Last year amid a cooling housing market, “The Real Housewives of Orange County” star Heather Dubrow quietly sold her palatial Newport Coast mansion.
The $55 million off-market deal ended 2022 as Orange County’s most expensive home sale, followed by other waterfront properties starting from $28.825 million. Those big-ticket deals closed out a year that started looking like it might repeat 2021’s record-setting pace but fell short as mortgage rates more than doubled from the historic low.
“Yes, demand slowed, but there are still sophisticated buyers that understand value,” said Tim Smith of Coldwell Banker Realty, who “had three of our best sales last year from July through December,” including a $43.5 million Laguna Beach home in August.
And people have continued to pay big prices while shopping for deals among O.C.’s low inventory, which agents interviewed for this story agree is undervalued relative to other major metropolitan areas.
“Orange County has always been a destination, but not it’s really become a major destination where people with money who can afford to live here or have a second home here want to be here as opposed to say L.A. or New York,” said John Stanaland of Douglas Elliman Real Estate who was with Villa Real Estate when he closed on $29.888 million Laguna Beach home in February. “We’re an ‘it’ destination now.”
With L.A.’s Measure ULA “mansion tax” approaching April 1, agents have seen an upsurge in interested buyers to O.C. The one-time transfer tax of 4% on properties sold from $5 million to shy of $10 million and 5.5% on deals of $10 million and above aims to increase affordable housing and reduce homelessness.
“A lot of the high net-worth individuals we sell houses to find the market and lifestyle and just everything about Orange County extremely appealing.” said Josh Altman, co-founder of The Altman Brothers at Douglas Elliman Real Estate and star of Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing Los…
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