by Stephane Fitch Real Estate Advisor Nov. 16 2010 - 6:23 pm
What’s the most expensive home in the U.S.? Back in May, Forbes reported that it was the Los Angeles home being sold for $150 million by the late television producer Aaron Spelling.
Not even close.
The Spelling mansion has 56,500 square feet of space covering 123 rooms, 16 carports and a bowling alley. At about $2,700 a square foot, the house is not so terribly expensive. Throw in the fact that it rests on 4.6 acres in Los Angeles’ Holmby Hills neighborhood, and there’s an argument for this being a pretty decent bargain.
To find really expensive real estate, think small. We asked our real estate analyst friends at Seattle-based Zillow.com to sift through the priciest realty listings in search of the most expensive one with less than 1,000 square feet of living space. They turned up all kinds of shacks, hovels and cabins trading for more than $1 million, including a half-dozen or so that are more expensive on a per-square foot basis than Spelling’s Manor.
It probably won’t surprise you to discover that pound-for-pound, the most expensive real estate listing in the U.S. is closer to the beach than the Spelling home. Wealthy homebuyers are obsessed with ocean views. Even if local public-access rules allow beachgoers to stroll by and stare while the beachfront homeowners pour milk on their shredded wheat, they’ll pay a huge premium for beachfront.
An hour’s drive east of Spelling’s old home lies the tony beach community of Carpinteria. There, you’ll find a humble beach shack that has been sitting at 3485 Padaro Ln. since it was first constructed a century ago. The grandchildren of the man who originally constructed this abode are selling. And at $5.3 million, it may be the most expensive real estate listing in the U.S.
Officially, this home has just 651 square feet of space–less space than a regulation squash court. The agent who’s handling the sale, John Henderson, explains that the house’s true square footage is 750 square feet. But even so, the asking price on this property works out to $7,060 per square foot, nearly three times what Spelling’s widow wants for their home.
But how you calculate the value of this Carpinteria home depends on how you look at it. “It’s got probably the smallest master bedroom I’ve ever seen,” Henderson admits. “But it’s on nearly half an acre of land and it’s got 92 square feet of beachfront.” That’s twice the frontage that neighboring properties have, he says. And local officials have okayed a plan to tear down the existing property and replace it with a 2,600 square foot house.
So maybe it’s not so expensive. If you plunk down $5.3 million for this house and spend $300 a square foot building a high-end home that fits with the approved plans, the $6.1 million total investment will bring your per-square-foot price down to $2,300.
But it looks like this still may end up being the most expensive home in America anyway. Henderson reports that about half the homebuyers he’s shown the property to say they’d like to keep the existing building in place. The antique shack is small, but polished. It’s charming enough to command a $600-a-night rate from the occasional vacation-home renter during California’s peak season.
If there’s a lesson in all this, it’s that we often forget how large a contribution land makes towards the value of real estate. There’s a 630 square foot house for sale at 15415 Eastvale Rd. in Poway, Calif. The sellers want $2.3 million. There’s no beach in Poway, so the asking price seems nuts. Alas, the home is sitting on 8.25 acres of land. The land might be subdivided into additional lots someday. The house is an afterthought.
So if we discount for land value, what is the most expensive home in the U.S., then? Hard to say. The house in Carpinteria still looks pricey. But a more expensive home might be a 702-square-foot condo at 1528 Miramar Bch. in Santa Barbara, Calif. The sellers want $2.2 million and the unit is sitting on just 1,742 square feet of land.
Here’s one more question about these high-value micro-homes: Why isn’t anybody building houses like these anymore? The habit of homebuilders is to construct the largest homes they possibly can on the land they get. They’re responding to consumer tastes, of course. But consumers seem to be downsizing these days. Maybe it’s time to bring back the 800-square-foot house. Some of the ones Zillow sent along are awfully cute. (Hey, it worked for BMW Group’s Mini, right?)
Whatever. The point is that there are very small homes for sale at prices far in excess of the $2,700-a-square-foot price at which the Spelling mansion is being offered. I’m not saying we got our story about the Spelling mansion wrong. But I look at these listings and it makes me think.
What follows is a list that Zillow sent. All are for sale for more than $1 million. All appear to have less than 800 square feet of living space. (I say “appear to have” because the information we have is from public records. When one investigates these high-end micro-homes, it often turns out that they’re a little bigger than what the public records state.)
319 Pacific Ave., Solana Beach, Calif., asking $2.4 million.
59-279 Ke Nui Rd., Haleiwa, Hawaii, asking $2.3 million
1528 Miramar Bch., Unit C, Santa Barbara, Calif., asking $2.2 million
585 Herring Creek Rd., Vineyard Haven, Mass., asking $2.2 million
909 S Pacific St., Oceanside, Calif., asking $1.9 million.
158 Sunset Ln., Mantoloking, N.J., asking $1.9 million
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