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We love helping Los Angeles area homeowners enrich their lives through the place they call home!Proud to call California our home, Mark King Real Estate looks forward to adding your story to our growing list of happy clients.

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Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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Free Home Price Analysis

Want to know what your home is worth?Let me know and I’ll put together a free price analysis for you.There’s no obligation; it’s simply a way for you to see what your home may be worth in today’s market.

Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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Homes Under $600,000

Want to see a list of homes under $600,000?Let me know and I’ll send you the list.You can see what is currently available and whether anything catches your attention.

Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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See Beautiful Mansions in Person

Want to see some beautiful mansions in person?Let me know because I would love to show you.We can take a look at some incredible properties and have some fun doing it.

Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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• Play

Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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9/7/2026

Real Estate News / Cool Real Estate Stories

Southern California Home Prices Hit a Record High

There’s a lot going on in real estate in Los Angeles and Southern California in general. Although interest rates are almost at 7%, around 6.7%, home prices have hit a record high. The average home price in Southern California is at $840,000, and that’s the record. A lot of people say that the market is not good, and a lot of sellers think that because of the news, but if your goal is to sell, don’t you want the highest price? Because right now is that time.What’s crazy is that even a year ago in July, about 54% of the listings took a price cut, whereas only about 40% did this year. Now, the median price is about 2.4% lower, but to me that doesn’t mean anything because I always take the average. There are even articles asking why home prices refuse to fall as sales hit a two-year low. So that’s the issue: the market is bad, but not for sellers. The market is great for sellers, but it’s bad for the number of sales.

$26,000 HOA Assessment

There’s even a condo complex where the owners got hit with a $26,000 HOA fee for an emergency assessment. Now that is excessive, very excessive. It’s a 198-unit complex called the Villa Moura complex, and they’re all getting hit with a $26,000 assessment. It’s kind of like, if you are living there, that’s one thing, but if you have an investment at that property and you’re not selling, you’re crazy. You just lost a huge amount of profit with that $26,000 payment.

Luxury Home Sales

For example, even if you take the luxury sales, you have a property at 607 Siena Way in Bel Air where they’re asking $135 million. Even Gavin Newsom sees it as a good time to sell; he’s selling his home for $7.5 million. Yet people say that it’s not a good time to sell. If the governor is deciding to sell his home at this time, and you know he doesn’t need to sell, it shows you that right now is a great time to sell.Earlier this year there was a condo at Sierra Towers that hit the market at $39.5 million and sold for $36 million, a condo in West Hollywood. Even now, there’s a condo trying to outpace that. It’s called the Eterna Residence, and they have the property listed at $68 million. So sellers are thinking about selling, and it’s kind of like, how can you say now is a bad time if you want the highest price? If you want the best-tasting food, you go to the best restaurant. Right now is the restaurant for high prices.

Big Los Angeles Sales

Even 1345 S. Beverly Glen Blvd., they sold that 21-unit property for $8.65 million, about $411,000 per unit in West LA. The crazy thing is all of this stuff is happening right here in Los Angeles, and it’s not even the hottest housing market. They ranked Los Angeles 237th place overall, while Irvine is in the top 10. Los Angeles is ranked below that, yet there are still huge sales.Angelina Jolie is selling her property for $29.85 million, and the article I read said she may have a buyer, and the buyer may be Madonna. A California investor just bought LoSo apartments in Los Angeles for $87.5 million, and the address was 4121 Wilshire Blvd. It’s kind of like the rich get richer and, I guess, the poor get poorer. Rich people are having no problem right now.

Who Is Actually Hurt by the Market?

You have to ask yourself, who is impacted by the number of sales? Real estate professionals, mortgage professionals, and buyers. That means fewer buyers are getting into new homes, real estate agents are getting fewer sales, and mortgage professionals are obviously doing fewer mortgages. But it’s not a rich-people thing because rich people can still buy, rich people are still selling, and sellers at any price point are still selling at high prices.There are even articles in San Francisco talking about how AI wealth is creating a mansion shortage. Can you believe that, a mansion shortage? That means they can’t supply enough mansions for the rich people because of artificial intelligence. It’s crazy. Even this billionaire pharma heir is selling his LA mansion for $35 million because he wants to build the world’s biggest yacht.

The $35 Million Mansion and the World’s Biggest Yacht

If that isn’t excess, I don’t know what is. Like I always say, people who save all their wealth for their kids, their kids are going to spend it and do fun stuff with the money, but the person who earns the money for some reason doesn’t find themselves worthy to do fun stuff with it. I always find that very odd because if you’re not worthy and you earned it, how could your kids be worthy? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter because you’re not here.

The Abandoned Mulholland Mansion

There is so much money in LA that there’s even an abandoned Mulholland Drive mansion at 7711 Mulholland. It’s abandoned, and apparently it was once owned by the Middleton family, and it seems like maybe it still is, but squatters and trespassers are taking over and partying in it. You would never see this in South LA or in any part of regular LA where regular landlords own the house. They’re not letting people party at their mansion. But there are some people so rich they keep abandoned mansions. Why not just sell it? Are you crazy?

