A rare double homesite on the coveted front row of the South Laguna Bluffs traded last month for $21.5 million.
The new owner of the property—which includes two homes spanning 5,626 square feet at 2345 and 2381 S. Coast Highway—is planning to turn the double lot into a compound along with the house next door.
The buyer last month paid an additional $15 million for the adjacent property at 2321 S. Coast Highway.
The deal for that 4,672-square-foot home marked the fifth-priciest sale for a single lot in the Woods Cove neighborhood of Laguna Beach.
The undisclosed buyer for both properties hails from Florida, said Coldwell Banker Realty’s Tim Smith, who handled both ends of the two deals.
“When he understood how awesome OC is, he tripled down on buying here,” Smith told the Business Journal.
The properties’ new owner plans to redo its three homes and use the compound as a vacation spot, like most of the other buyers in the area.
The roughly half-mile of oceanfront land between Moss Point and Rockledge Road in Laguna Beach “has recently had a ton of demand because that’s the only place where you can be on the beach and have lots of land,” Smith added.
Inventory for the area remains tight as ever, according to Smith.
“People wait a lifetime to find a Laguna Beach oceanfront home—some of these landmark properties, you’ll never see again,” he said.
AKG Heads OC, SoCal Expansion for Christie’s
A top luxury agent in Los Angeles is expanding his Beverly Hills-based firm, Christie’s International Real Estate AKG, into Orange County. AKG, owned by Aaron Kirman, is replacing Cameron Merage’s First Team Real Estate, which separated from Christie’s network last year.
“We are not a ‘realty TV brokerage’ or a publicly traded real estate company that puts shareholders ahead of agents and clients,” Kirman, who stars in CNBC’s luxury real estate TV show “Listing Impossible,” said in a statement. “We want our clients to know that we’re offering an elevated, professional, relationship-driven experience.”
Kirman this month tapped former president of Coldwell Banker Realty’s Southern California division, Jamie Duran, to lead his firm’s expansion across SoCal.
The firm is aiming to open an office in Newport Beach in the next six months. AKG is also eyeing offices in Del Mar, Calabasas, Sherman Oaks, Montecito, Pasadena and Palm Springs, among other locations.
Duran, who has been named AKG’s executive vice president and managing director, oversaw Coldwell Banker’s growth to a $22 billion business across 65 offices and nearly 5,000 real estate agents in 2022.
“The evolution of today’s industry has proven to us that you don’t need to be the biggest to be the best,” Duran said in a statement, adding that Christie’s is “simply focused on offering the best-in-class service and advisers.”
AKG counts 178 agents, who sold $1.8 billion in properties last year.
The Christie’s affiliate network comprises of 178 independent brokerage firms in 50 countries and territories across the globe, including New York, London and Dubai.
Merage’s First Team had been Christie’s OC affiliate until last November, when the Irvine-based brokerage separated from Christie’s and promoted Chief Operating Officer Michele Harrington to chief executive.
“Christie’s will be a great franchise, but First Team is something different from that,” Merage told real estate publication Inman. “We felt that our independence is what got us to where we are today and what will enable us to continue innovating on behalf of our agents.”