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Rodeo Realty’s Martin Halfon in LA Times Hot Property

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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.

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Courtesy of LA Times.

To view the featured property in the LA Times, click HERE

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Economic update for the week ending February 27, 2016

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%.

Have a great weekend!

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Josh Flagg Lists Andrew Getty's Estate

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Photo: Paul Barnaby.

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.

To read the article on the featured property, visit The Wall Street Journal

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Seven-Figure Home Flips, WSJ asks Josh Flagg

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

This article originally appeared on The Wall Street Journal.

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Roger Perry weighs in on Realtor.com article regarding pool investments

Roger Perry in Realtor.com

Does having a bigger pool help increase the value of your home? Realtor.com asked Rodeo Realty’s Beverly Hills-based agent Roger Perry to weigh in.

The published article focused on Kanye West and Kim Kardarshian’s pool. Realtor.com states the pool is the size of a lake in the backyard of the couples renovated home and will be at least 5 times the size of any other backyard oasis in the Hidden Hills neighborhood.

“Luxury buyers are more interested in spas, which can include Jacuzzis, than they are in pools these days,” said Perry to Realtor.com. Perry mentioned how buyers can’t get enough of pools with attached spas.

To see more on what Perry said, read the entire article on Realtor.com

The article was also published on Fox News and Yahoo Finance.

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Economic Update – week ending February 20, 2016

Stocks end week higher – Stocks rose noticeably this week, fueled by a surge in oil prices during the week.  Oil prices rose by 10% on the announcement of a proposed coordinated production freeze between Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran. The The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the week at 16.391.99, up from 15,973.84 last week. The S&P 500 closed the week at 1,917.78, up from 1,864.78 last week. The NASDAQ closed Friday at  4,505.93, up from 4,337.51 last week.

Bond yields –  The 10 year U.S. Treasury bond yield closed Friday at 1.76%, unchanged from 1.74% last week.  The 30 year U.S. Treasury bond yield closed Friday at 2.61%, unchanged from 2.60% last week.

Mortgage rates at lowest levels in 3 years and near 50 year lows – The Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Survey showed that average rates on February 18 2016 were as follows: The 30 year fixed average rate was 3.65%. The 15 year fixed average rate was 2.95%. The 5/1 ARM average was was 2.85%. 

California home sales post best January performance in 3 years – The California Association of Realtors reported that the number of existing single family homes sold in January was down 5.4% from December, yet up 8.8% from last January, a 3 year high. The median price paid for an existing single family home in California was $468,330 in January, down 4.3% from December, but up 9.2% from January 2015. Inventory levels rose from 2.8 months in December to a 4.3 month supply in January as more homes hit the market. It’s not unusual for sales to be lower in January as final sales are homes that went under contract 30 to 60 days earlier.  Pending sales slow over the holiday season which makes closings lower in January. The unsold inventory index uses the current month (January) sales figures, which usually has the lowest number of final sales for the year.

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THE BEST RESTAURANTS IN THE SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

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The Valley has a long-standing tradition of people who live over the hill dismissing it as a restaurant wasteland — which has actually never been true and certainly isn’t now. For proof, we got two Valley lifers (regular Thrillist contributor Wilder Shaw, who grew up and lives in Studio City, and editor Jeff Miller, who grew up in Van Nuys and North Hollywood and still regularly visits his parents in Encino) to break down the best restaurants in the massive SFV, with an eye towards a geographic and financial spread. It’s long. Get ready.

 

Article courtesy of the Thrillist and you can continue reading it here

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