Hot Property: Silent film star's Santa Monica beach house listed at $7.9 million

 

The former beach house of swashbuckling leading man Douglas Fairbanks Sr. has come on the market in Santa Monica listed at $7.9 million.

The neighborhood was known as the Gold Coast after Hollywood stars and industry giants built homes there in the 1920s.

The two-story Mediterranean, built in 1922, has three bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms and formal living and dining rooms in 1,641 square feet.

The property sold in 1994 for $1,815,000, according to public records.

Fairbanks lived in the home from the early ’20 until the end of the ’40s.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: A brick terrace extends the living area off the back of the house and steps down to the swimming pool and spa, which are flanked by grass lawns lined with mature trees. Jeffrey Hyland of Hilton & Hyland, Beverly Hills, has the listing. Credit: Everett Fenton Gidley

Hot Property: Interior designer lists Santa Monica cottage

 

Kitty Bartholomew, the woman who taught us to decorate our homes, has listed her own Santa Monica house for $2,195,000.

The one-story Nantucket cottage has a center hall floor plan, and all three bedrooms open to English gardens. The main house is about 2,000 square feet, and there is also a separate studio office with vaulted beamed ceilings and a detached guesthouse. There are hardwood floors throughout, and the kitchen has an antique O’Keefe & Merritt stove.

The home has three bathrooms and was, of course, decorated by Bartholomew.
Bartholomew, 61,  starred on ABC for many years, was featured on her own decorating show and hosted the annual White House Christmas Tour. She also hosted the HGTV show "Kitty Bartholomew: You’re Home" for eight years, starting in the mid-’90s, and  has written several books on knitting.

MaryLu and Kathleen Tuthill at Coldwell Banker Previews, Brentwood Court office, are the listing agents.

--Ann Brenoff

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Nick Springett and Kathleen Tuthill

Santa Monica extends smoking ban to areas of condos, apartments

Missed this Santa Monica item reported in late January at the Argonaut:

Once again, Santa Monica has extended its far-reaching smoking ban.

At a meeting earlier this month, the Santa Monica City Council unanimously approved an ordinance amending the current anti-smoking law to regulate smoking in common areas of multi-unit residential housing.

E-mail in my inbox this week from the Washington, D.C.-based National Multi Housing Council explains what that means:

The law makes it a criminal infraction to smoke in outdoor common areas, including patios, garden and pool areas and parking lots. Victims of secondhand smoke can file a civil action in court to get an injunction or collect as much as $100 in damages. The law requires a resident to try to reach a solution with the smoker before filing a civil action, including providing written notice of the law and a written request to stop smoking in the common areas. The ordinance includes condominiums and does not grandfather smoking rights for existing rent control residents.

So Santa Monica apartment and condo dwellers, let us know how it goes.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Mel Evans / Associated Press

Foreclosure in Santa Monica: Bubble and bust on Dewey Street

Dr. Housing Bubble has a good one today, a 15-year story of bust, boom, bubble and bust again, all told through the life of a single foreclosed house in Santa Monica.

The house is 2376 Dewey St. -- right on the border between Santa Monica and Los Angeles, on a busy street close to the Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Here's the agent's description:

Bank owned foreclosure. 3bed/2bath home! ... Attached garage. Great area. Light & Bright! **Buyers bring your best offers!**

And here's the sales history:
Sold, 5/93: $290,000
Sold, 9/01: $417,500
Sold, 9/02: $476,000
Sold, 10/04: $696,000
Sold, 11/06: $1.1 million
Foreclosed 5/08
Listed 10/08: $709,500.

From these numbers and this house, Dr. Housing Bubble weaves the story of the bubble, punctuating each chapter, and each sale, with newspaper headlines of that day.  (My personal favorite headline is this one from June 2004: "No sign of a Housing Bubble, Study says.")

Nope, no housing bubble here.

Two cents: This house is in a crummy location, as is often the case with Westside foreclosures. Houses in move-in condition on nice blocks are holding their value much better. But remember: the house highlighted here has always been in a crummy location, and, yet, 23 months ago, it sold for $1.1 million. The bubble is bursting in Santa Monica, as the good doctor reports.

— Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to Peter Viles.

Photo credit: Dr. Housing Bubble

Illustration of the Day: The new Santa Monica Place

In with Bloomingdale's, out with Macy's:

The new incarnation of Santa Monica Place, the Frank Gehry-designed shopping center that is getting a major makeover in downtown Santa Monica, will feature a broad plaza surrounded by curving walls that open both to the street and toward the beach.

.... Designed by noted Los Angeles architect Gehry early in his career, the old mall, completed in 1980, had an enclosed suburban-style configuration that was incongruously set in one of the most affluent urban shopping districts in the region

Bloviation: Yeah, that mall was a real dud. A time capsule of everything that was wrong with the late 70s and early 80s. Glad to see it go.

-- Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to Peter Viles.

Illustration credit: Macerich / Kitchen Sink Studios

A freeway foreclosure in Santa Monica

Yes, Virginia, there are foreclosures in Santa Monica. They are even priced to sell. But you've got to really want that Santa Monica address.

This one is particularly weird, as it combines a pie-shaped lot jammed up against the soundwall of the 10 freeway and $580,000 price cut from a bizarrely high peak sales price in 2006.  Read all about it at Westside Bubble, which links to SM Distress Monitor.

Details from the Redfin listing for 3121 Urban Avenue: A 1,475 square foot, 2-bedroom, 2-bath, in foreclosure and on the market for 43 days. Current asking price: $809,900. Peak sales price: $1.39 million in September 2006.

