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Knowledgeable, diligent, efficient, patient, kind, tactful, perseverant… these are the qualities of Tatiana Derovanessian. Thank you for all your help.
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Woo Kim, Chief Financial Officer
Tatiana was very attentive to our needs and responded quickly with a targeted set of properties to view. We found the home that we eventually purchased on our first viewing day and that is a testament to Tatiana’s ability to find the right home. Negotiation was quick and to the point and she also was very helpful in the pre-closing process. All-in-all a very good experience and I would recommend her to help find a home.
Silicon Valley vs. Silicon Beach? Tech Start-Ups Flock to L.A.
Southern California has sun, surf… And now silicon.
“Silicon Beach”, as it’s being called, is attracting talent and funding for tech startups, entrepreneurs drawn to L.A.’s ability to brand and sell ideas…plus the weather.
“L.A. is such a hustler mentality,” says Tony Adam, a former Paypal executive who’s come to Silicon Beach to launch EventUp, a website that rents out locations for events. “Everyone wants to help each other.”
“This is a place where people have come for years to make dreams happen, so why shouldn’t they come here to make their technology dreams happen?” asks Michael Weir, a Silicon Valley transplant who is now Chief Marketing Officer for Sparqlight, an enterprise software startup in Santa Monica.
It sounds strange that the world’s entertainment capital, and the second largest city in the country, would be seen as a “startup” in anything.
Los Angeles is home to tech companies like gaming giant Activision , but it lacks a huge tech magnet, like Apple and Google and others are to Silicon Valley, Amazon and Microsoft to Seattle, Groupon to Chicago.
So local tech incubators hope one of the startups here will be the next big thing. In just the last month, two Southern California tech companies, Savings.com and Gaikai, have each been acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars.
“In Silicon Valley, there’s such a large population of entrepreneurs that are very seasoned, there’s a really good support network there, and there’s a large investor base that supports early stage businesses,” says Mike Jones, former CEO of MySpace.
Jones now runs Science, a tech incubator which provides funding, expertise, and office space for startups. Science raised $10 million last November.
“To date we’ve launched six companies in the last seven months,” Jones said.
He says that 80 percent of second round funding is now coming from Silicon Valley giants like Kleiner Perkins and Andreesen Horowitz.
But access to funding remains a challenge.
“I can’t go around the corner here and raise money down the street,” says Sparqlight’s Michael Weir. “There’s no place in Los Angeles like Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. You can go up there, there’s 60 or 70 VC’s, they’re all within a square mile of each other.”
One big boost to Silicon Beach’s street cred is the arrival of Google, which has moved into the bohemian L.A. community if Venice. Google has put tech and sales teams inside 100,000 square feet of office space in the iconic Binocular building, designed by Frank Gehry. The search giant is reportedly leasing another 100,000 square feet nearby.
Facebook is expanding into a building a few miles south.
“You want to have world class companies in your area working,” says Weir. “Google’s going to attract talent, it’s going to throw off talent.”
The talent it throws off may then create other startups in Silicon Beach.
How do locals feel about the arrival of Google in a county with unemployment over 11 percent and falling home prices?
“From my standpoint, it’s good because I own a house here, and it increases the demand for nice houses in the area,” says resident Larry Klein.
Not everyone’s gaga over Google.
“It’s the end of an era,” says “Big Will” Harris, a veteran of Gold’s Gym.
Google is leasing the building the legendary gym is housed in, and the company has told CNBC it has no plans to kick the muscle men out.
Harris is skeptical.
“At the end of the day, it’s corporate, it’s the bottom line,” he says. “You’d have to be silly not to know that this is not going to be here in two years.”
Harris says Google’s “corporate” presence will hurt Venice’s freewheeling lifestyle.
Klein isn’t so wistful. “I’m not one who ascribes to the sort of nostalgia of Venice as it used to be,” he says, “because I’ve been here since it ‘used to be’, and it was rough.”
