Josh Flagg claims he “doesn’t just sell houses, he sells a lifestyle”. The Rodeo Realty agent and star of Bravo’s Million Dollar Listing gave an in-depth interview to The Vital VOICE about his career, lifestyle and success.
“I hope to be where I am now in five to ten years,” Flagg told Vital VOICE. “If I continue doing what I’m doing now, I’ll be very happy.”
Flagg is featured on the front cover of the magazine and also on Vital VOICE’s website and Facebook.
To read the entire Vital Voice article At Home With Josh Flagg, click HERE
Allison Gold of Rodeo Realty currently has a listing that is being featured in the LA Times Hot Property.
The charming Spanish home featured was once home to Hollywood actress Betsy Drake. The classic and romantic property is beautifully crafted with vintage accents and located In the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Built in 1931, the 1,722sf home is located at 2223 Veteran Avenue, an excellent location within the highly rated Westwood Charter school district. The 3 bedroom/2 bathroom property features high beamed ceilings, built-ins, a gorgeous living room with a wood-burning fireplace, a formal dining room, fabulous deco tile and arched doorways into several rooms.
Betsy Drake purchased the property in 1980 and filled it with more than 50 pieces of mid-century art by both international and local artists. She began her Hollywood career in 1948 with her first film “Every Girl Should Be Married”, a romantic comedy in which her character devises outlandish schemes to hook one of classic Hollywood’s leading men Cary Grant as a husband. Approximately two years after that, on Christmas Day 1949, Drake and Grant married. Drake appeared in about 10 films including “Dancing in the Dark” (1949), “The Second Woman” (1950), “Room for One More” (1952), and “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” (1957). Drake also wrote the original script for “Houseboat” (1958), starring her husband Grant. The couple divorced four years later in 1962 after 13 years of marriage. After her marriage, she studied at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute at Harvard, worked with families at a community mental health center and wrote a novel, “Children, You are Very Little,” about an 8-year-old girl growing up in a shattered family. She eventually moved to London, but still maintained her charming Spanish. Drake passed away in 2015 at age 92.
(Rodeo Realty | Inset: Getty Images)
To view the LA Times article on the featured property, click HERE
Luxury meets Drama. Rodeo Realty’s Ben Bacal is setting the bar high for luxury real estate videos. The 10k mini-movie shows off a Hollywood Hills contemporary all while keeping you in suspense.
6654 Emmet Terrance is listed at $4,500,000. The one-of-a-kind home was designed and built by Ori Ayonmike, the owner and his wife are the actors in the mini-movie.
Martin Halfon of Rodeo Realty currently has a listing that is being featured in the LA Times Hot Property.
The luxury estate belonged to prolific TV producer, Alan Landsburg. The Emmy winner and Oscar nominee purchased the beautiful contemporary home in early 1998. The two-story 7,390 sq. ft. estate has a large living room with a fireplace, a formal dining room connecting to an open cook’s kitchen and a broad family room with ceiling-to-floor glass walls that overlook a luxurious pool. The second level offers two guest bedroom suites, a master suite and a private balcony that looks out into the lush canyons and city views. The upper level also has a media room with a full bar and a gym with a relaxing sauna spa.
Alan Landsburg lived in the luxurious home before passing in 2014 at age 81. He moved his family to Los Angeles in the early 1960s after receiving a job with documentary film producer David Wolper. He worked as a producer on Wolper’s popular “Biography” series that profiled entertainers, world leaders and other high-profile names. He then produced, wrote and directed “A Thousand Days: A Tribute to John Fitzgerald Kennedy,” which aired in 1964 on the one-year anniversary of the president’s assassination. During his five-decade career in Hollywood he produced 50 television movies, many of which were based on true stories and tackled important social issues. They included “The Ryan White Story,” “The Triangle Factory Fire Scandal” and Mickey Rooney’s telefilm “Bill,” which was a true story based on a mentally challenged man who was trying to adjust life outside an institution. His credits also include National Geographic specials, the adventure series “The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau,” the 1983 films “Porky’s II: The Next Day,” and “Jaws 3-D”. Landsburg was nominated for an Oscar for “Alaska Wilderness Lake,” which he produced. He was also nominated for five Emmys, winning the 1970 telepic “A Storm in Summer,” written by Rod Serling and starring Peter Ustinov, who played a crotchety delicatessen owner who ends up taking in an African American boy.
Listing agent Martin Halfon’s relationship with the Landsburg family stems back to the 1960s. He and Alan’s daughter Valerie Landsburg, who you may know from the TV series “Fame,” have been childhood friends since elementary school at El Rodeo School in Beverly Hills.
Courtesy of LA Times.
