This year kicked off with the news of a record-breaker home sale price: $117.5 million for a nine-acre Woodside, Calif., estate purchased by billionaire and
Although the news hit this year, the transaction was technically a 2012 sale. The property traded hands quietly in November, flying under the radar until reports in January.
But 2013 has its own outrageously expensive home purchase prices--albeit not quite as hefty as last year's outsize transactions. Money manager Howard Marks, founder of Oaktree Capital Management, tops the list of 2013's highest sale prices at $75 million, the sale price for his Malibu estate. The property, situated along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway, sold in January to an anonymous Russian buyer, marking a record-high price for Malibu.
Billionaire SAC Capital Advisors founder Steve Cohen gobbled up the second-most expensive property this May, a $62.5 million estate in East Hampton. In June, he added the $23.4 million Abingdon "Maisonette," a 9,600-square-foot triplex apartment in New York City's West Village, to his collection. Evidently, he wasn't letting the SEC's charges of insider trading at his firm get in the way of scratching his real estate itch this year.
In mid-September, the Nakash family of Jordache jeans fame snapped up the third-priciest property of 2013: Casa Casuarina, the Miami Beach, Fla., mansion formerly owned by Gianni Versace. The Nakashes paid $41.5 million--a hefty discount off the original $125 million asking price--at a closely watched foreclosure auction. The Jordache family plans to turn the old Versace haunt into a boutique hotel. Top team Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber, who recently announced $500 million in sales for 2013, had the listing.
Fourth on the list is Los Angeles, where a 48,000-square-foot Beverly Hills estate known as Le Palais-The Crescent Palace, reportedly sold for $32.75 million. Joyce Rey & Stacy Gottula of Coldwell Banker Previews International sold the home, which was originally listed at $58 million.
Two Miami properties sold this year at the $30 million mark, tying for fifth-most-expensive sales. The first was baseball player Alex Rodriguez's customized estate this May. A-Rod bought the property for $7.4 million in 2010 and added, among other items, a batting cage, steam room, and Zen gardens. Beer distributor Stephen Levin and his wife Petra, a former Miss Germany, were the purchasers. The next month in Miami a second property sold for $30 million: Castello Del Sol is a waterfront Mediterranean-style estate on prestigious La Gorce Island. These properties are tied for the third most expensive single-family home sale in the history of Miami-Dade County. (In 2012, two Indian Creek Island sales were higher: hedge fund billionaire Eddie Lampert’s $38.4 million purchase in March 2012 and an anonymous Russian buyer’s $47 million purchase of 3 Indian Creek a few months later in August.)
The next most expensive home sale of the year is Moraga Vineyards (listed by Delphin Mann, Coldwell Banker Previews International), which sold to Rupert Murdoch in August for the relatively low price of $28.8 million. The media tycoon tweeted about the purchase of his new Bel Air 13-acre estate, which was built by "Gone With the Wind" director Victor Fleming in the 1930s. His property includes a 7,500-square foot main house with an octagonal dressing room, a guesthouse, vineyards, and a winery with a wine cave. Bonus feature: Moraga produces 1,500 cases of wine per year.
In addition to the news of Son's record-setting purchase of the Woodside estate, 2013 revealed two other fabulously high-priced sales from 2012. Ken Griffin purchased four adjacent Palm Beach properties totaling nearly eight acres for a combined $130 million in December 2012. And hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman was outed this May as the lead in a group of investors who paid $90 million for one of two penthouses at the new One57 tower in Manhattan in 2012. Both those deals topped the $88 million paid for a New York City penthouse for Ekaterina Rybolovleva, daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, in February 2012.
This year is almost over, but there's still time to topple 2013's high purchase price of $75 million. In fact, sources are telling me that one trophy property may close very soon that could break this year's record. Let's see what the next weeks bring.
