As Orange County faces a slight lull in ultra-luxury sales volume, new is king.
One Newport Beach coastal submarket appears poised to benefit from this demand, with demand surging for its collection of new and custom-built homes.
In Corona del Mar, the trend is for smaller, more unique homes “rather than another big house on a hill,” according to local agent Casey Lesher.
“Everyone wants new, and there’s a ridiculous amount of new construction going on in the village,” said Lesher, of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.
“If it’s new, or just completely rebuilt, the market is very strong for that product.”
A walk down the city’s Poppy Avenue, from the Five Crowns restaurant to famed Ocean Boulevard, last week saw nearly a dozen under-construction or just-built and up-for-sale homes, with some priced in the $7 million and higher range. A majority of the homes on the street have been rebuilt in the past decade.
Along Ocean Boulevard, a bevy of additional construction was underway for its collection of cliffside homes, with a few homes listed for sale at prices topping $20 million.
Demographics
Buyers, typically local empty nesters, are paying less—around $2 to $3 million—for older homes in the village, choosing to invest in remodels, or rebuilds.
Newer homes can bring in more than twice that amount.
“People pay for perfect,” said Lesher.
Corona del Mar is the top neighborhood for Patterson Custom Homes, one of the more prominent local builders, that’s been operating in Newport Beach for two decades.
“Roughly 75% of the contracts we receive to build are single-family residences in Corona del Mar,” said founder Andrew Patterson, adding that typical clients are “high-net-worth individuals, typically business owners, that specialize in law, finance, technology or real estate development.”
There’s been no slowdown in demand for custom homes, despite a hesitance from customers regarding land prices. Still, custom commission projects are faring better than high-end speculation homes on the market, which have been “taking a little longer to transact the past few years,” said Patterson.
Design
“Recently, our clients are interested in building homes that lean stylistically towards midcentury modern and soft contemporary aesthetics,” said Patterson. “There has been a shift towards the use of fresh, natural materials” in homes with open floor plans and floor-to-ceiling glass doors.
This in-vogue style, which Lesher calls “organic modernism,” is defined by materials like wood, brick and stones, natural light and modern, simple furniture.
One of his listings, a $6.5 million CdM home at 1101 White Sails Way, showcases this trend; rustic wood and stone furniture fit inside a modern, sleek five-bedroom single-level home spanning 3,453 square feet.
“It’s an Eric Olsen design, and people are going crazy for it,” Lesher said.
