A full-floor unit at Wilshire House has traded in the priciest condo deal in Los Angeles County so far this year, The Real Deal has learned.
The property, Unit 20C at the 20-story luxury residential development, changed hands in a $7.8 million transaction, property records show. The home is a three-bedroom, five-bath unit spanning 5,400 square feet. The purchase price stands as the highest sale for a condo unit in the county this year, according to data from appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
The price works out to $1,444 per square foot.
The buyers are University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) benefactors Alice and Nahum Lainer. The Lainers are supporters of the school’s basketball program, establishing a scholarship for men’s basketball in 1990. In 2019, they gave a $3 million endowment to the university, resulting in the school’s director of athletics position being renamed as the The Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Director of Athletics.
The seller is the estate of Robert Wiviott, one of the founders of Eclipse Berry Farms. Eclipse was one of the largest strawberry shippers in the country from fields in Oxnard, Santa Maria and Salinas before it filed for bankruptcy in 2018.
The top end of the condo market is a much modest version of itself at year ago. The priciest transaction for the previous year, which closed in March, was singer Rihanna’s $21 million acquisition of the 40th-floor penthouse at 1 West Century Drive in Century City. She has since put the home back on the market with a price tag of nearly $25 million.
“The condo market has more supply so the frenzied condition that existed for a couple of years is not the case (anymore). The market is moving more normally so buyers are not more panicked about the fear of missing out,” said Jonathan Miller, the head of Miller Samuel.
“It’s less about bidding wars and more about moving quickly.”
Wilshire House, located at 10601 Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood not far from the UCLA campus, was built in 1982 and has a total of 63 units, according to a Compass listing. Another unit in the property, Unit 1502, is currently on the market for $2.8 million.