Bruce Makowsky slashes price of Bel Air spec mansion to $150M

High-end developer Bruce Makowsky once again took an axe to the price of his massive Bel Air spec mansion, this time chopping it down to a still-sky-high $150 million.

The new asking price is $38 million less than the $188-million price tag he posted last year, the Los Angeles Times reported. And it’s a 40-percent drop from its original listing of $250 million in 2017.

Back then, the 38,000-square-foot home was the nation’s priciest listing. Makowsky told the Times that lowering it to $150 million opens the property “to a much wider audience.”

“I don’t think anybody’s ready to spend $250 million on a house,” he said.

Pockets of L.A., including Bel Air, are cooling amid a general real-estate slowdown, making it tougher for spec developers to shoot for the sort of record prices they sought the past two years. In recent years, L.A.’s luxury real estate market has been more overpriced than New York, as sellers in L.A. are known to initially overprice by as much as 50-percent.

Makowsky’s four-story home – which is still named “Billionaire” – includes five bars, three kitchens, a “candy” room, a 40-seat theatre, a four-lane Louis Vuitton bowling alley, a $30-million fleet of vehicles, and a helicopter on the roof.

If it sells for anywhere near $150 million, it will be the most expensive home ever sold in Los Angeles County. The current record belongs to hotelier Peter Morton, who sold his Malibu property in early 2018 for $110 million.

In the same neighborhood as Makowsky’s mansion, a 10-acre estate formerly owned by Univision chairman Jerrold Perenchio grabbed the title recently for the more-expensive home listing in the country at $245 million. But that was a 30-percent drop from when the 25,000-square-foot property was first shopped as a pocket listing for $350 million.

Makowsky, who became rich by selling handbags on shopping channel QVC before turning to real estate, has built some of L.A.’s wildest spec homes. [LAT] – Gregory Cornfield