Lake Tahoe Compound Hits Market at $98 Million
Shakespeare Ranch, also known as the Western “Camelot”, evokes the feel of a by-gone era that has been revered by the likes of the Kennedy and Onassis families. Offering more than 400 feet of sparkling shoreline, has hosted historic dignitaries and modern celebrities for well over 100 years. A 397-foot shared pier with private lift for a 40 foot boat offers the preferred means of transport to Tahoe’s many lakeside restaurants, Edgewood golf course, and entertainment venues; and it’s only a 10 minute boat ride to the California’s Alpine Gold Coast.
The lakefront compound is comprised of 17 guest homes, including 25 bedrooms, 25 bathrooms and 13 kitchens, one of which hosts the culinary fireworks of renowned chef Emeril Lagasse during annual celebrity events hosted at the Ranch. The feast-for-your-eyes property also includes an indoor pool house, horse stables, a greenhouse and a root cellar converted to an underground wine-tasting and tap room. The Glenbrook Rodeo, which benefits the Keep Memory Alive Foundation, is hosted at Shakespeare Ranch annually, harkening back to the days of the “Old West”. A 397-foot shared pier with private lift for a 40 foot boat offers the preferred means of transport to Tahoe’s many lakeside restaurants, golf courses, beaches and entertainment venues.
Where dignitaries and famed actors of the silver screen once landed by steamship to Glenbrook’s shores, now modern day entertainers fly in by private jets to attend this annual benefit rodeo. Past headliners have included former Tonight Show host Jay Leno, and musicians Lionel Richie, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Kenny Loggins, the band America, and the late Robin Williams. All performing in the circa 1870’s 5,000 square foot entertainment “barn,” to which former President George Bush remarked, “They don’t make barns like this in Texas!”
The ranch was named after an iconic rock monolith on the property known as Shakespeare Rock – that, according to many visitors, resembles the beloved playwright. “The history of the area is what’s so interesting,” adds Camille Ruvo. “To know about the rodeos and the other things that happened on the ranch for many, many years–and then it just sat there quiet. To continue on with some of those traditions became a goal for us.” After many happy decades at the estate, the owners have listed the property in order to be closer to their children who now live on the east coast. However, their roots in Glenbrook run deep, and they will maintain a residence in this coveted Lake Tahoe community. This is only the second time since 1861 the property has been listed for sale.
Shakespeare Ranch is the largest residential lakefront property on the Lake Tahoe market, and if it sells anywhere near its listing price, it would easily be the highest-priced residential sale in Lake Tahoe’s history. “There are few places in the world that match the diversity in lifestyle that Shakespeare Ranch offers,” says Lexi Cerretti, Shakespeare Ranch’s co-listing agent with Sierra Sotheby’s International Realty. “With the opportunity for an equestrian or ranch property that doubles as an alpine skiing retreat, and summer home complete with community golf course and beach club. This is truly a four-season paradise an hour by air to Los Angeles and San Francisco.”
“The gated community of Glenbrook, Nevada is a really unique place,” states Claudia Thompson, Glenbrook resident and co-listing agent with Sierra Sotheby’s International Realty. “Buyers and residents here are leaders in industry, finance, and technology. They’re entrepreneurs and professionals, but live an intentionally low-key lifestyle where high profile people are just part of the community.”
Sales have lead to a limited amount of inventory in luxury properties and the market has picked up. New construction and restored residences are in demand among today’s global and mobile billionaires, who don’t want to spend several years building. Multimillion-dollar home sales in the upper price strata are at all-time highs statewide, according to second-quarter statistics from real estate information service DataQuick.
