Monday, October 22, 2007

UPDATE: Russ Weiner

BUYER: Russell Weiner
LOCATION: Beverly Park Terrace, Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $15,000,015 (sale)
SIZE: 16,000 square feet (approx.), 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Long winding driveway unfolds to 2 level acres of glorious lawns, gardens & the most spectacular estate. Beautiful city & ocean views. Apprx. 16,000 sq. ft. home w/ 4 brs or more + 2 mds, lrg master w/ his & her baths, library/media room, gym, wine cellar, amazing outdoor entert. areas w/ lrg pool & tennis ct.

As a result of Your Mama discussing one of the several Hollywood Hills homes owned by Russ Weiner that he has on the market for many millions of dollars, several of the children inquired about Mister Weiner's new house up in the uber swank celebrity enclave of Beverly Park.

Your Mama confesses that we did not know a thing about young Mister Weiner purchasing a Bev Park behemoth. So natch, fingers a'flying, we got on the email and started dialing the phones to our crack team of snitches, sneaks and informants. Before long we heard back from the always reliable Lucy Spillerguts and our amazing Fairy Godmother in Beverly Hills who came through with some of the much wanted information.

Here's what Your Mama knows:

1. According to property information, a 16,000 square foot house with six bedrooms and 7 bathrooms in Beverly Park was purchased in February of 2007 for $15,000,015. The property had once been owned by booze baron Adam Bronfman and his wifey Cynthia.

2. The admittedly hefty purchase price seems a relative bargain when you consider that in April of 2006 humongous house lover Kelsey Grammer sold the house next door for $22,000,220, the house on the other side is currently on the market for the spine tingling price of $50,000,000, and the house across the street, owned by the Coors family, is also on the market for the only slightly less obscene asking price of $34,000,000.

3. Your Mama's sources confirm that young Mister Weiner, who created the Rockstar Energy Drink and whose father is the right wing screamer Michael Savage, currently lives up in the Bev Park house that sits on and level two acre lot which includes a swimming pool and tennis court, and according to listing information, views of the city and the ocean.

4. What's unclear to Your Mama is whether Mister Weiner actually purchased this house, or if he's simply leasing the dee-luxe estate. Given Mister Weiner's penchant for large and expensive properties, we presume that he's purchased the property.

5. The house does not appear to have been on the open market at the time of the sale, but back in late 2003, the hacienda style casa was on the market for $17,450,000.

What Your Mama wants to know is how is it possible that Mister Wiener's second rate and cockamamie concoction of sucralose and acesulfame potassium allows him to buy and own tens of millions of dollars in real estate? Seriously, how?

46 comments:

Anonymous said...

well according to wiki he did 200mm of business last year, and before that he averaged around 100mm + a year in business.

He has a distribution deal with coca cola and he was 2nd to market after red bull.

He in my opinion is quite brilliant as many others tried to get their energy drinks on the shelfs after him with little to no success, I personally know of a few that went broke trying to follow in his footsteps.

According to wiki he put up his own money from the sale of his condo for his own invention, brilliant in my opinion.

I know way to many folks that always try to get others to invest in their ideas, I am beginning to think that is not the way to go.

Anonymous said...

Thats totally cheap for Beverly Park - quite surprised considering a couple of acres of land is that price in bev park.

Anonymous said...

The new Weiner home is 79 Beverly Park. Which one is the Coors family...76 or 78 Beverly Park?

Anonymous said...

www.zillow.com says the estate on 79 beverly park is worth 5.6mm whaaaat ?

Anonymous said...

it is also 8448 sqft not 15,000 sqft

Anonymous said...

Hi Mama, Strapping Hunk reporting in live from the corporate Offices of The Hunk Reporters Network.

Some of Beverly Park's better known tenants:

–Faith Hill/Tim McGraw (paid $6,200,000 in 2003 through their MHA Trust to buy it from Sasha Madron): 3 Beverly Park (11,000 square feet on 4.853 acres)

–Magic Johnson: 12 Beverly Park (12,169 square feet on 4.283 acres) Sold.

