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These Cities Have the Most Billionaires—and the Highest Luxury Home Prices
New York City tops the list with 85 billionaires and has seen ultra-prime property prices increase 15% in five years, report says
BY BECKIE STRUM : ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JULY 9, 2019 | MANSION GLOBAL
Waldorf Astoria to Sell Condos, as Chinese Owners Shrug Off Glut
Anbang moves ahead with marketing of 375 luxury units despite oversupply and political strains.BY KEIKO MORRIS | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON JUNE 11, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Hong Kong Clashes Put Brakes on Property Boom
Some analysts now expect home prices, after marching upward for many years, to be flat for 2019
BY JOANNE CHIU | ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON AUGUST 27, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Chinese developer City Century closes on land for $1B DTLA megaproject $121M deal paves way for development that could have 1,300+ units on Olympic Boulevard along the 110
A rendering of City Century’s Olympia in DTLA (Credit: Visualhouse / City Century)
Chinese developer City Century has finally closed on a sought-after development site in downtown to build a $1 billion housing and retail complex adjacent to the L.A. Live entertainment venue.The project, called the Olympia, is to be built on a site that the developer has now closed on for $121 million. The site is located on Olympic Boulevard along the 110 Freeway, according to the Los Angeles Times.
City Century announced three years ago that it wanted to build three high-rise residential towers sandwiched between L.A. Live and the Metropolis residential and hotel complex. The project could include over 1,300 residential units as well as shops and restaurants.
The City Century acquisition comes at a time when other Chinese investors have pulled back in the United States. Government policies put in place in 2016 have restricted the flow of money out of the country, and the U.S.-China trade war has also dampened investment.
The Times noted that direct investment by Chinese companies in the U.S. has dropped from a six-month average of more than $20 billion in 2016 and the first half of 2017 to less than $5 billion on average in the last two years, according to data from Rhodium Group.
Oceanside Plaza, another major Chinese development downtown, has stalled since January. The condominium, hotel and retail project, valued at more than $1 billion, was being built by Oceanwide Holdings, a publicly traded international conglomerate.Greenland USA, a subsidiary of major Chinese developer Greenland Group, is wrapping up the $1.3 billion Metropolis, a 3.3-million-square-foot development three blocks south of the Staples Center that has reshaped the DTLA skyline.LAT] - Pat Maio TRD LOS ANGELES December 10, 2019 Staff
Almost 700,000 Californians moved out last year, and many ended up in Texas
Almost 140,000 people moved to the D-FW area last year, many from California.(G.J. McCarthy / Staff Photographer)
Nearly 1 in 7 made the California-to-Texas trek
The tidal wave of Californians headed to Texas shows no sign of slowing, with almost 700,000 leaving the Golden State last year.
More than 86,000 of those California expats came to Texas, according to a new report by Yardi Systems.“Texas takes second place on the podium among the most popular states for moving to in 2018, with almost 564,000 newcomers,” the report said. About 15% of the people who moved to Texas last year hailed from California. Florida had the largest number of interstate moves in 2018, with most of the transplants coming from New York. Florida continues to be a haven for retiring baby boomers.
Most of Texas’ newcomers are moving for jobs. Texas’ employment base has grown by almost 300,000 jobs in the last year.
Dallas-Fort Worth is the top job growth market in the country, accounting for a third of Texas’ employment gains. Almost 140,000 people moved to D-FW last year, with the most relocations to Dallas and Tarrant counties.
On average, it costs Californians between $3,700 and $4,100 to relocate to Texas, the analysts found.“1,545 people per day settled in Texas last year, with Harris County seeing the greatest influx from out of state than any other region,” according to Yardi Systems.
Despite all the moves to Texas, fewer Americans are packing up for greener pastures. The U.S. mobility rate is now at the lowest level since the U.S. Census Bureau started keeping the numbers in 1947.
