You will notice that the name Beverly Hills crops up in many of our celebrity property articles with both buyers and sellers aplenty. This is an area of Los Angeles which has attracted film stars, business tycoons and even politicians in great numbers over the years. For some time it was seen as the “pinnacle of the luxury US housing market” but then areas such as Bel-Air began to emerge and competition began to hit demand for Beverly Hills property.
However, there are signs that the much sought after ZIP Code address of 90210 (also the name of the famous TV series in years gone by!) is making a comeback.
Older properties v Newbuilds
One thing which became evident over the last 20 or 30 years was the fact that the older properties which had effectively been built into the hills of Hollywood were often in need of renovation. In some cases it can be as expensive to renovate an existing property as it is to build a new home from scratch. Therefore, the likes of Bel-Air and West Hollywood filled this gap and began to supply large newbuilds to the celebrity market. As you might have guessed, the fickle nature of celebrity property ownership saw many following the crowd “trying to keep up with the Joneses”.
Even though property prices in Bel-Air and Beverly Hills have both increased by around 4% over the last 12 months, the median house price in Bel-Air is 32% greater than that of Beverly Hills. Even though the Beverly Hills median home value is $2.48 million many of the surrounding neighbourhoods put this value in the shade.
Times are changing
Over the last few years we have seen a significant increase in the number of large homes built in the Beverly Hills area. We often hear of older properties acquired by rich celebrities and then simply bulldozed and rebuilt. We are now looking at properties emerging in Beverly Hills with pricetags in the region of $70 million to $85 million. There is still a steady supply of “median value” houses but there is no doubt that the higher end of the market is being stretched.
Just recently we saw a much sought after 97 acre parcel of land in Beverly Hills sold for an astonishing $250 million. This works out at around $2.5 million per acre and when you bear in mind the cost of building a property, and a built-in profit, we are starting to talk about a serious increase in average Beverly Hills new build house prices.
Cyclical markets
While the likes of West Hollywood and Bel-Air did turn the heads of many celebrity property investors and created new much sought after communities, markets are very cyclical. Aside from the 97 acre parcel of land recently sold in Beverly Hills we are starting to see more properties acquired and redeveloped with a much larger footprint. While Bel-Air and West Hollywood are still much sought after names, nothing quite beats the glamour of Beverly Hills and the postcode 90210. Everybody knows this ZIP Code!