To view the featured property in the LA Times, click HERE
Stocks rise for the second consecutive week – Stock markets rallied Monday as oil prices rose 7%. Unfortunately, oil prices and stocks retreated from the highs of the week. Oil prices ended the week just over $32 a barrel, up 3.2% for the week. Stocks are up about 6% from their February lows. Markets were also encouraged by an upward revision in 4th quarter GDP, and an increase in durable goods orders. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the week at 16,639.97, up from 16,391.99 last week. The S&P 500 closed the week at 1,948.05, up from 1,917.78 last week. The NASDAQ closed Friday at 4,590.47, up from 4,505.93 last week.
Bond yields – The 10 year U.S. Treasury bond yield closed Friday at 1.76%, unchanged from 1.76% last week. The 30 year U.S. Treasury bond yield closed Friday at 2.63%, also almost unchanged from 2.61% last week.
4th quarter GDP was revised higher – Investors were encouraged Friday when the government released its second revision to the 2015 4th quarter gross domestic product. GDP was revised upward from a growth rate of 0.7% to 1%. Analysts feared that it could actually be revised downward to 0.4%, so this was a report that was met with optimism.
Durable goods orders up 4.9% in January – A stronger than expected durable goods report in January has analysts believing that this may be pointing to the beginning of a possible turnaround in manufacturing. Manufacturing in the U.S. has been hit by a strong dollar which makes our goods more expensive overseas and goods manufactured elsewhere cheaper for U.S. consumers. Fear of pullback on purchases of U.S. made goods caused manufacturer’s to slow the pace of manufacturing. This was done to lower inventory levels so as not to get caught with an oversupply of goods. As the pace of orders rise, companies boost manufacturing and are beginning to allow inventory levels to rise from historic low levels. This is a positive sign that boosted markets.
Mortgage rates -The Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Survey showed that average rates on February 25, 2016 were as follows: The 30 year fixed average rate was 3.62%. The 15 year fixed average rate was 2.93%. The 5/1 ARM average was was 2.79%.
Rodeo Realty’s agent Josh Flagg is the listing agent for the Hollywood Hills estate of the late Andrew Getty. The 4,700-quare-foot Spanish Colonial was featured this week on The Wall Street Journal’s Private Properties.
Getty, a grandson of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty and son of billionaire Gordon Getty, bought the estate in 1996 for $999,999. The property has eight bedrooms, six bathrooms and a Prohibition-era wine vault with drawings on the walls by Charlie Chaplin and other artists. Getty’s estate is listed for $7.95 million.
Los Angeles’ luxury market is blazing—and it has nothing to do with droughts or fires. Median sale prices of single-family homes increased by 37% in Beverly Hills and 12% in Bel Air and Holmby Hills in 2015 compared with the year before, according to Jonathan Miller, a real-estate appraiser who prepares market reports for brokerage Douglas Elliman.
Even in this heady market, some deals stand out. Josh Flagg, executive sales director at Rodeo Realty, sold three houses on behalf of clients last year—twice. In each instance, he sold the homes the second time for roughly $1 million more than the first time—even though no or few improvements were made to the properties, according to Mr. Flagg.
Real-estate experts cite a number of factors behind the sales and quick resales.
Zillow chief economist Svenja Gudell suspects the properties were marketed to developers, who will either fully renovate or raze and rebuild the homes at an even greater profit. “We see in the public record that some of these are trusts that sold to [limited-liability corporations],” Ms. Gudell says. “That can mean families selling to developers. Developers are often more focused on timing and getting the exact property they want, which can make them less sensitive to price.”
Mr. Flagg said the buyers of the Tower Lane and Tower Grove Drive properties were developers. He declined to disclose the names of any of the buyers.
Paul Habibi, professor of real estate at the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate also cites economic forces at work: “As the dollar strengthened last year, you saw foreign money get increasingly desperate to park itself into American assets,” he says. “It’s creating a bit of a frenzy, with lots of cash and people bidding up prices. People from out of town are never going to get the best deals, because they don’t have the insider knowledge of the market.”
Mr. Flagg has his own explanation for the seven-figure flips: “It’s the market and the intimate knowledge I have of the L.A. market.”
THREE HOME FLIPS, BY THE NUMBERS
Each one of these Los Angeles properties sold within a year for roughly $1 million over the previous purchase price.
Josh Flagg Enterprises
TOWER LANE, BEVERLY HILLS
ORIGINAL SALE: $6 million, April 6
SECOND SALE: $7.6 million, Dec. 29
Josh Flagg Enterprises
TOWER GROVE DRIVE, BEVERLY HILLS
ORIGINAL SALE: $6.25 million, May 29
SECOND SALE: $7.25 million, June 30
Josh Flagg Enterprises
BEL AIR ROAD, BEL AIR
ORIGINAL SALE: $8.25 million, May 21
SECOND SALE: $9.1 million, Feb. 1
