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Thursday, March 24, 2011

The Most Expensive Home For Sale in Orange County - What You Get For a Paltry $37mil

What is the most expensive home for sale in Orange County? At this moment, it is this one: Villa del Lago, at an asking price of ONLY $37,000,000. :)

Villa del Lago has been a development project that started back in 2003 when the land was purchased from the Irvine Company. The property has been the subject of much controversy as the developer is allegedly in default with the bank who offered the construction loan of roughly $20,000,000 (which developer claims was never lent in full). The property has come down from the previous asking price of $57,000,000 and is considered to be at risk of foreclosure.

All that stuff aside, the property itself is amazing. 3 levels, 8 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, parking for 17 cars, and over 18,258 sqft of living space. Sitting on nearly 12.5 acres of land in Newport Coast, the grounds include private lake with fountain, equestrian ring, tennis courts, private wine vineyard, pool pavilion. wine cave, and guest house.

 But what about the price and is it right?  I'm guessing if you're like me and have to ask, it probably doesn't matter for you either. But just for fun, we did some research and the results are interesting. We looked at the most recent sales in the area and found that the most expensive home sold in the past year was right around $18,000,0000. This was a cliff side home in Corona Del Mar with dramatic ocean views, 7,000sqft of living space, and under a half acre lot. If we go back to 2009, we can find one of the highest sales to ever take place when a Harbor Island Estate in Newport Beach sold for $26,000,000 giving the buyers about 11,000 sqft of living space.

How much per month? Don't worry, you (or anybody else) can't get a home loan for this kind of money but if you could finance the entire thing, the monthly payment would be a very reasonable (wait for it...) $219,000!

While the price of this home is certainly out of scale for most of Orange County, an asking price like this is nothing out of the ordinary in places like Beverly Hills or Malibu. Do I think its a little high. Yes I do, especially given the fact that its twice the price of the last most recent comparable and we're not in Malibu. Still, it is definitely more home and a much larger lot in an area where land is insanely valuable. So to be fair, it really is hard for anybody to judge the value on this home given that nothing similar may have ever sold on the market. But if I were pressed, I'll bet they get about $28 million in the end for this one.  
   
Property listed by McMonigle Group, Inc