There's the regular real estate market and then there's the world of ultra-luxury homes and apartments.
The latter grabs attention and makes yearly "best" and "biggest" round-ups particularly because of its immunity to the regular rules and trends of real estate--with owners often feeling less pressure to sell, properties can sit on the market for months or even years before getting sold and skewing the mean of every statistics they're in.
While the median prices for existing-home sales fell by 1.5% to $379,100 between October and September, prices in expensive cities like Miami, Los Angeles and New York rose by a respective 5%, 4% and 2%.
2022 started out with what is definitely a 0.01% purchase when, in January, hedge fund manager Daniel Och sold his penthouse at 220 Central Park South for $190 million. He had bought it in 2019 for approximately $95 million as a place to live when coming to New York from Miami after the longtime New Yorker relocated there for tax purposes in 2019.
A $190 Million Pad and a Very Expensive Auction
While everything about the transaction was kept under tight wraps, Bloomberg eventually dug up that the firm managing the wealth of Alibaba (BABAF) co-founders Joe Tsai and Jack Ma was behind the purchase.
Nearly 11 months have passed but the sale is still the biggest of the year. Another major sale took place in March when a 21-bedroom home in Los Angeles' Beverly Hills finally found a buyer.
While the $126 million price tag may sound impressive, it actually sold at auction for a fraction of what developer Nile Niami initially asked for it. Known for creating mega-mansions with extremely overvalued listing prices to earn a spot in "biggest listing" round-ups, Niami initially said he'd sell it for $500 million.
The auction sale was perhaps the year's biggest case of "pride goeth before a fall" in the luxury real estate space.
In the summer, two connected apartments belonging to the late Microsoft (MSFT) founder Paul G. Allen sold together for $101 million. They make up a penthouse and an 11th-floor unit right below it while the 4 East 66th St. represents an iconic New York address just off Park and Madison avenues.
Zillow
A Home That Once Belonged to Ronald Reagan, Celebrity Home-Flippers
In September, a Los Angeles home once belonging to former President Ronald Reagan sold for $70 million. The most remarkable aspect of the transfer was that it was listed for $80 million and sold on the same day after the longtime owner (a company connected to the chairman of the NHL's Vancouver Canucks Francesco Aquilini) accepted a $10 million price cut.
While their price tags are nowhere near the nine- or even eight-figure sales prices of the properties mentioned above, celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus and Reese Witherspoon all made major real estate sales and purchases this year.
After exiting from talk show hosting, longtime host Ellen DeGeneres has turned to home-flipping -- in 2022, she and wife Portia de Rossi earned $15 million in profit when they bought a 12,000-square-foot mansion in Montecito, Calif. for $21 million and sold it for $36 less than half-year later.
This round-up is not exhaustive but meant to draw attention to some big sales to take place this year. TheStreet will release more such round-ups as 2022 winds to a close.
