Southern California home sold for record-breaking $44.1M

SAN DIEGO (KSWB) — While real estate transactions slowed significantly last month, San Diego set a new record last week for the most expensive home ever sold in the county, with a property in Del Mar that went for over $44 million to an anonymous buyer.

The number of homes sold in September reached the eighth-lowest number in the region’s history amid high interest rates and expensive prices that have largely held firm.

“There’s more than 3 million people in San Diego County. In September, there were about 2,000 home sales, so that is a ridiculously low number of home sales for the amount of people who live here,” Philip Molnar, real estate reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune, told NewsNation affiliate KSWB Tuesday night.

The slowdown in sales transactions has been a standoff with current homeowners enjoying sub-3% interest rates and not wanting to let go of their financial arrangements made during the emergency pandemic low-cost borrowing.

Single-family home prices dropped 1.2% in September year-over-year, according to Core Logic, a real estate data company. Meanwhile, condo and townhome values jumped 5%.

Historically, the lack of inventory in the region has been the main driver of the shrinking number of home sales each month, but experts say September saw a bit of a change.

“It isn’t totally that there is just a lack of listings, it’s that interest rates are shooting up to at this point to 7.8 percent,” said Molnar.

Experts believe there could be a slight price pullback for the next few months, but do not expect any significant drops.

This comes as across town, in Del Mar, the highest-priced home ever sold in the county closed with a $44.1 million price tag. The waterfront house on Sandy Lane was bought by an LLC out of Delaware that shielded the buyer’s identity. 

“Out of left field there is this $44.1 million sale — the highest ever in San Diego County,” Molnar said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s even in reality.”