Details: 6 bed/6.5 bath 7,300 sq ft house, 8,700 sq ft lot, blah blah bells and whistles...new construction
Description: Custom tri-level New England beach house on one of the most desirable streets North of Montana. Four bedroom suites up and two bedrooms down. Constructed with great attention to detail, White French Oak floors, cook's kitchen with stainless steel apps, formal dining room, living room, family room and office. Spacious basement with a game room, media room and fireplace. The private backyard has an inviting loggia with fireplace. Excellent for entertaining and adaptable to fit one's needs.
Lot Purchase: 11/20/07 - $2,500,000
Listing History: 6/7/10 - $4,850,000
SOLD: 9/24/10 - $4,500,000
It seems that a lot of these huge spec houses were rented out the past few years when they were completed because they couldn't sell for the prices that the developers wanted. Here we have a huge spec house in a great location and it sold relatively quickly.
The developer paid peak price for the lot ($2.5mm) and the lot is probably worth $2mm or a touch higher now. If we assume it is worth $2mm, the buyer just paid $2.5mm for the construction. That comes out to $342/sq ft for the construction. The developer ought to be able to build for less than retail prices but given holding costs, transaction costs, the depreciation on the lot value, etc, they likely lost a fair amount. Looking at this from the buyer's point of view, I guess it isn't too bad because maybe they could build it a bit cheaper but that would take time and a lot of effort. So call this fair value?
Obviously a "great location" is in the eye of the beholder, but it tickles me that this "beach house" is well over two miles from the beach.
ReplyDeleteDepends Crash, if you know the neighborhood, you know that there are a lot of issues to consider, including:
ReplyDelete1. If you have school age children many people consider Franklin to be the one of the most, if not the most, desirable public elementary schools--only East of 15th Street attend
2. 24th Street is considered one of the more desirable streets in NoM. Some streets are "through" streets and have more traffic and some streets do not have as much tree foliage--24th is one of the nicer streets as it meets both hurdles.
3. Walkability is valued by many who choose to live in SM and particularly NoM (vs those who value walkability less and perhaps value views and live in the hills). The 20s provide nice options in walking to Montana Ave, Brentwood Country Mart, and Douglas Park/Wilshire.
4. The standard lots east of 17th are larger (60ft wide) than those from 7th-17th (50ft wide).
5. There's no doubt that the large lot mansions west of 7th are highly desirable and the prices reflect that--did you see the home that just sold for $7.45m? This house west of 7th would have been considerably more than $4.5m. One downside though is the amount of beach parking/traffic in the summer time--I've heard a few residents I know who are lucky to live there complain quite a bit, don't get me wrong, if I could afford to live there I definitely would.
Well, it's in the eye of the beholder, as I said.
ReplyDeleteWalkscore.com gives this address a walkability score of 63/100: "Somewhat Walkable." By the standards of (western) Santa Monica, that's not very good.