Republished from The Real Deal —
Nina Zokhrabyan is the operational backbone of Aaron Kirman’s brokerage, Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California.
She’s gone through several cycles and is no-nonsense about the limbo in which Los Angeles’ residential high-end real estate market finds itself.
“Every time you see a market shift there’s what I call a pause period and the pause period is when the buyer and the seller are not seeing eye to eye on what the value of the property is,” Zokhrabyan said. Kirman’s firm moved up two spots on this year’s ranking of the top brokerages in Los Angeles County by dollar sales volume, with the group clocking nearly $2 billion in volume across 504 deals to sit at No. 8.
The Real Deal reviewed buy- and sell-side transactions in the Multiple Listing Service between July 1, 2024, and July 1, 2025, to compile this year’s list. What’s reflected does not include off-market transactions or deals less than $1 million.
Altogether, the group of 20 brokerages — a mix of boutiques and multi-office behemoths — raked in about $51 billion in closings during the July-to-July period.
“Buyers are cautious, sellers are stubborn and everyone is waiting for someone else to blink first,” Kirman said.
While one could technically say buyers hold the power, “both sides are paralyzed,” he added, blaming the activity impasse on a mix of high interest rates, economic uncertainty and political gridlock nationally and locally.
In a nutshell, the market is challenged with buyers in the catbird seat. Even high-profile names are sometimes not enough to move the needle.
The spread between asking and closing prices is also widening. Spelling Manor sold for $110 million, after originally asking $165 million in 2022; Gene Simmons’ former Beverly Hills pad got $28 million in July for a property originally listed at $48 million; and Jim Carrey’s Brentwood estate sold for $17 million in August, a stretch from the $29 million asked when it hit the market in 2023.
Just smile, it’s fine
At the very high end, some brokers are positive.
“The Los Angeles luxury market is showing surprising strength right now, especially at the $5-million-plus level, where we’re seeing nearly double the number of transactions compared to a year ago,” Douglas Elliman western region COO Bill Begert said.
The brokerage, which held onto No. 5 this year with nearly $2.7 billion in volume over 730 deals, has seen that run-up on account of post-fire dealmaking, in addition to the return of people who left the state during the pandemic.
Parker Beatty, Compass regional vice president of Southern California and Hawaii, finds more nuance.
“The ultra-luxury market above $20 million is incredibly active right now, as with the lower end up to $4 million,” Beatty said. “Big-ticket deals are still closing, and buyers sense real value at the very top.”
He pointed to Compass’ Chris Cortazzo, who closed the $80 million sale of a Malibu home off market at the end of July, and Ginger Glass of Compass closing 71 Beverly Park for $63.1 million.
“That kind of momentum shows that $20-million-plus deals remain resilient and insulated from broader market pressures,” Beatty said. “The $5-million-to-$10-million segment is more challenging. One factor is [Measure ULA] — once you cross the $5-million threshold, that added cost really impacts buyers.”
The tiered assessment, dubbed the “mansion tax,” tacks a 4 percent levy onto city of Los Angeles deals starting at $5.3 million and a 5.5 percent tax on those of $10.6 million or more.
To Beatty’s point, Compass easily maintained its No. 1 spot on this year’s list with almost 6,000 deals and nearly $15 billion in volume. That’s about three times as many transactions and dollars as Coldwell Banker Realty in the No. 2 position.
Coldwell Banker Realty, with nearly 2,300 deals and $5.4 billion in volume, is seeing similar trends play out.
“In general… the wealthy people are getting wealthier in the equity markets and really need a place to place their money, and also in the really high-end markets it’s not necessarily about price,” Kara Karns-Domic, regional vice president at Coldwell Banker Realty, said.
That’s helped not only single-family sales but luxury condominium deals, which Karns-Domic saw jumping this calendar year.
“People are willing to pay $5,000 a month in their HOA fees because it’s a new building. It’s full-service. It’s multi-use,” she said.
No one knows that better than Compass’ Sally Forster Jones, who saw her business boosted in the past 12 months by the ramp-up in high-rise living. That included closings at luxury properties such as the Rosewood Residences Beverly Hills and Beverly West, which she did in conjunction with Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California’s Tomer Fridman and Amir Ensani.
“The importance of what is happening in the luxury market and in luxury condos has been very helpful for my increased sales this past year,” Forster Jones said.
The interest is from both domestic and overseas, she added. In particular, buyers from Asia have helped offset a slowdown from Europe and the Middle East for Forster Jones.
Reality check
But though some see a silver lining, many agents can’t escape the market’s mixed messages.
“You know, I don’t know where to start,” said The Agency’s Santiago Arana. “I’ve been doing this here for 21 years. It’s certainly a very unique situation. I was talking to a couple of agents at one of my open houses and we were trying to figure out what’s going on and nobody knows.”
The Agency rounded out the unchanged top three brokerages in this year’s ranking, with $3.6 billion in volume across 1,147 deals.
But for Arana, it doesn’t feel like a normal down cycle. He notes a lack of predictability — thanks to Measure ULA and the fallout from January’s Palisades and Eaton fires. To make things more confusing, Arana said his phone rings constantly — telling TRD this fact just as he was about to head out for another showing.
“What’s strange is you see these gigantic sales that pop up here and there and that’s just the ultra-rich who are not really affected,” he said. “You buy a $110 million house in Bel Air like [Aussie billionaire] James Packer, and you buy a house in Malibu for $80 million and it confuses people. But those big sales are happening because they’re unique properties and 0.2 percent of the people in the world are going to buy regardless of what’s happening.”
If 0.2 percent of the population is unaffected and dropping cash, they’re doing a lot of their business with Carolwood Estates. The Beverly Hills boutique, the youngest on the ranking, made its debut last year at No. 8 and now sits at No. 4 with $3.3 billion in sales across 478 deals. The county’s two priciest closings this year — tied at $110 million — also involved Carolwood.
That includes the May sale of 630 Nimes Road in Bel Air, in which Carolwood’s Drew Fenton and Westside Estate Agency’s Kurt Rappaport represented Packer. Meanwhile, Carolwood’s Stephen Resnick, Jonathan Nash, David Parnes and James Harris represented the seller.
Nimes was followed just a few months later with the closing of Spelling Manor, in which Fenton represented the seller. Carolwood’s Linda May represented Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife Wendy in their purchase.
Parnes and Harris in joint comments emailed to TRD said they’re not seeing the lengthy deal times as some of their peers or the significant differences between ask and closing prices, pointing to a robust pipeline of off-market transactions.
“High-net-worth individuals are starting to reemerge after a period of uncertainty — think tech founders, entertainment elite, global investors and international buyers, especially from Canada and China — seem to be dominating more of the market,” said the two, who helm Carolwood’s Bond Street Partners.
In fact, to Parnes and Harris’ point, Branden Williams and Rayni Williams, cofounders of No. 11-ranked Beverly Hills Estates, just listed a $110 million Santa Monica residence. That will test buyers’ appetite for another nine-figure deal, after their firm generated $1.5 billion in volume across 305 deals in the July-to-July period.
Branden, ever the optimist and slick sales agent, said signs point to a bounceback and hinted at what he sees as larger shifts locally.
“I think it’s definitely on the rise and it’s coming back,” he said. “The only reason people have been leaving is because of over-taxation, bad policies and too much regulation. But I think it’s slowly turning.”
