Formica counters and first-gen built-in refrigerator

Hat tip to Kerry for sending in the latest on the Oracle’s house in Emerald Bay.  The listing has run a typical path – while ignoring the current condition of the home, and able to make gobs of profit at half the price (the original $11M list price was 7233% above purchase price), they list for the highest imaginable price during last year’s selling season – and let it sit, in spite of the results. Now that the market has passed, they lower the price – but is it too late, and just cause buyers to keep waiting to see if they are right that it’s really a teardown on an awkward lot?

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is slashing the price of his California beach house to $7.9 million, after putting it on the market for $11 million in February 2017, according to a spokeswoman for the listing agent.

If the property sells for its new asking price, Mr. Buffett will still make an impressive return, having paid just $150,000 for the home in the early 1970s.

The 87-year-old Berkshire Hathaway chairman, the third richest man in the world according to Forbes magazine, spent holidays at the beach house. He said in an interview last year that he bought the house because his late first wife, Susan, loved it. Since she died in 2004, he hasn’t spent much time there, which prompted him to list the property.

He said the Laguna Beach area had changed dramatically since then, becoming more developed. The house was renovated several times through the years but not recently, said the spokeswoman for the listing agent. Mr. Buffett also purchased an adjacent house, which he called “the annex,” to make space for house guests, and connected the two homes with a staircase. The annex was sold in 2005.

Mr. Buffett recalled hiding out in the home’s master bedroom to write Berkshire Hathaway’s annual reports during Christmas holidays, and visiting Disneyland with his children.

The roughly 3,500-square-foot, three-level Laguna Beach home is in Emerald Bay, a high-end gated community with views of the beach. It has six bedrooms. Two of the bedrooms have their own separate entrances for guests. The house fits Mr. Buffett’s famously understated tastes, with gray carpeting and white laminate countertops.

Another intriguing piece is the listing agent.  The seller owns a major real estate brokerage, but he lists this house with an outside company and an agent who has had nine sales since 2009.  But all of his sales are in Emerald Bay, and he weaves a tale of being a third generation realtor.

Telling grandma stories and pining about the past may have been alluring 18 months ago, but now what?