When 'Hot Property' runs cold -- the Teri Polo story

Those of you who don't like celebrity items, move along, this doesn't concern you. Go ahead, move along.

Now then. The best beach read in town, the reliable blog Manhattan Beach Confidential reports that actress Teri Polo had to drop the price quite a bit to sell her Manhattan Beach home.

Once featured in the The Times' Hot Property column as a $2.6-million listing, MB Confidential reports the house sat on the market for months, and the asking price was dropped to $2.09 million before the home finally sold.

MB Confidential further reports that Polo paid $2.5 million for the home in May 2006, and concludes, "You Can Lose in MB."

More from MB: "Remember that May 2006 was not a bad time in our local market. Just the first hints of buyer skepticism and flattening prices were beginning to be heard. There was plenty of contrary evidence –- maybe the local market would keep rocketing forward.  It didn't. Fall 2006 saw a real slowdown, and the Spring 2007 rally was quickly subsumed by the credit crisis last summer."

Big giant caveat: The blog doesn't report the ultimate sales price. It's quite possible Ms. Polo did better than $2.09 million.

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com.

Photo: Circlepix

Comments

[Maggie Knowles]

Peter - I love hearing about celebrity real estate and deals, especially when you stick to the facts and the topic of real estate. Thanks for posting.

[Lynnette]

Hey Pete - is there a reason your new posts are not being listed on the main real estate page? This could be the reason comments have been sparse.

[RealtorDaveE]

A dropping tide eventually lowers all ships.

This is just another market correction to more realistic pricing.

Polo's sad story is a great example of what happens to unrealistic sellers and lazy or inexperienced agents in a challenging market:

http://socalrealestatenews.com/blog/
how-to-sell-your-property-for-top-dollar-in-30-
days-in-any-market/

[peteviles]

Lynnette asks, "Hey Pete - is there a reason your new posts are not being listed on the main real estate page?"

Thanks, Lynette. My blog is always featured on the main real estate page, maybe you're thinking of the latimes.com homepage, where it is OFTEN featured, but not lately. There is a reason and I'll try to explain it. We have more blogs at LATimes.com than will fit on the home page; My boss feels that some blogs -- mine included -- are popular enough to "stand on their own two feet," so to speak, without the help that home page placement brings. So the idea is to showcase other blogs -- often newer ones -- to give them a chance to find an audience through the home page. My traffic and comments do suffer a bit, and naturally I would love to be featured prominently 24-7 at the top of the home page, but I understand the strategy. LA Land benefited from home page promotion when it was a new blog, and now it's time to share the space with other new blogs. I hope that clears things up.

[PeonInChief]

Now I know what not being from LA means. I had to google "Teri Polo" to find out who she was.

[PeonInChief]

Now I know what not being from LA means. I had to google "Teri Polo" to find out who she was.

[Ace]

I don't get it.... where is the celebrity?

[mark g]

ahem... Teri, if you need a place to stay while house hunting... ;-)

[Lynnette]

Actually, Pete, I meant that your new posts are not listed. The main real estate page has your blog on it like usual, but the new posts are not being updated. The latest one still shows as "Portrait of a no-money-down foreclosure from June 5.

[l.a.guy]

Ouch. That's a pretty good chunk of money to lose.
However, given Teri's considerable assets, I think she'll survive this just fine.

[anonymous]

Another caveat - she could have sold it for less than the asking price, too. Anyone who gets more than 2003 pricing in today's market is doing great. She got a great deal, IMHO.

[Laker]

Thanks to property shark,
We can find that she bought the house with two loans and $375,000 down payment 15%. She has (Option?) ARM 1st for $1,750,000 and a 2nd for $375,000. (70/15/15 jumbo loan).
So she can afford to reduce to $2,100,000 as she did, and sell it nice without short sale...
oh,,, yeah she kissed byebye to her $375,000. Peanuts to her...don't worry.
Based on same public records, she now/ used to live in Manhattan, NY and nice area of Manhattan...right Peter?

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

If she would lower the asking price by $3 million, I might consider it.

Uncle Billy, I often don't understand my own writing. In any case, it should have been the big W, not the big M, as you know from the movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and not, I repeat, not from Da Vinci's Code. Sorry for the confusion.

[E]

Many people (Bulls) used to use the argument "The wealthy people in the nicer neighborhoods can afford to wait it out".

I counter that with...

The wealthy aren't worried about losing a few hundred thou' or even a couple million...and they certainly aren't worried about bringing down their neighbors "fantasy value" of the homes in the neighborhood by selling at current market price.

[Nelcisco]

is she really an actress or a waitress saying she's an actress???

Ace is right, where's the celebrity?

[CaliforniaDreaming]

She was in "Meet the Parents" several years ago, but recently has been more "famous" for being a single mommy who subsequently posed nude in Playboy, and if I remember correctly, talked about her bisexual tendencies.

[Anthrodiva]

She played Jimmy Smits's wife on the West Wing. She's in that weird limbo area where, you hear the name 'Teri Polo' and kinda recognize it and you see her face and you kinda recognize it, but the two don't go together. Better publicist, mayhap?