I swung by this morning to check it out, as there is a little tiny part of my brain that wants to look at every cheap house in Santa Monica. You could hit a sand wedge from this house onto the 10 freeway,  even if you are not a long hitter. If you go stand in the middle of Urban Avenue in front of the house and look east, you'll see the freeway curving into your vista.

Here's the description, from SM Distress Monitor: "Bank owned! Fantastic opportunity to own an updated home in Santa Monica. Updated gourmet kitchen with granite counter tops and travertine floors. Italian tile in updated bathrooms with designer fixtures. This open floor plan is flooded with natural light and perfect for entertaining. Mostly wood floors. There is a den off the living room with a fireplace. Great price and great area."

Like I said, you've really got to want that Santa Monica address.

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com
Hat tip: I.E. in comments, and several others in comments and e-mails.
Photo Credit: LA Land

How much for that little house in Santa Monica?

The answer to the earlier pop quiz on the house at left: The Zillow Zestimate for this three-bedroom, one-bath home in Santa Monica 90405: $917,000.

Of course, that doesn't mean the house is worth that much, or would sell for that much. It just means that, based on the most recent comps in that neighborhood, and the size of the house -- 933 square feet -- and the lot, that's the Zillow computer's best bet.

When and if prices start to fall in this neighborhood, the Zestimates will fall too.

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com
Photo Credit: L.A. Times

Westside weakness? One reader sees it

Look carefully at the photo, there is a quiz below.

One of the most popular topics on this blog is the debate over what will happen to prices in higher-cost neighborhoods.  To date, they have generally held their value better than greater Los Angeles, and have not suffered large numbers of foreclosures. That said, reader e-mail from "Someday the Ants Will Eat Grasshoppers":

"Your readers keep asking why the prices are holding up on the high end Westside properties. I’m not sure what they’re looking at, but I have been tracking prices in Westwood, lower Brentwood, Santa Monica (north of the 10), and Pacific Palisades every day for past 3 months. I look at every house for sale under $2M with 3 bedrooms or more, and I look every day. Really.

"Here are the relevant numbers (calculated from my daily Redfin downloads for those neighborhoods and that price range):
"The average number of listed homes dropping their asking price per day: 1.15
"The average size of any one price drop when it occurs: $53,090.90
"The average drop across all 50-60 properties meeting the search criteria per day: $1,017.58
"Ratio of new homes being listed to homes being sold: 3.48.

"So…Westside sellers are constantly dropping asking prices, and often in large amounts (the largest I saw since Feb was $400K). New properties are being listed for sale over three times more often than listed properties are selling. With asking prices for these sub $2M properties dropping about $1K per day, only the very rich would want to buy now. I mean, if you are in that market, that’s like putting $30K per month in your pocket just for waiting.

"People have observed that comps are not lowering. However, the average selling price is about $200K less than the average asking price in these neighborhoods right now. The comps are slow to decline simply because there are very few sales right now. No one (with good reason) seems to be buying. Eventually the transactions will happen, and the comps will adjust. Everyone needs to be patient, although frankly, I wish someone would buy now and then to help accelerate the lowering comps.

"I hope you run this story (or at least selected parts of it), because many of the high earners in your fan club get less attention, and certainly less sympathy, about the difficulty of getting into the market. They deserve to know that their lot will change, too, and their hard work and patience will pay off. Life is fair."

Thanks, Someday.
Now, as promised, the quiz. The house pictured is a 993-square foot, 3-bedroom, 1-bath in the 90405 ZIP code of Santa Monica.The current Zillow Zestimate is:
a) $599,000
b) $714,000
c) $805,000
d) $917,000
e) $1.06 million

Your thoughts? Guesses? Email story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com
Photo Credit: L.A. Times

Price choppers near the beach

Two of our favorite blogs, Westside Bubble and Manhattan Beach Confidential, are seeing some price-chopping.

In Manhattan Beach, try to guess what the next move is on the house pictured at right:

Listed June 28 at $2.899 million
Reduced July 20 by $100,000 to $2.799 million
Reduced August 19 by $100,000 to $2.699 million
Reduced Sept. 5 by $100,000 to $2.599 million
Reduced Sept. 25 by $100,000 to $2.499 million

Westside Bubble, meantime, finds 10 listings in Santa Monica and Mar Vista that have been reduced by 15% or more. The Biggest Loser (and we mean that in a good, complimentary way, like the TV show) is a cemetery-adjacent 3-bedroom in Santa Monica, which has lost 42% off its asking price, from $1.28 million down to $745,000.

Comments? Insights? Email story tips to lalandblog@yahoo.com.

Tracking trouble in Santa Monica

First a post, then a brief bloviation.

Post: A new blog on our radar screen this week, Santa Monica Distress Monitor, gets down and dirty with details of defaults, distress and foreclosure in Santa Monica.

Example: A 2-bedroom, 1-bath condo in 90403 that sold with 100% financing in June 2006 for $681,000 just went through foreclosure and was sold for the surprisingly low price of ... (wait for it) ... (wait for it) ... $560,000.

Wow -- that's an 18% decline in a little over a year ... in Santa Monica.

Now, bloviation: We really enjoy the proliferation of these smart, tightly focused neighborhood blogs. It's funny, but when you read newspaper or magazine coverage of the explosion of news and information on the Web, the coverage is often tinged with worry, or anxiety, or troubling questions -- a vague sense that the orderliness or integrity of the flow of information is somehow at risk.  But when we watch the explosion of information in just our tiny little world of Los Angeles real estate, it's absolutely mind-blowing how much information, thought, news, opinion and analysis is becoming available. It's a great time to be a consumer of information. We think it rocks. As Johnny Miller said on NBC during the golf tournament last weekend, "If you don't like this, folks, turn on tennis."

Photo Credit: "Pier at Santa Monica," by "Empriss," on LATimes.com's Your Scene