OC billionaires reconfigure residential portfolios

Two Orange County billionaires have reconfigured their residential real estate portfolios, with one moving to South Florida and another shedding properties in Beverly Hills.

LoanDepot’s founder Anthony Hsieh and philanthropist Sue Gross have looked beyond OC with multi-million-dollar buys or listings, the Orange County Business Journal reported.

Hsieh, who paid $61 million for a home in Newport Coast in 2020, appears to have shifted his base to Miami – after buying some of its most expensive real estate.

Early this year, he paid $30 million for an 8,100-square-feet waterfront estate on Miami’s Star Island and $19.5 million for a luxury condominium in Downtown Miami.

He then paid $9.9 million for a waterfront home in North Palm Beach.

The lending executive in April traded his role of CEO at LoanDepot for executive chairman. He now lists Miami as his home on LinkedIn.

Lake Forest-based LoanDepot, which bought the naming rights to Miami’s Marlins Park in March of last year, is one of the largest non-bank, direct-to-consumer lenders in the U.S. Forbes pegs Hsieh’s net worth at $2.6 billion.

This month, loanDepot announced it would cut 4,800 jobs, or 42 percent of its workforce.

In the larger of the two Miami deals, Hsieh bought a nine-bedroom, 10-bath waterfront home at 34 Star Island Drive. It hast a dock big enough to berth a 90-foot yacht.

The seller was Randy Smith, co-founder and chief investment officer of hedge fund Alden Global Capital. The New York-based “vulture” fund owns more than 200 newspapers – including the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Daily News – and is widely criticized for its voracious cost-cutting.

Hsieh spent nearly another $20 million for a condominium at One Thousand Museum, in Downtown, which opened in 2019. Neighbors at the Zaha Hadid-designed building include singer Marc Anthony and soccer star David Beckham.

Billionaire philanthropist Gross, who owns five homes in Irvine Cove, is looking to sell two of her Los Angeles-area homes. She and Pimco hedge fund manager Bill Gross divorced in 2017, after which both went on a competitive buying spree. Forbes estimates her worth at $1.6 billion.

Gross listed a home in Beverly Hills, which spans 5,367 square feet on a half-acre lot, for $17.5 million. She paid $16 million for the home last November.

She listed another Beverly Hills home, which spans nearly 5,300 square feet and was previously owned by Ellen DeGeneres, for $28.9 million. She paid $35 million for it in 2018.

A third Beverly Hills home that Gross paid $20 million for in 2018 is not currently on the market.
– Dana Bartholomew

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