“And in 2018, it dropped under 10% for the first time in history,” Yardi analysts said. “However, around 31 million Americans still moved last year, and 4.6 million of them moved interstate. The interstate migration routes that attracted the most people in 2018 were California to Texas, California to Arizona and New York to New Jersey.”
Patrick Soon-Shiong makes another landgrab in El Segundo Mogul paid $19M for 33K sf office building, his latest expansion in LAX-adjacent neighborhood TRD LOS ANGELES / December 10, 2019 02:30 PM By Matthew Blake Research by Jerome Dineen
Billionaire business mogul Patrick Soon-Shiong has expanded his El Segundo empire, purchasing a 33,000-square-foot office building in the neighborhood for $19 million.A limited liability company that lists the address of Soon-Shiong’s umbrella corporation NantWorks and features the signature of his longtime associate Charles Kenworthy, bought the property at 2200 E. Grand Ave. from BLT Enterprises, a Santa Monica-based real estate investment company. The deal hit county records on Dec. 2. BLT Enterprises bought the two-story office building, which has a bold, black inscription that reads on “Aerospace” on its front door, for $11.4 million in 2012, according to PropertyShark. A message left with a Soon-Shiong spokesperson was not immediately returned.
The deal represents Soon-Shiong’s latest effort to refashion El Segundo from aerospace hub to site for the entrepreneur’s many biotechnology, media, and entertainment properties.The neighborhood, which is adjacent to Los Angeles International Airport, is transitioning from the reduction in L.A. work available at military and aviation companies including Boeing, Raytheon, and formerly L.A. headquartered Northrop Grumman Corp.
The 2200 East Grand Avenue property sits one mile away from the Los Angeles Times headquarters, a publication Soon-Shiong acquired from Tribune Publishing Co. last year. Soon-Shiong moved the Times from its century-old headquarters in downtown L.A. to 2300 Imperial Highway, a 157,000-square-foot property Soon-Shiong bought in 2017 for $52 million.
Soon-Shiong subsequently bought a $50 million warehouse adjacent to the new Times’ headquarters, and he purchased other properties in El Segundo last year. TRD LOS ANGELES / December 10, 2019 02:30 PM By Matthew Blake Research by Jerome Dineen VIDEO
Barack And Michelle Obama Close The Deal On Their Martha’s Vineyard Estate
Barack and Michelle Obama, the former U.S. president and first lady, bought a seven-bedroom home on Martha’s Vineyard the week before Thanksgiving at a 21% discount off the listing price, according to the deed filed at the county’s registry office on Dec. 4.
The Obamas paid $11.75 million for the property listed with a $14.85 million price tag. The same day the deed was recorded, a mortgage for $7.05 million also was put on the record. The lender was JP Morgan Chase, and the loan had a standard second-home rider.
The prior owner, Boston Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck, had been trying to sell the home, set on 29 waterfront acres, since August 2015 when he initially listed it at $22.5 million, according to Zillow. Over the ensuing four years, the property was on and off the market with three price reductions. The 6,892-square-foot house has private beaches along the shore of Edgartown’s Great Pond, a mix of fresh and salty water that opens to the ocean. It’s clad in weathered shingles, the traditional style on Martha’s Vineyard. The U-shaped house has a living room with a vaulted ceiling and fieldstone fireplace, a circular dining room lined with windows, and a master bedroom suite with a fireplace and a private sundeck overlooking the water.There’s also a screened-in porch with a fireplace and a pool surrounded by a garden.
The Obamas are regular summer visitors to Martha’s Vineyard, about five miles off the coast of Massachusetts’ Cape Cod. The former president and his wife, the author of the best-selling memoir “Becoming,” spent seven of Obama’s eight presidential summers on the island.
The couple rented the home this summer, arriving on the former president’s birthday, Aug. 4, and decided to buy it.
A day after his arrival, Obama was spotted on one of his favorite links, the Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs, about eight miles from his new home.
Kathleen Howley Senior Contributor Real Estate I cover the top tier of the housing market and people who inhabit it.
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