Real Estate newsletter: ‘Friends’ star sells a mansion in the sky
Matthew Perry’s full-floor penthouse at the Century building was renovated by architect Scott Joyce and designer LM Pagano.(Michael McNamara and Jason Speth)
Welcome back to the Real Estate newsletter. I come bearing bad news: Cheap rent — the one positive effect the pandemic had for many tenants — appears to be over.
At least that’s what the numbers are showing. The median rent in Los Angeles bottomed out at $1,717 in January and has been rising ever since, and experts are saying it will be back to normal — north of $2,000 — by the end of summer.
That’s the bad news. The good news (if your name is Matthew Perry and you starred in the beloved 1990s sitcom “Friends”) is that the priciest condo sale in Southern California since 2015 just closed at $21.6 million, a full-floor high-rise residence that Perry has been trying to unload for a few years. Bigger than most single-family homes, the “mansion in the sky” spans 9,300 square feet and features four outdoor terraces overlooking L.A.
Two other intriguing listings popped onto the market this week for the first time in decades. In Malibu’s Broad Beach, a brick beach house owned by late actor Jack Lemmon surfaced for sale at $13.45 million — a bit more than the $150,000 that the Oscar winner paid for it in 1971.
And out in Utah, Robert Redford is seeking $4.9 million for a 30-acre horse ranch that he’s owned since 1996. In total, around 1,800 acres of Utah belong to Redford, who’s been scooping up land there for half a century after opening Sundance Mountain Resort in the 1960s.
The Port of Los Angeles is getting some brand new development, but the wheels of history are not saving space for the San Pedro Fish Market, a sprawling restaurant complex that seats 3,000 and sells about 200 tons of shrimp a year. If the owner gets his wish, however, the restaurant/tourist attraction will move a mile and a half north and get even bigger with seating for 5,500 as well as a Ferris wheel-type attraction. One restaurant designer compared the project to “20 Cheesecake Factories sitting in one spot.”
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The era of pandemic rent declines appears to be over, real estate reporter Andrew Khouri writes.
After falling through much of the COVID-19 crisis as people relocated to suburbs or moved in with relatives, rents in big cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York are now on the rise. And experts say that prices are likely to keep heading upward.
“Landlords are really eager to charge more rather than charge less,” said Rob Warnock, research associate with rental website Apartment List, whose data show the median rent in Los Angeles is up 3.6% from the bottom. He said he expects the rise to continue, taking until the end of summer for prices in the city to hit February 2020 — or pre-pandemic — levels.
Mansion in the sky sells
Matthew Perry’s full-floor penthouse at the Century building was renovated by architect Scott Joyce and designer LM Pagano.
(Michael McNamara and Jason Speth)
Matthew Perry’s “mansion in the sky” — a Century City penthouse that spans an entire floor of the high-rise Century Tower — just sold for $21.6 million. That’s Southern California’s priciest condo sale since 2015.
The “Friends” star spent nearly as much time selling the home as he spent living there. He shelled out $20 million for the scenic perch in 2017 and put it on the market two years later at $35 million. With no takers, he trimmed the price to $27 million, then $23 million before closing the deal Monday.
It’s one of Southern California’s most expensive condo sales in the last decade, ranking just behind another Century Tower penthouse (coincidentally found a floor below Perry’s place) that sold for $22.5 million in 2015.
The mammoth sale is a shot in the arm for the vertical-living market in L.A. County, which some declared dead during the pandemic as buyers opted for more space and privacy. Perry’s home, however, is no ordinary condo.
via Los Angeles Times.