Santa Monica’s luxury home market went crazy in Q1 2016

Santa Monica (credit: Sotheby's)
Santa Monica (credit: Sotheby's)

Watch out, 90210! Santa Monica leapt to take the silver in luxury home sales in the first quarter of 2016, according to a new report by Sotheby’s.

The Santa Monica submarket jumped four spots since this time last year to tie with Pacific Palisades, where the number of luxury home sales decreased between the same periods. Beverly Hills remained at the top, with 27 home sold this year — a 23 percent increase over the 22 homes sold in the 2015 report.

Santa Monica, however, saw a much more drastic increase: a whopping 85 percent, with 24 home sold this year between January and March, over the 13 from 2015.

Sotheby’s Western Region COO Frank Symons said in a press release that Santa Monica beachfront locations are particularly attractive to buyers, including the areas near the Santa Monica Pier, Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica Place.

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Coming in at third and fourth place for luxury home sales are Sunset Strip-Hollywood Hills West and Brentwood, respectively. The former had 22 sales this quarter, and Brentwood tallied 13.

In terms of home prices, Malibu Beach came out on top with an average sale price of $9.4 million, followed by Holmby Hills with $7.9 million, Sunset Strip with $7.5 million and Beverly Hills with $7.1 million.

Santa Monica is also seeing higher commercial asking rents compared to this time in 2015, The Real Deal reported last month. The average asking rent in the first quarter was $4.35 per square a month, compared with $3.89 in the same period last year.