Rich and famous are mere mortals in soft real estate market
— -- Like many homeowners selling in a stubbornly depressed market, Candy Spelling didn't get her asking price.
Her 14-bedroom, 57,000-square-foot mansion in the Holmby Hills section of west Los Angeles was on the market for 28 months — at $150 million, the priciest private home ever listed in the United States. Spelling eventually accepted $85 million from Petra Ecclestone, the 22-year-old daughter of British billionaire Bernie Ecclestone.
If Spelling is feeling seller's remorse unloading The Manor, she is hiding it well. "At the time it was listed, $130 million was the bottom line. If market conditions had been better, maybe I would have gotten more," says Spelling, who pocketed another $6 million from Ecclestone on artwork and furnishings after closing the sale this summer.
In a market where the housing bust has rippled through all price points, few entertainers, athletes, business tycoons or other well-heeled sellers are willing to share details about their pains or gains. But nowhere are the price cuts sharper — or more visible — than in the super and ultra-luxury markets, where prices, depending on location, range from the $15 million to $50 million-plus.
Overall home prices in 20 major markets are up slightly from 2010 over the four-month period ending in July, but values remain about 30% or more off their 2006 peak, according to Standard & Poors Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Some high-end home prices have been battered by 50% or more. As the threats of a double-dip recession and another swoon in financial markets linger, high-end homes stretching from Beverly Hills to Park Avenue languish on the market.
Investment banker William Chadwick sought $65 million for his Malibu, Calif., estate in 2008. The price was slashed to $35 million, then the estate put up for auction Sept. 18 — a rarity on a stretch of known as billionaires beach, where property owners include Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and DreamWorks co-founder David Geffen. Opening bids for Chadwick's estate were set at $22 million, 66% off the initial asking price.
"We don't have a deal yet," says Tony Fitzgerald of Premiere Estates Auction, which is overseeing the Chadwick sale after the recent auction of an Austin estate for $6.2 million — 64% below 2009's $17 million list price.
Fleur de Lys, the Versailles-style estate of Spelling's socialite neighbor, Suzanne Saperstein, has been on and off the market since 2005. Asking price: $125 million.
Some deals are still eye-popping. Actress Jennifer Aniston recently sold her Beverly Hills estate for $35 million — 17% below the $42 million asking price — within four months of listing it. (Her ex-husband Brad Pitt sold his Malibu home for $13.5 million, 25% less than the $18 million he first sought in 2009.)
But frequently even steep price cuts fail to attract interest. And many newer listings reflect the somber reality of lower values, a glut of luxury homes and an absence of deep-pocketed buyers.
Actor/producer Mark Wahlberg's Beverly Hills home, for example, was listed at $16 million in 2008. It recently came back on the market for less than $14 million. Sharon Stone's Beverly Hills home, on and off the market several times, is priced at $9 million, 28% below its 2006 listing at $12.5 million.
Lower prices haven't helped move other properties, such as Michael Jackson's former Bel Air rental, Le Chateau d'Or. It's priced at $30 million, 25% off 2010's $40 million asking price.
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