–Samuel L. Jackson (paid $8,350,000 in 2000 to buy it from actress Roseanne’s Big Buck Trust): 17 Beverly Park (11,738 square feet on 5.193 acres)

–Eddie Murphy (paid $10,000,000 in 2001): 19 Beverly Park (18,598 square feet on 4.373 acres)

–Actress Jami Gertz: 21 Beverly Park (13,049 square feet on 6.213 acres)

–Rod Stewart (paid $12,085,575 in 1991 through his Beverly Park Trust): 23 Beverly Park (18,794 square feet on 3.963 acres)

–Martin Lawrence (paid $12.5 million, 2000-2001): 24 Beverly Park (13,835 square feet on 2.23 acres)

–Sylvester Stallone (owns through his Lion’s Castle Trust): 30 Beverly Park (15,121 square feet on 4.173 acres)

–Sumner Redstone (his Beverly Park LLC paid $14,500,000 in 2002): 31 Beverly Park (15,355 square feet on 2.593 acres)

–Paul Reiser (purchased it through his Chatham Trust in 1998 from rocker Alex Van Halen): 32 Beverly Park (14,547 square feet on 4.373 acres)

–Denzel Washington (purchased it in 1996 through his TTL Trust) : 41 Beverly Park (28,887 square feet on 2.833 acres)

–Slugger Barry Bonds (paid $8,700,000 in late 2002): 44 Beverly Park (11,448 square feet on 2.563 acres)

–Reba McEntire: (paid exactly $9,000,000 in 2003): 46 Beverly Park (9,242 square feet on 2.513 acres)

–Hockey star Wayne Gretzky sold 60 Beverly Park (9,816 square feet on 2.933 acres) in 1995

–Developer George Santo Pietro’s own home on Beverly Park (14,554 square feet)

–Kelsey Grammer paid $17,500,000 in early 2004 through his Fossil II Trust to purchase 80 Beverly Park (17,831 square feet on 3.013 acres), but sold it in April 2006 for $22,000,000.

This is Strapping Hunk reporting live from the HRN studios on Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, CA. Out.

Anonymous said...

zillow? do you really believe zillow? zillow if the the under and mis-informed. you probably don't really understand how zillow comes up with the "value" of a house. they use previous recorded sales in any given area. If there are a lot of recent sales of similar sized houses within a mile radius, it can be accurate. if there are only a few in the last few years, it's using recorded sales information for houses that sold 3 or even 5 years ago, which is clearly outdated.

zillow is sometimes correct, more often not very close and too often just wildly wrong. Zillow currently values my house at $325,000. I paid 400 4 years ago and now it's worth nearly 700. how do i know it's worth 700? i'm in real estate, i know what houses sell for in my area.

Anonymous said...

I still think zillow is a bit over priced and you and others are about to experience a rude awakening....

Real estate in the prime areas has gone up 300-1500% in the last 6 years, why ? cons from bankers, lenders, subprime, appraisers, interest only loans, if you worked at mickey d's you could get into a 1mm house for 1k a month payment... it is all coming out in the open now, try to get 700k for your house......... you will be lucky if you could get 400k for it.

btw when is the last time you sold a house ?

I have a re license from 3 years ago and I am waiting for another 2 years before I get a job in real estate otherwise I will have to spend $$$$ for overhead and desk fees for what ?


I predict a 70% drop from todays prices in the prime areas in the next year for the market to level out. then the median in CA will come down to 200-300k for a house in a prime area which is where it should be.

Very few buyers can afford a $5000 a month payment which is what 700k would be, you are going to have to hold onto your house for the next 10-15 years to break even at 700k unless they come up with another con which I highly doubt they could do.

btw you way over paid for your place 4 years ago, you should have paid 100k maybe 200k tops, we were all conned and the fall out is about to happen. You should have immediately flipped your house if you were concerned about making a profit on it.

the real truth is coming to light in the next 6 months.

btw remember 1993-94 ? after the earthquake and riots real estate dropped 70% in LA alone. deja vu.

Anonymous said...

unless minimum wage goes up to at least $20 an hour this market is coming way down.

Anonymous said...