Proposition 37

There’s also a lot of stuff going on in real estate in general, like Proposition 37. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about it, but it’s supposed to help, and it’s a $25 billion loan program to help residents in California. The government would basically issue bonds to help residents borrow up to about 17% of the down payment, and they would just have to put down 3%, so that gives them 20% down. Now, I am curious about what the qualifications are going to be and the income thresholds because, let’s face it, you need high income to afford the monthly payment even at 20% down with a 6.7% interest rate.What I mean by high income is something like $100,000 to $500,000 per year in income, depending on the house. If they cap it at something like $70,000, you’re basically not going to use any of that money, and that’s the problem with all these programs. They’ll cap it for low income, but low income can’t buy many houses anywhere. It doesn’t make any sense. You should open it up to people who could actually buy normal homes, given that home sales are at one of the lowest points in history.It’s way worse than the so-called recession in terms of the number of home sales. So I don’t know why they won’t open it up to stimulate buyer activity for buyers who can actually afford the monthly payment with 20% down. They try to give money to low-income people, but if they can’t afford the monthly payment, they might as well let them put 80% down instead of 20%. Otherwise, they can’t cut it. That’s the real problem.

Cities Fighting New Housing

There are also lawsuits because a lot of these cities are not allowing housing to be built. For example, Senate Bill 79 was a state law pushing dense residential development near transit, and it seems that some of the people who live in those cities don’t want that. Obviously, they’re homeowners, so it’s literally a fight of pro-housing groups versus regular homeowners who are also fighting against the developer. They say they need more housing, but the homeowners who are making good money won’t allow it.These are also regular homeowners; they’re not necessarily super rich, but they’re making good money and are high income. You have housing groups trying to help build the housing, and it’s kind of like the regular homeowner doesn’t want new homes to be built that would allow prices to come down. Yet the regular homeowner doesn’t want to sell, and they’re not super rich like the people who leave mansions abandoned. It’s a weird conundrum. There is just a lot of stuff going on out there.

The $74.7 Million Construction Loan

Somehow people get this money. For example, there’s BCT Development, Bain Capital, and Cherry Tree Development, and they got a $74.7 million senior construction loan to build a 180-unit townhome community. Could you imagine getting a $74.7 million loan to build something? That’s crazy. It’s like, if you default, what happens and who’s at fault?These big companies have to have some type of governance where nobody’s personal funds are at fault. Maybe through experience they’ve shown what they can do. Who knows? That’s a process that a lot of us need to learn more about: how can you put yourself in a position to be able to get construction loans that cannot backfire on you personally if the deal doesn’t go well? It’s a money machine as long as you do it right.

Woodland Hills Residents Fighting 398 Homes

Back to homeowners not wanting things built, there are LA residents near Woodland Hills Country Club trying to stop a 398-home plan. In 1988, the local residents defeated a proposal for 120 single-family homes along the same golf course.
Now they’re trying to block housing, apparently for the sake of golfing mountain lions. I don’t get it. That was what was written in the story I read, but the developer is not backing down.There are also other groups trying to help the developer, so now they’re filing a lawsuit against the city to enforce the law. When we say the city, we’re basically talking about residents and homeowners near Woodland Hills Country Club who influence what the city does. They’re going to file a lawsuit, and then if the developer wins, the city may have to approve the project and pay millions of dollars in fines. That is not smart at all.

Yosemite Development

Even the Trump administration is reportedly trying to give part of Yosemite to a developer to build something. I’m not really clear if it’s a private road or some kind of structure, but they’re building something. Again, there is too much going on, and there is this lack of selling. If more sellers sold, prices would be lower, but prices are still around their highest point in history. So any seller talking about not selling because the market is bad, I just don’t understand it.

$1.6 Billion in Los Angeles Office Loans

There’s also a lot of uncertainty in general. I’m not sure if this is going to affect the regular housing market, but I heard there’s $1.6 billion in Los Angeles suburban office loans that are going to face a lease-rollover test. A lot of these tenant leases are expiring, and then there are loans maturing. So what’s going to happen with $1.6 billion? How does that affect the housing market?We don’t know, and that’s the question. The problem is California in general, even with all these homeowners fighting new housing, needs to develop about 180,000 new housing units per year. Actual construction for years has amounted to less than half of that, and that is despite about $24 billion in state subsidies. So it’s kind of like, no matter what you do, you’re not going to create enough new housing to fix the housing market. You have to have lower interest rates.

Real Estate Scam Story

Matthew Campbell and the $9.1 Million Ponzi Scheme

There are also bad topics because people are always trying to make money in real estate. There’s a California man in Central California named Matthew Campbell who tricked 40 investors in a Ponzi scheme. He got over $9.1 million, and they explained that about $2.2 million was paid back to investors to try to keep them in the game. But the question is, what happened to the other money? Where’s the rest of it?It’s crazy how people can make money. People want to make money and invest in real estate so badly that they’ll give a man like Matthew Campbell millions of dollars. You always have to know who you’re dealing with, what the investment actually is, and where the money is going. Real estate can make people wealthy, but the desire to make money can also cause people to ignore things they normally wouldn’t ignore. There is always another side to the opportunity.

