January 21st, 2010
Malibu Beach Front Property $1 per Front Foot!
It’s Always a Good Time to Invest in Malibu!
By: Gracee Arthur
The year was 1926 and the Marblehead Land Company was offering ten year beach front leases for 1 dollar per front foot. The Malibu Colony was being born as celebrities like Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck were building beach cottages for $2600 (summer rentals now go for up to $150,000 per month)!!! In that same year, beach front property on exclusive Carbon Beach was for sale at up to $800 per front foot.
A bit more history: in 1804 the entire 13,000 acre Rancho Topanga Malibu Sestomo Semi Sequit was 
granted to Don Jose Bartoleme Tapia by the King of Spain; Bartoleme re-sold it to Leon Victor Prudhomme for 400 pesos, half in cash and half in wine!! Prudhomme sold it in 1864 to Matthew Keller for 10 cents an acre ($1,300) and by the time Fredrick Hastings Rindge bought it in 1891 the price was $10 per acre. The land extended 20 miles north from Las Flores Canyon and Rindge eventually became the owner of a full 25 miles along the sea coast.
Flash forward to 1993 , a “buyer’s” market, where homes in the still celebrity- studded Colony for upward of $2.5 million and front foot of beach is going for more than $20,000. Flash Forward again to 2010 where the 28 ocean view acres once destined to be the 146 room Adamson hotel will be auctioned off on January 27th due to a mortgage debt of $22 million. Malibu may have experienced its worst market ever in 2009 and that includes land sales. There were 187 land listings from $21 million to a low of $18,500 and only 21 sales. An ocean front bluff property (adjacent to a property owned by Brad Pitt) sold in 2007 for $8,750,000 without permits or current reports, it eventually resold in the winter of 2009 with reports and permits, for the same price. At the low end of the 2009 sales was a parcel listed $99,000 which sold for $51,000.
History has proved Malibu to be a great investment and the best time to invest is in a “buyer’s market.” Coastal property is always at a premium and not only is it a terrific investment, but a terrific place to experience life. Currently a home on 80’ of Carbon Beach is listed at $29 million and that is a great return on the $800 a front foot of less than a century ago.
The visit Malibu Chamber click here.
EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.
- Gracee Arthur
Posted by Gracee Arthur on January 21st, 2010