Property History
In 1984, the current owner bought a condo in the 300-home, gated resort community of Glenbrook, Nevada, and then expanded his holdings to include the waterfront acreage, 17 New England-style guest homes, and a roughly 5,000-square-foot barn that dates back to the 1870’s. Deeply rooted in the history and the development of the entire Tahoe region, Glenbrook was the center of the area’s most influential logging family, headed by visionary businessman Duane L. Bliss, who helped settle the town in 1860. While simultaneously protecting younger growth trees by limiting harvesting, Bliss built the region’s largest and most successful logging company, and then, as the lumber industry slowed, the renowned Glenbrook Inn. In the years following the demise of both mining and logging, the Inn became the fashionable destination of affluent visitors, who arrived via steamer from Tahoe City. The list of politicians and celebrities that frequented Glenbrook was a virtual who’s who of the era, with everyone from President Grant to Thomas Edison, Henry Ford to Joaquin Miller, and Clark Gable and Rita Hayworth – all signed in as frequent visitors.
Lexi Cerretti and Claudia Thompson of Sierra Sotheby’s International Realty have the listing.
Dr. Dre sells view property in Hollywood Hills for $32 million
Dr. Dre has given up what has been called the best view lot in Los Angeles to private equity firm founder Alex Soltani for $32 million.
The Hollywood Hills West home sold in an off-market deal after a brief appearance on the Multiple Listing Service last year priced at $35 million.
The contemporary estate has 9,696 square feet of living space, including a library/media room, a den, a wine cellar, six bedrooms and nine bathrooms. The three-quarter-acre lot contains a guesthouse and a swimming pool. The neighbors include such superstars as Leonardo DiCaprio and Keanu Reeves.
But it was the 300-degree knolltop views of the city, mountains and ocean that sold the self-made Soltani, who plans to tear down the existing house and transform the property into a $100-million trophy home.
Soltani, 36, is chairman and chief executive of Skyview Capital, a private equity firm based in Century City that focuses on technology and telecommunication buyouts.
Last year Dr. Dre spent $40 million on the four-acre Brentwood estate of supermodel and actress Gisele Bundchen and her husband, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, at about the same time that Apple Inc. acquired his Beats company for $3 billion. He also owns a home along Malibu’s Carbon Beach and equestrian property in Hidden Hills.
Dr. Dre, 49, is the founder and chief executive of Aftermath Entertainment.
The Grammy-winning rapper and record producer bought the property in 2011 for $15.4 million, public records show.
Branden Williams and Rayni Williams of Hilton & Hyland, an affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, represented Soltani. Kurt Rappaport of Westside Estate Agency represented Dr. Dre.
Here are the 10 home-buying secrets
Buying Secret #10: Keep Your Money Where It Is
It’s not wise to make any huge purchases or move your money around three to six months before buying a new home. You don’t want to take any big chances with your credit profile. Lenders need to see that you’re reliable and they want a complete paper trail so that they can get you the best loan possible. If you open new credit cards, amass too much debt or buy a lot of big-ticket items, you’re going to have a hard time getting a loan.
Buying Secret #9: Get Pre-Approved for Your Home Loan
There’s a big difference between a buyer being pre-qualified and a buyer who has a pre-approved mortgage. Anybody can get pre-qualified for a loan. Getting pre-approved means a lender has looked at all of your financial information and they’ve let you know how much you can afford and how much they will lend you. Being pre-approved will save you a lot of time and energy so you are not running around looking at houses you can’t afford. It also gives you the opportunity to shop around for the best deal and the best interest rates. Do your research.
Buying Secret #8: Avoid a Border Dispute
It’s absolutely essential to get a survey done on your property so you know exactly what you’re buying. Knowing precisely where your property lines are may save you from a potential dispute with your neighbors. Also, your property tax is likely based on how much property you have, so it is best to have an accurate map drawn up.
Buying Secret # 7: Don’t Try to Time the Market
Don’t obsess with trying to time the market and figure out when is the best time to buy. Trying to anticipate the housing market is impossible. The best time to buy is when you find your perfect house and you can afford it. Real estate is cyclical, it goes up and it goes down and it goes back up again. So, if you try to wait for the perfect time, you’re probably going to miss out.