Zillow.com is actually where the prices should be, give or take 20%

Donald Trump did say on CNN last night that now is the time to negotiate, not to buy but to negotiate, if you get your price buy it, if not wait.

Anonymous said...

Wait a second, the house that the Coors family has up for sale, is that on the open market? Is it 27 Beverly Park because its for sale for $29M?

Anonymous said...

where is the Coors family house listed ? I went on the MLS and I did not find it.

Anonymous said...

You may be right that prices are headed for a nosedive...time will tell. I'm not disagreeing with you the the recent run up in prices has been insane. What goes up must come down and vice versa.

but zillow is not setting prices or placing value for what it SHOULD be, they're placing value on a property based on prices for other similar properties that have SOLD in the area. It's a simple formula.

As for when was the last time I sold a house. Went to contract on one last week and closed on another last week to boot...my listing and both sides of the deal. Kaching! AND I have a handful of serious and qualified buyers looking to close in the next 4-6 months. AND I've got 5 listings that are all being shown multiple times each week.

It's a tougher (and far more expensive) market than it used to be, but at least where I am, houses are moving at a decent if not whirlwind clip. What can I say? I calls 'em as I sees 'em.

And how would you have any idea if I overpaid for my house or if it would sell for $700 or not? You haven't a clue where I live or what the marketplace is like here...real estate is local buddy. I'm in a relatively high income resort area where subprime loans were few and few foreclosures to date.

Does that mean it'll never change? no, but I'm not living in S. Florida or Central Calif. where the situation is already dire.

If the market tanks, well it's just a good thing I've invested well with my real estate riches, isn't it?

Anonymous said...

where are you at ? it sounds like you are in a recession proof area and good for you !!!!!!

Anonymous said...

btw you could never know, no one knew what was brewing except for the ones in the back rooms cooking up all of these schemes, they should all go to jail although that will not happen, most likely us taxpayers will have to bail everyone out but how that will happen remains to be seen. We are talking over 10 trillion dollars in losses, very scary.

The only I see this working out is that they would have to bring up all wages/products tangible and intangible up to 300% or force the banks to reduce the sale price of the loans by half and have the RE agents, mortgage bankers give back some of their commissions and fees.

these problems are very serious and could bankrupt this great nation of ours.

we are not in the millions in government spending, we are now in the 100's of billions in government spending, Lou Dobbs on CNN just said that we are now borrowing billions from china, where will that lead ?

Can you imagine China owning us ?

somehow inflation went up over 1000% in certain sectors.

This is to crazy to comprehend....

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's in time like these that the crooks come out. Jan Horn, agent at Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills. Got to keep an eye on the sleazy ones. Hurts the entire industy.

Anonymous said...

karma !!!!!

Mother earth has had it and this is just the beginning.

I mean a malibu fire is one thing but over 20 fires all over CA ? 100mph winds ?

time to find other ways to create energy although it may be to late.

Anonymous said...

who is Jan Horn ? what did he do ?

Anonymous said...

Coors Estate is 78 Beverly Park. It's in the name of GOLDEN COLORADO LAND COMPANY LLC.

Anonymous said...

zillow says the coors place is worth 17MM and it is 17,826 sqft

this goes to show you how lucrative the beverage business is.

Anonymous said...

who is at 76 beverly park ? that place is over 26,000 sqft

. said...

Mama, I must confess until you posted this story I'd not heard of the Rockstar drink you mention. I don't think I'd probably like the stuff since I lean towards gin and tonics and coffee with lots of cream. But I do know about Coors beer which at one time you were not able to purchase east of Denver. It's weak puny stuff and I don't recommend it. I'm feeling a little sad right now for our Calee-fore-nee brothers and sisters rich and poor, famous and obscure. I just want to say, Darlings, don't build there anymore. I know it's pretty but some places are too wild for domestication. Of course, the same goes for the people in hurricane paths. Waddayagonnado?

Anonymous said...

Apparently Jan Horn is a well respected broker in LA who either fired that slob or rejected his advances and that loser comes on Mama's blog to whine about it. Ignore him and he'll go back to pretending to be a *hunk*

Anonymous said...

