and was already a successful agent. Ellison, though, was the multibillionaire chief of Oracle, a tech titan who raced yachts in his spare time.
Originally posted on Sportress | By Jason Rowan | Last updated 12/17/20
An ultra-rare Honus Wagner card was sold recently at auction for $3.7 million to real estate mogul Kurt Rappaport, according to TMZ Sports.
The sale of the card, which is among the most desired by collectors, was handled by Heritage Auctions. The $3.7 million price tag trails only the $3.9 million spent on a Mike Trout rookie card earlier this year that broke the record of $3.12 million set by a T206 Honus Wagner card in 2016.
The card purchased by Rappaport at auction is a T206 as well from 1909-11. The real estate mogul justified the price by referring to his purchase as “the HOLY GRAIL the rarest and most desired of all sports cards.”