If y’all somehow haven’t heard, our real estate market has been on the upswing for the past, oh, seven or eight years now. As a result, it’s really no surprise that LA’s highest of the high-end residential property brokers are feeling flush enough to afford the prodigiously expensive homes typically eyed only by their most well-heeled clientele.
For the past few days, Yolanda has heard whispers from two different sources that longtime Million Dollar Listing star/real estate boy wonder Josh Flagg and his husband Bobby Boyd are upgrading their real estate circumstances with the purchase of a Spanish-style abode on a very good street in the eastern Beverly Hills Flats neighborhood. The somewhat dated property — listed by Mr. Flagg, naturally — was sold with an asking price of $6,995,000, according to online listings.
We know that nearly $7 million might seem like an absurd amount to ask for a 5,000-square-foot house that looks as if it was last renovated in the early 90s. But it’s actually quite a good deal for the Flats, where nowadays it’s all but impossible to find even a tiny teardown shack that will run y’all less than $5 million. Such is feverish nature of today’s market.
Anyway, Yolanda obviously wanted to get confirmation from the proverbial horse’s mouth, so we picked up our busted ass flip phone and dialed Mr. Flagg. “Give us the full scoop, baby! Did you buy? Is this an investment or what?” we hissed. Unfortunately for us, the usually-congenial Mr. Flagg refused to confirm or deny our purchase speculation — it seems he has better things to do than shoot the breeze with a nosy old lady — but before hanging up the phone he did drop one tantalizing rhetorical question on us: “Let’s just suppose we did buy the house … do you really think we would move in without renovating first?” Click.
Hmmm! Well, for the record, Yolanda does not think this dapper young couple would move into a rather matronly pad like this without nippin’, tuckin’, and faceliftin’ her first. And while we can’t prove that they are the purchasers here, the buying entity links back to a business management firm with longstanding ties to Mr. Flagg and the Josh Flagg and Bobby Boyd Family Foundation. And then there’s that non-denial denial. So make of that what y’all will.
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On the personal front, Mr. Flagg is a youthful looking 32, has been working as in real estate since the tender age of 18, and has starred on MDL since 2008. A rare native of Los Angeles, he comes from a longstanding family of entrepreneurs — his late grandmother Edith Flagg was LA’s polyester queen back in the day, and his great-grandfather Benjamin Flagg founded the nationwide Platt Music Corporation chain. He and Mr. Boyd have now been married nearly a year — belated mazel tov! — and got hitched at one of Yolanda’s all-time favorite venues, the ever-swanky Beverly Hills Hotel.
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According to records, the fixer-upper Spanish-style abode was originally constructed in 1928. Unfortunately, it seems that much of the ol’ gurl’s original charming details have been lost to the sands of time — or at least painted over. The interiors of the home are decidedly blah with great heapings of beige and yellow paint. Still, this gal has good bones — the formal entryway leads to a classic sweepin’ staircase, and the gracious formal living and dining rooms boast natural light. But there are hardwood floors and steel windows throughout, so there’s plenty of upside potential here.
On the outside, Yolanda is not particularly fond of the flagstone driveway here, and the sub-tropical landscaping seems a wee bit messy and unkempt. All those issues can be easily remedied, of course.
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The spacious kitchen is totally wrong for a Spanish-style house, but it does have hardwood floors and upgraded appliances. Adjacent to that is a breakfast room, which in turn opens to the family room with French door access to the backyard and a lovely fireplace for warmth on cool nights.
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There are a total of 5 beds and 5 baths in the 4,565-square-foot residence — the master suite has hardwood floors in the bathroom and a tiled bathroom with dual vanities and a glassy shower. The .27-acre lot additionally features a wee pool/guest house, grassy lawn, and a swimming pool surrounded by an ugly child-proof safety fence.
While we have no idea what alterations Mr. Flagg and Mr. Boyd may make to the property, we suspect that two savvy young go-getters like themselves already have plans drawn up to restore this old gurl to her former glory. At least that is Yolanda’s hope.
This is hardly Mr. Flagg’s first time on the multi-million dollar real estate rodeo — back in 2015, when he was still in his 20s, he paid approximately $4.4 million for a 1930s Traditional in Beverly Hills that he flipped just months later for $5.5 million to former MySpace exec Chris DeWolfe.
With this big new purchase, however, he joins a burgeoning list of uber-successful brokers buying estates previously thought unattainable for real estate agents. Take Kurt Rappaport, a guy who just paid nearly $16 million for a major Brentwood Park spread. Or take fellow Million Dollar Listing star Josh Altman, who recently dropped $6.7 million on his own home in the Flats. And then there’s Matt Altman, a guy who just purchased both a $3 million house in the WeHo area and a $5.2 million mansion in Hancock Park.
Anyhoo, we digress. Some of Mr. Flagg’s nearest neighbors in the Flats include Jeffrey Katzenberg‘s son David — who recently coughed up $6.6 million for a Spanish-style house only two doors away — and Shelly Sterling, who owns the house right in between Mr. Katzenberg and our boy Mr. Flagg.
Listing agent: Josh Flagg, Rodeo Realty