Jan Horn would sell your Mother for a buck. He's not respected in the industry. He's third string. Minor league. Belongs with Joe and Kyle or doing reports for Zillow.

Anonymous said...

76 Beverly Park is in the name of ABAZ HOLDINGS INC. The address refers back to 1901 AVENUE OF THE STARS 1700, LOS ANGELES, CA 90067-6001.

Anonymous said...

yes but who owns it ?

Anonymous said...

Houses coming down 70%??? Where do you live... Gary, IN?

LA is a very desireable place to live and currently, while houses are not moving at the brisk pace they were a few years ago, many places are still selling well on the Westside that are priced right (certain parts of LA are very different of course, and also cannot be grouped with other parts of the country).

Ex: Neighbor sells similar house for $700k last month, you DON'T price your house at $725-750k like a year ago, but at say $660-675k.

I'm in Real Estate and I'm thinking about buying a couple more investment properties right now. If I'm comfortable with the payment, I will always buy!!!!

Anonymous said...

well good luck I am sure you will be in the poorhouse in a few years esp when it all crashes, the govt is starting to admit finally the prices are way to high, guess who we get our money from now for the loans ?

CHINA

imagine that.,,,

they also say that forclosures started a few months ago, and they are still in denial on the recession we are currently in, they are always late on the real news

oh well I now have to brush up on my chinese......

Anonymous said...

Remember real estate did not get to these numbers because it was a natural occurence, it went up because of all of these schemes cooked by all of these bankers trying to beat estimates on Wall Street behind closed doors, and those of us that knew were in denial and looked the other way.

The secrets are out now, prepare for the worst crash of the century.

Save your money and wait there will be unheard of bargains in the next 2 years.

Anonymous said...

"Countrywide offers help for reset shock !!" "16 billion in loans, 80,000 borrowers"

Their CEO is more evil than that guy from Enron.

Anonymous said...

I will be the 1st to admit that these lenders offering 1 yr interest only rates are the cause of plenty of appreciation, BUT...

75% or more people in this country have made their millions through real estate. Why would you not jump in if YOU CAN AFFORD TO comfortably? Rates on 30 yr fixed right now are not bad comparatively. I won't be in the poor house because I don't plan on selling in the next 10 years... real estate is a LONG TERM INVESTMENT.

None of us have a crystal ball to predict the future... I'm sure many of you were saying real estate was going to go back down in 2002-2003 (and if you were holding out on buying in LA - you lost out on a TON of appreciation!).

Anonymous said...

I never said that, as a matter of fact 2002-2003 were the years I took off from work to get my RE lic, but for real estate to go up in LA, NY and other prime areas over 300% in 5 years ? there is something wrong with that equation. I strongly think as well as the the recent media reports that the market is about to come down hard, I am waiting, it has already come down 40-60% in Detroit, GA, parts of FL, Las Vegas and still has a long way to go to correct over there. There are millions of homes in foreclosure, why is that ?
I am sure that real soon many RE agents and mortgage brokers are going to find themselves in class action lawsuits, that is unless our govt brings up minimum wages to $20 an hour and admit that somehow we had a major increase in inflation.

This is a huge mess with no end in sight.

You are right about one thing, Real Estate is supposed to be a long term, 5-10 year at least investment, but that obviously is not the case in this decade.

Anonymous said...

It's easy to explain Nevada and Florida's prices coming down... they were the main two states where people invested in second homes (as well as Arizona) and people used the "teaser" rates to get in them. I'm not surprised at all to see those coming down.

Detroit.. well they just have no jobs with the automotive industry leaving.

Los Angeles is a place where people are always going to want to live (sure some leave, but more come). I've watched the recent patterns and certain areas of LA do not follow the national trend at all as far as prices coming down. The poor areas will always fluctuate up and down, but the nice areas have still been fairly solid thus far... 50-60% coming down? I can't see that happening in the nice areas... but none of us know for sure

Anonymous said...

By the way, not all real estate agents are unethical and crooks... and I find that there's just a few bad apples here and there (I deal with them everyday).