Fun Things to Do

Tanaka Farms Pumpkin Patch

Now I want to talk about some fun things to do. If you’ve got kids, check out Tanaka Farms Pumpkin Patch; there are tickets for that, and it’s very good for Halloween. There are also good places to go like Jazz at LACMA, where they play free music. Check out LACMA in general because they have free music on other days as well.

Jazz at LACMA

Jazz at LACMA is another good option if you want to get out and enjoy Los Angeles. They play free music, and LACMA has other free music on different days as well. There are a lot of places where you can watch movies under the stars and stuff like that. It gives you something different to do without everything having to revolve around real estate.

Movies Under the Stars

There’s the Autry Museum in Griffith Park, where they have food and family-friendly movies like Shrek and Hocus Pocus for the kids. They even have an adult time later on where people can drink and do stuff like that. The Downtown Los Angeles Rooftop Cinema is a great place for a date if you guys want to take your loved ones there. There are a lot of different outdoor movie options around Los Angeles.

Hollyhock House

There’s also Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic Hollyhock House, where you can sip wine. It’s a great place to be. You can enjoy the location, have some wine, and do something different. Los Angeles has a lot of places like this if you actually look for them.

South Bay and The Grove

You can also shop and stroll in the South Bay. It’s a good Labor Day tradition with an arts festival, food fair, mini carnival, and live music. You can catch live music and trolley rides at The Grove on Labor Day weekend, which is this weekend. You can enjoy some fresh outdoor tunes by live performers.Again, real estate is beautiful, but LA is a beautiful place too. People live here for a reason. That’s why the population is still insane regardless of people saying everyone is moving out. They’re not moving out fast enough because people keep moving in. So I wouldn’t buy into that hype

Market Stats

Southern California Home Prices

Home prices have hit a record high, with the average home price in Southern California at about $840,000. A year ago in July, about 54% of listings took a price cut, whereas only about 40% did this year. The median price is about 2.4% lower, but I always look at the average as well. At the same time, home sales are at one of the lowest points we’ve seen.

Home Sales

That’s the important distinction in this market. The market can be great for sellers who are actually selling at strong prices while being difficult for buyers, real estate professionals, and mortgage professionals because there are fewer transactions. The problem is not necessarily the price sellers are getting. The problem is that fewer transactions are happening.

Housing Supply

California needs about 180,000 new housing units per year, while actual construction has been less than half of that for years. That lack of supply is one of the major reasons prices have remained so difficult to bring down. At the same time, homeowners in different areas are fighting new housing construction. So we keep saying we need more housing while making it difficult to actually build more housing.

Mortgage Rates

Current Mortgage Rates

Mortgage rates are not looking very favorable coming up. Right now we’re around 6.67%, and it seems like they might be going higher. We were around 6% in February, and now we’re back almost at 7%. It’s crazy how quickly that progress disappeared.

Mortgage Rate Forecast

They had forecasted that we would be at about 6.25% by the end of the year, although we were already around 6% in February. Now they’re projecting, based on where we are, that in 2030 we may be around 5.7%, which is not much lower than where we were in February. So we could wait years just to get back to something close to where we already were. It’s crazy.

Are Mortgage Rates Heading Back to 7%?

So the question people are asking is, are mortgage rates headed back to 7%? It’s possible, and we have to see what happens with the Iran war and tariffs. We can’t get lower interest rates when these things keep pushing in the wrong direction. We were on a good path in February when we were around 6%, and now we’re back almost at 7%. It feels like we lost years of progress.

Scripture of the Day

The one thing I like about this scripture is that we must be raised incorruptible. So if the dead are not raised incorruptible, they won’t be raised. You must be raised incorruptible, meaning a lack of corruption. So when you think about it like this, one of our goals in life should be to be incorruptible. It should be a goal in itself so we can follow God, follow righteousness, and follow all things that are good.Also, sometimes this kind of happens in life. Some people are walking dead in life, and maybe they need to make a change. Maybe at that moment, the change they make is for the positive, and maybe they decide to live a life of incorruptibility. That’s what it could mean to go from being dead to alive even in this world. Incorruptibility in the next world, when God raises us, could obviously mean that in addition to being incorruptible on the inside, we’re also incorruptible on the outside. Praise God.

Legal Disclaimers & Copyright
Mark King Real Estate is a licensed Broker in the state of California.
Our love for the communities we live and work in are why we do what we do.
Stop by the office and experience the Mark King Real Estate's way of Los Angeles area real estate.© 2026 Homes By Mark King Real Estate
GLAR (c)2026. Information Deemed Reliable But Not Guaranteed.This information is being provided by The MLS, or Claw.
All data, including all measurements and calculations of area, is obtained from various sources and has not been, and will not be, verified by broker or MLS.
All information should be independently reviewed and verified for accuracy.
Properties may or may not be listed by the office/agent presenting the information.
Data last updated at (2026).

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