Tuesday, April 1, 2008

UPDATE: Khandi Alexander

Looks like sexy C.S.I. siren Khandi Alexander has become dead serious about unloading her House of Faux Quoins up in the Hills of Hollywood just behind the legendary celeb hideaway The Chateau Marmont. Miz Khandi's four story, 4,126 square foot quoin-set hut was first listed in mid-February for $4,495,000, and late last night while sipping our pre-bedtime gin and tonic Your Mama noticed that the asking price for Khandi's khrib has been given a gigantic $1,000,000 karate chop all the way down to $3,495,000.

Your Mama is certain all the Chicken Little children will use this almost unfathomable price adjustment as a perfect example of how the real estate sky is falling in Los Angeles. But children, before any of the many folks gleeful about the bottom dropping out of the market do a happy dance, let's at least consider that the original asking price was, uh, rather optimistic to begin with, okay?

Considering that Oprah's (annoying) television creation Dr. Phil just bought the 2,356 square foot 2 bedroom house across the street for $2,650,000, it would seem that Miss Khandi's much larger khrib is now much more appropriately priced.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

is it possible the price reduction reflects how butt ugly this house really is? she has crap house sense. what is lot value in that hood?

so_chic_darling said...

The fact that Dr Pill just moved in next door is grounds for a further price reduction.

Anonymous said...

Yep, that builder sure was fond of the harsh angles. Waaaaaaay over-priced for both the house, the tight lot on which the house and pool are squeezed, and the proximity to the very noisy Chateau Marmont.

And yes, Mama, you're right - the chicken littles DO seem rather gleeful in their conclusions, don't they? Amusing to those of us investing in the long term RE market. But I would never invest in THIS house, no matter how much they drop the price.

pch said...

"quoin-set hut" = still laughing

Anonymous said...

Don't know quite how to compare the houses, but if anything Dr. Phil's purchase would support the original purchase price for this house - around $1,100 per sf. Plus it comes furnished (or maybe that's grounds for reducing the price!). Maybe it's that no-one wants a 4 story house (with apparently no elevator).

Anonymous said...

8:48, I agree if going on straight square footage but once you adjust for pros/cons (4 story vs. 2 story, etc.) then the new price is probably more accurate. Both appear to be crammed onto little lots. I may not be one of those who needs acres but a little dirt around the house would be nice.

Anonymous said...

If nobody buys ugly houses like this one, maybe builders would stop building them! P.S. the kitchen layout is terrible.

Anonymous said...

I just went to the MLS, the lowest priced house in the sunset plaza area is still 570k and it is a shack fixer upper.

If and when that price drops down to 100k like they were priced in 2002, then rich will think "hmm maybe I need to lower my prices as well ?"

and we will see a major drop in highend property prices

But until that happens, nothing will change and very few if any high end properties will sell.
and the rich can stick it out for 10 years if they need to , the economy has no effect on them from what I have read in the papers.

Anonymous said...

Average Joe: please go away.

"The Rich"? "Price drops down to 100K like ... 2002?"

Believe it or not, not everyone who has a multimillion dollar home paid multimillions for it. In other words, they are not necessarily rich.

Another point of contention: you couldn't buy anything for 100K in 2002. 100K represented a piss poor downpayment for a 1 bedroom condo in a semi-nice area at the time.

Please get real. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

The house that the la bianca's were murdered in by the manson family is for sale now: http://guests.themls.com/profile_page.cfm?mls=08-262139&p=11&t=1

Anonymous said...

anon 9 21am

if you could get access to the mls pro like I can, you will find fixer uppers in the laurel canyon area that sold for 100k in 2000/2001/2002 period.

just like you would find 10MM mansions priced at 2-3MM.

do your research then speak.

Anonymous said...

This area is very noisy with LAPD and ambulances motoring along Sunset Strip. Dr Phil bought this as his shag pad - thats what the builder had in mind!

Mr Depp paid around $3m for his gothic castle above the strip. Now that was value for money children

Anonymous said...

Average Joe: I will speak, and speak far more knowledgably than you, as often as I wish. I would suggest that you avoid brushing entire neighborhoods, and people for that matter, with very broad and very inaccurate generalizations. Perhaps if you had qualified your sweeping statement earlier, you wouldn't have had to correct yourself.

Anonymous said...

anon 9 44am

I did not correct myself

I am only talking about sunset plaza area, when it comes down there significantly then BH, belair, malibu los feliz will all follow, that is only if the bottom price houses come down to very low prices, if they don't then the market in the nice parts of LA will stay as is.

Anonymous said...

Now Depp paid a fair price for his place, that estate is amazing.

Ruby Jackson said...

I know the architect of the house Dr. Phil bought, and it was purchased for his son.

Anonymous said...

^

It's had numerous owners since it was built so why would the original architect know/care about Dr Phil buying it? I think you likely know it's for his son b/c it was reported on other property blogs over the past couple days.

Anonymous said...

Why bother lowering the price when the marketing shots still show trash cans in the driveway and those distracting window treatments(?). Who's not putting forth the effort here?

Staging lady, how bout a mission of mercy...just this once?

Anonymous said...

Since "average joe" isn't devulging the actual listing for 570k, I suspect it either doesn't exist, or is Laurel Canyon, not Sunset Plaza. I see a couple of starter homes around 600k in Laurel Canyon but that is comparing apples and oranges. And those houses weren't 100k in 2002. They weren't 100k in 1998. Maybe if a fixer they were between 100k-200k in 1995.

Anonymous said...

A good comp is 1663 N. Crescent Heights. 1989 3 story (4 if you count the garage), 4b/4.5b, 4082s.f., no pool. Sold in January 2008 for 3.35m.

lil' gay boy said...

With Dr.Phil across the way, I say it's time to demo this gem.

Anonymous said...

Anon 4:27 PM

if you have access to mlspro you will find many fixers uppers on laurel area for 100-200k in 2000/2001/2002

btw there was a 2 bedroom condo on the 20th floor in manhattan with city views in 2000 some friends were looking to buy, the price ?

300k

the price today ?

3 MM

they told me that although real estate outside of manhattan has deopped like a tank, manhattan is still going up and they think it will continue to go up,
even if wall street tanked, manhattan real estate will keep on going up,

why ?

The newly rich indians, russians, chinese, japanese, middle easterns, manhattan is still cheap for them to buy, even harlem is becoming very safe and the poor are being driven out.

so I am sure that Moby will get his 7.5MM or close to it for his 5000 sqdt (counting the terraces) coop at some point in the future if he hasn't sold it already.

Anonymous said...

This house was soooo overpriced when it hit the market. I was there when several agents told the agent that it was $1M overpriced - and I agreed!

I bet that was the difference maker in the dropped price.

Even if this house was for sale for $1M I wouldn't buy it... it has that bad of a floorplan and is THAT ugly

Anonymous said...

Average Joe,

No one cares about Laurel Canyon 8 years ago. What is the listing you claim is CURRENT for 570k? Or doesn't it exist?

Anonymous said...

anon 2 35pm here is the link

They reduced it by 100k yesterday


http://guests.themls.com/search/
column_report.cfm

Anonymous said...

LOL.

"The search you requested produced no results"

YAWN