Buying Secret # 6: Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Everyone’s drawn to the biggest, most beautiful house on the block. But bigger is usually not better when it comes to houses. There’s an old adage in real estate that says don’t buy the biggest, best house on the block. The largest house only appeals to a very small audience and you never want to limit potential buyers when you go to re-sell. Your home is only going to go up in value as much as the other houses around you. If you pay $500,000 for a home and your neighbors pay $250,000 to $300,000, your appreciation is going to be limited. Sometimes it is best to is buy the worst house on the block, because the worst house per square foot always trades for more than the biggest house.
Buying Secret #5: Avoid Sleeper Costs
The difference between renting and home ownership is the sleeper costs. Most people just focus on their mortgage payment, but they also need to be aware of the other expenses such as property taxes, utilities and homeowner-association dues. New homeowners also need to be prepared to pay for repairs, maintenance and potential property-tax increases. Make sure you budget for sleeper costs so you’ll be covered and won’t risk losing your house.
Buying Secret #4: You’re Buying a House – Not Dating It
Buying a house based on emotions is just going to break your heart. If you fall in love with something, you might end up making some pretty bad financial decisions. There’s a big difference between your emotions and your instincts. Going with your instincts means that you recognize that you’re getting a great house for a good value. Going with your emotions is being obsessed with the paint color or the backyard. It’s an investment, so stay calm and be wise.
Buying Secret #3: Give Your House a Physical
Would you buy a car without checking under the hood? Of course you wouldn’t. Hire a home inspector. It’ll cost about $200 but could end up saving you thousands. A home inspector’s sole responsibility is to provide you with information so that you can make a decision as to whether or not to buy. It’s really the only way to get an unbiased third-party opinion. If the inspector does find any issues with the home, you can use it as a bargaining tool for lowering the price of the home. It’s better to spend the money up front on an inspector than to find out later you have to spend a fortune.
Buying Secret #2: The Secret Science of Bidding
Your opening bid should be based on two things: what you can afford (because you don’t want to outbid yourself), and what you really believe the property is worth. Make your opening bid something that’s fair and reasonable and isn’t going to totally offend the seller. A lot of people think they should go lower the first time they make a bid. It all depends on what the market is doing at the time. You need to look at what other homes have gone for in that neighborhood and you want to get an average price per square foot. Sizing up a house on a price-per-square-foot basis is a great equalizer. Also, see if the neighbors have plans to put up a new addition or a basketball court or tennis court, something that might detract from the property’s value down the road. Today, so many sellers are behind in their property taxes and if you have that valuable information it gives you a great card to negotiate a good deal. To find out, go to the county clerk’s office.Sellers respect a bid that is an oddball number and are more likely to take it more seriously. A nice round number sounds like every other bid out there. When you get more specific the sellers will think you’ve given the offer careful thought.
Buying Secret #1: Stalk the Neighborhood
Before you buy, get the lay of the land – drop by morning noon and night. Many homebuyers have become completely distraught because they thought they found the perfect home, only to find out the neighborhood wasn’t for them. Drive by the house at all hours of the day to see what’s happening in the neighborhood. Do your regular commute from the house to make sure it is something you can deal with on a daily basis. Find out how far it is to the nearest grocery store and other services. Even if you don’t have kids, research the schools because it affects the value of your home in a very big way. If you buy a house in a good school district versus bad school district even in the same town, the value can be affected as much as 20 percent.
Million-dollar-plus home sales hit six-year high
A boom in California’s luxury home sale market is yet another example of the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor if a newly released report is any indication.
Crowned by the sale of a Malibu estate for $74.5 million, the number of homes sold at $1 million and above statewide last year was up 45.1% to 39,175 — the most since 2007, according to real estate information service DataQuick. And the slice of the market luxury for homes sold at $2 million and up set new records at the state, Southern California and L.A. County levels last year. Meanwhile, overall sales across the state were essentially the same as 2012 levels, down 0.6%.”The luxury market did bounce back last year,” said Paul Habibi, a real estate lecturer at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. “A lot of people were stepping back into the waters.Lucrative investing left some looking for a place to park their gains.”The stock market lined the pockets of high-end buyers,” Habibi said. “That translated into home purchases.”Gains in home equity allowed many who had been waiting on the sidelines to move up to bigger and better digs. “It’s a herd mentality,” said Stephen Shapiro of Westside Estate Agency, who last year saw well-priced homes drawing multiple bidders. “When people start paying more for houses, other people don’t mind paying more.”
