The Agency has added a big new client, as the luxury brokerage wraps up talks to serve as listing agent for hotel branded condominium The Pendry Residences West Hollywood, said Mike Leipart, The Agency’s managing partner for new development. The Pendry Residences were developed by AECOM Capital and Combined Properties.
Leipart said that The Agency would officially be on board at The Pendry before Halloween. Agency principals James Harris and David Parnes, who also starred in reality television show “Million Dollar Listing LA,” will serve as listing agents, Leipart said.
Warren Wachsberger, chief executive for AECOM Capital, confirmed that PowerPlay Destination Properties would continue to work as listing agents for the project. PowerPlay has worked with Pendry Residences since 2019, according to the PowerPlay website. Leipart said that The Agency was bought on to the project because of its assertive stance in marketing.
“We were not bought in because of a panic,” Leipart said.
However, one major sales agent will leave The Pendry Residences. Taaseen Querishi represented The Pendry in a $22 million deal for a penthouse, which was considered the priciest condo sale of 2022 in Los Angeles. Querishi told TRD that she would be taking time off to travel, visit her family in Bangladesh and work at her family’s non-profit medical clinic, located outside of that nation’s capital.
On Oct. 3, she fielded a $15 million deal for one of the Pendry’s Terrace estate penthouse. “I’ll finish that deal and then I’ll be done,” she said. She planned to return to Los Angeles in the first quarter of 2023.
Harris said that the price range for vacant residences will span $4.6 million to $16 million. “When you’re selling a condo, you are selling to a niche buyer,” Harris said. “It’s a bachelor, an out-of-towner, empty nesters or people looking for a pied-à- terre.”
In a June interview with TRD, Tina Necrason, executive vice president residential for Montage International, the hotel group that manages The Pendry Residences, said about half of the hotel-branded condo residences were vacant one year after its official opening.
Wachsberger said that an additional $25 million of Pendry Residences unit was put under contract in the past 45 days.
Past TRD stories reported that the Pendry posted other pricey sales in the past 14 months. They include an August 2021 condo deal for $13 million for a residence spanning just under 2,700 square feet. Around the same time, a similar Pendry condo sold for $13.3 million, or $4,500 per square foot.
The Pendry, located at 8420 Sunset Boulevard, is adjacent to the 149-key Pendry Hotel, which includes amenities such as Wolfgang Puck’s Merois restaurant and The Briteley social club.