Here's a home you can hitch a fortune to
By MATT KRANTZ
MALIBU, Calif. — The crazy California real estate market has come to this: a million-dollar trailer.
A two-bedroom, two-bathroom mobile home perched on a lot in Malibu is selling for $1.4 million. This isn't a greedy seller asking a ridiculous amount no one will pay. Two others sold in the area recently for $1.3 million and $1.1 million. Another, at $1.8 million, is in escrow. Nearby, another lists for $2.7 million.
"Those are the hottest (prices) I've ever heard," says Bruce Savage, spokesman for the Manufactured Housing Institute. He says prices in another hot spot, Key West, Fla., top $500,000. As if the price isn't tough enough to swallow, trailer buyers:
Why would anyone pay seven figures for a trailer? It gets you more than the typical mobile home. The $1.4 million trailer is in a gated, guarded community with a shared tennis court and panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. It also is on a larger-than-usual "triple-wide" lot. Buyers are willing to pay these huge amounts just to get into Malibu, where the average list price is $4.4 million, says Rick Wallace, broker at Coldwell Banker.
But, it's still a trailer with a modest kitchen and faux wood floors. Many still have trailer hitches attached.
Sellers couldn't be happier. Charley Chartoff, a 29-year-old Coldwell Banker Realtor, is selling the $1.4 million trailer after living there about three years.
Chartoff won't say how much he paid, but neighbors say prices have climbed about threefold in that time.
Developers are partially driving the rise. Janet Levine at Maliblue Holdings has bought several old homes and is installing high-end "mobile villas" to put up for sale. Levine and others bristle at the term "trailer." But to be permitted in the park, the home must be perched on piers (a high-end version of up on blocks).
Some neighbors, though, can only marvel at the prices. Longtime resident Jim Schwartz, 92, says he got an $800,000 offer for his trailer home, which is not for sale. He declined. But, "You come to me with $1 million, and we'll talk about it," he says.
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