In L.A.’s ultra-luxury market, locals, foreigners, flippers and celebrities also came to the party, but it was a billionaire who led the charge in $20 million and up sales. Oaktree Capital Management Chairman Howard Marks had the priciest sale statewide, selling his 9.5-acre estate in Malibu in an off-market deal for $74.5 million. The beachfront property includes a 15,000-square-foot main house, two guesthouses, a gym and a swimming pool. Just down the street, “Karate Kid” producer Jerry Weintraub clocked in with the next highest 2013 sale for L.A. County, based on public records searches conducted by PropertyShark.com and Coldwell Banker. His bluff-top, seven-acre compound with two guesthouses, swimming, tennis and a guardhouse, sold for $41 million.”Our market has finally caught up with what is happening globally,” said Coldwell Banker’s Bobby Syed, who brokered an off-market deal last year of a 12,000-square-foot Beverly Hills estate priced in the $37 million to $39 million range. “A lot of foreign money is coming in, particularly to Beverly Hills and Bel-Air, which are still very cheap by comparison” to other major cities. The 2.5-acre Beverly Hills site boasts a large, flat area and extensive vistas. “It was the biggest view from here to Taiwan,” Syed said. He represented both the sellers, who had bought the property in the 1970s from actress Elizabeth Taylor, and the buyers.
High-end home flipping also raised the bar as retired actor Kristoffer Winters, who renovates homes with actor Jeremy Renner, raked in $24 million for a mansion on two acres in Holmby Hills. The Roaring ’20s Art Deco-style house, reached by a cobblestone driveway, includes five fireplaces, six bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and 10,005 square feet of living space.
Serial house buyer and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres was among celebrities who did their part too to push high-end home sales, buying a 13-acre estate centered on a Tuscan-style in Santa Barbara County’s Toro Canyon that had been listed at $26.5 million.
What is a mortgage pre-approval?
When you are purchasing a home, your broker may recommend you obtain a mortgage pre-approval before you find the home of your dreams.
There are some benefits to being pre-approved before you find a home, but oftentimes, people confuse pre-qualifications with pre-approvals.
So the question many buyers have is what exactly is a mortgage pre-approval?In a nutshell, it’s when the lender provides you (the buyer) with a letter stating that your mortgage will be granted up to a specific dollar amount.
What Do I Need For Pre-Approval?
In order to obtain a pre-approval for your home purchase, you will have to provide your lender all of the same information you would need to show for qualifying for a mortgage.
This means providing tax returns, bank statements and other documents that prove your net worth, how much you have saved for your down payment and your current obligations.
What Conditions Are Attached To A Pre-Approval?
Generally speaking, a pre-approval does have some caveats attached to it. Typically, you can expect to see some of the following clauses in a pre-approval letter:
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- Interest Rate Changes – a pre-approval is done based on current interest rates. When rates increase, your borrowing power may decrease.
- Property Passes Inspection – your lender will require the property you ultimately purchase to come in with a proper appraisal and meet all inspection requirements.
- Credit Check Requirements – regardless of whether it’s been a week or six months since you were pre-approved, your lender will require a new credit report. Changes in your credit report could negate the pre-approval.
- Changes In Jobs/Assets – after a pre-approval is received, a change in your employment status or any assets may result in the pre-approval becoming worthless.
Getting pre-approved for a home mortgage may allow you more negotiation power with sellers and may help streamline the entire loan process.
It is important however to keep in mind there are still things that may have a negative impact on actually getting the loan.
It is important to make sure you keep in contact with the lender, especially if interest rates increase or your employment status changes after you are pre-approved.
Source: Donna Ranieri
(310) 432-6507
