Carolwood Estates Closes Out Week with Los Feliz Sales

A power duo on Los Angeles’ Eastside cleaned up this week with a couple of closings, despite more “sensitive” conditions for the area’s high end.

Carolwood Estates’ Jonathan Mogharrabi and Marci Kays, who count the actor Brad Pitt among their clients, double ended the sale of Fear of God designer Jerry Lorenzo’s Los Feliz home for $8.6 million, or $1,197 per square foot. The deal on the property at 2401 Nottingham Avenue officially closed on Wednesday.

It’s the priciest deal to close in Los Feliz since June’s $13.5 million trade of 4533 Cockerham Drive, which sold for $675 per square foot.

Mogharrabi and Kays, who co-listed the property with Plus Real Estate’s Tyrone McKillen, represented the local family that purchased the home.

Lorenzo and his wife, Desiree Manuel, paid $8.5 million for the Nottingham Avenue residence, making the decision to list it after they purchased and moved their family to 9051 Briarcrest Lane in Beverly Hills Post Office for $19.5 million in 2023.

After the closing of Lorenzo’s home, Kays and Mogharrabi capped the work week with the closing of 2720 Glendower Avenue, also in Los Feliz, and also double ended by the high-end agents.

The 1920s, Spanish Colonial style home closed for nearly $7.4 million.

Property records indicate the seller was a shell company tied to registered agents with a Sacramento address.

Market dynamics

Mogharrabi called the Eastside’s high-end market a “mix.”

“I think some of the properties are just being priced too high, but more than pricing it’s just strategy on how to put these deals together now with the market being more sensitive on the Eastside,” he said.

Properties priced over $7 million in places such as Los Feliz and Silver Lake require careful strategy. That goes beyond simply factoring in Measure United to House L.A., which Mogharrabi said the market’s generally accepted as part of buying and selling real estate in Los Angeles.

The two-tier tax applies a 4 percent levy on city of Los Angeles real estate deals starting at $5.3 million and kicks up to 5.5 percent on trades starting at $10.6 million.

“There’s a lot of talk about the market being slow, but there are plenty of buyers looking in this price point and we’ve noticed a pickup for us personally with a lot of our inventory,” he said.

That’s a finer distinction that holds across the greater Los Angeles’s high-end market. And, to that point, Mogharrabi said his and Kays’ listing at 7141 Senalda Road in the Hollywood Hills neighborhood of Outpost Estates just went into escrow. The 1930s-built home counts six beds and seven baths and is asking just under $9 million, or $1,333 per square foot.

Outpost Estates is the same historic community where Kays and Mogharrabi represented Pitt last August in the actor’s $12 million purchase of a residence in the area known for its Spanish and Mediterranean designs. They followed up that deal the next month with their representation of Pitt in the off-market sale of his Los Feliz Mid-Century Modern home, known as The Steel House. The property had been listed for $5.5 million, sources told The Real Deal at the time of the closing.