L.A. luxury home sales volume slowed in Q1: report

The first quarter of 2016 certainly hit high marks on the luxury listings front. It commenced with the Playboy Mansion hitting the market for a whopping $200 million, and that’s with the not-so-minor stipulation that Hef stay on the property until death. But new numbers published by top real estate brokerage the Agency suggest that the pace of luxury sales is starting to slow.

The volume of high-end single-family homes sold in L.A. dropped by 12.2 percent in the first quarter when compared with the previous quarter, according to the report, which notes that “the first quarter always lags the remainder of the year in terms of number of sales.”

The average price of a luxury home was $2.66 million, a 0.9 percent price drop from the previous quarter. The average price per square foot was $931, a 0.6 percent decrease from the previous quarter. The median price per square foot, however, increased by 1.7 percent to $781.

Fluctuations in average sale price reflect the decrease of “mega-deals,” or houses valued at more than $20 million, the report said. The median price for a single-family home priced between $1 million and $3 million – the largest and most active segment of the market — increased by 1.6 percent when compared with the previous quarter, to $1.6 million. The median price for a home priced between $3 million and $5 million increased  by 2.8 percent, to $3.6 million. At the highest end of the market,  homes priced at more than $5 million sold for a median price of $7.2 million, a 4 percent decrease from the previous quarter and an 11.1 percent drop from the same period a year earlier.

Houses sold after being on the market for an average of 93 days, which was 11.4 percent faster than last year and consistent with the previous quarter.

They sold at a 2.9 percent above listing price, compared to 3.7 percent above asking in the previous quarter.

There were 1,799 luxury homes listed in the first quarter.