Almost all of my business is referral....

Anonymous said...

Home builders: Worst is yet to come
Economists offer dour outlook for housing prices and construction, citing continuing credit crisis - weakness is likely to persist into 2009.

look into what happened in 1992-1994

in 2007 when a 20-30mm estate is listed for 100-150mm something does not add up.

Anonymous said...

Sulzberger estate up for sale for 95MM yet it was purchased in 1992 for 6.2MM

GREEDY GREEDY GREEDY GREEDY !!!!!!!!

that is over a a 1300 % increase in value now you tell me that the RE market is accurate on value ?????

I really do not know what mansions, estates are worth these days but 1300 % markup ? from 15 years ago ?

I have a ferrari I bought back then for $300k, I wonder if I can get 4 MM for it today.
what a joke !!!

Anonymous said...

The luxury market is a different animal...

How do you explain David Arquette and Courtney Cox's house they bought 2-3 years ago at $8M and sold for $27.5M recently???... if people want it, they WILL pay for it!

By the way, your "doom and gloom" quotes are not factual and are downright depressing... there's a thin line between practical and pessimistic and you seem to cling to the latter. A car will 99% of the time be less once you drive it off the lot...

Anonymous said...

If people will pay for it, it's not called greedy...

it's called demand. Otherwise it will just sit on the market and maybe they were foolish. More often than not they are not motivated if they're overpricing

Anonymous said...

Well I have seen the news change it's outlook for the worse in the last month, CNN, Fox News

Unless the news exaggerates the facts we are due for an interesting year.

I can understand a 4.5 mm house selling for 800k-1.2k but 4.5 MM ? what is this 2020 ?

If subprime and lax lending rules, unregulated appraisers, brokers, agents did not exist do you think the prices would have risen so high and so fast ?


btw my neighbor has a house on sunset plaza area with a view of the city for sale, zillow says it is worth 1.9, I think it is worth 900k and he wants 5MM for it, it has been on the market for a few months the highest offer he has received so far is 1.3 MM cash, he cannot sell it because he took out a loan against it for 3 MM, the appraiser a year ago told the bank it was worth 4MM, he was talked into taking out a 3MM loan against his fully paid for house, he used that to buy other houses, in vegas, san bernadino for a quick flip.

Now the buyers for those homes have backed out, he is falling behind on his payments on his loan which is 25k a month, he may lose his house, this is a very real tragedy that has played itself out over and over again for the last year.......

and that is the real problem here.

He makes 500k a year with his business and he may have to move out to another state and start over again.

His theory is that the unregulated RE industry somehow got involved in a pyramid scheme, those that got in early sold made a tidy profit got out and won and those that came in after lost and are now stuck with houses that are currently empty, falling apart, priced out of the market, and now the house of cards are falling down.

This is not coming from me.. this is coming from my former neighbor who somehow got caught up in the hype and got in to late in the game.

According to him the fallout will be worse than Enron, Dotcom bust, because trully semi wealthy americans that have real degrees, busineses, jobs and over 500k in income are about to lose it all in this game.

I rent, I do not buy so I really have no real opinion on this predictament and I am looking at all of the facts and starting to put two and two together.

like I said, very historic times we are in.

Anonymous said...

Your neighbor made some very unfortunate decisions to make some quick cash....

Has he not heard the term, "location, location, location?" San Bernadino and Vegas??? Not places I would EVER try or recommend a flip. Three years ago I was going to buy some property in Vegas and I came to my senses real quick... it's not a place I would ever want to live and I wasn't passionnate about it so I didn't invest.

I agree these appraisers have been out of their mind... why your friend would ever take a loan against his Sunset Plaza house to invest in those areas is beyond me

Anonymous said...

well at the time there were buyers lined up around the block in those areas for those and other properties.

then the buyers vanished.

negative news from cnbc? cnn ? fox ? for that scenario to happen who knows...

Anonymous said...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The latest reading on the state of the battered market for new homes was pretty bad. Experts say it's even worse than it appears.

this just came out today, I wonder when we will see a huge major price drop in NY, LA

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