When lean times come to the housing market, even the rich and famous can feel the pinch.
Consider Nicolas Cage. The Oscar-winning actor paid $7 million for his Bel-Air mansion in 1998. Then, in autumn 2006, he listed it at $35 million. Local Realtors termed the house overpriced, but Cage, a savvy investor, held tight. Finally, earlier this month, he took the property off the market.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Sunday, January 13, 2008 Home Edition Real Estate Part K Page 3 Features Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Year-end sales: The Dec. 30 Hot Property column recapping big sales for 2007 said St. Louis Rams owner Georgia Frontiere sold a home in Bel-Air at close to $30 million. She was a former owner of that home and wasn't involved in the transaction.
He can wait for things to heat back up. In the meantime, a book about Gerard Colcord, designer of Cage's landmark home, is in the works, with publication expected in 2008. The house, built in 1940, is an English-style manor on slightly more than an acre with nine bedrooms and nine bathrooms in close to 12,000 square feet. It has a 35-seat theater, wine cellar, game room, pool and circular driveway with a fountain.
And the house has a pedigree when it comes to owners. Besides Cage, whose "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" was No. 1 at the box office last week, it was owned by Welsh singer and entertainer Tom Jones and actor-singer Dean Martin. Jones owned the home for 20 years.
Cage's case of home-seller blues is somewhat unusual. Despite a general housing slump, celebs fared well during 2007 in buying and selling homes on the Westside and in Malibu, according to Cecelia Kennelly-Waeschle of Sotheby's International Realty in Malibu.
Tom Cruise bought in Beverly Hills at about $35 million; Courteney Cox and her husband, David Arquette, sold in Malibu at nearly $33.5 million (and then bought another house there for $17 million), and St. Louis Rams owner Georgia Frontiere sold in Bel-Air at close to $30 million.
Madonna's former home in Beverly Hills -- the one redone by Diane Keaton -- just closed at almost $17 million.
Add to that: Johnny Carson's Malibu home, which sold for about $38 million.
Overall, sales in the multimillion-dollar price range were strong. Beverly Park had a sale in the $20-million range, and Brentwood Country Estates, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lives, registered a sale slightly below $30 million.
A look at the closings shows 63 home sales over $10 million for the area in 2007 compared to 55 in 2006. There were 12 over $20 million in 2007 in contrast with 10 over $20 million in 2006.
"So the rest of the market may be feeling the sting from the sub-prime, but it has not affected the upper price ranges, as you can see from the stats," Kennelly-Waeschle said.
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