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In This Episode
Hosts:
Bob Frady & John Siegman
Properties:
23500 Park Sorrento UNIT C34, Calabasas, CA 91302
Episode Summary
Welcome back to Property of the Week! This time, Bob Frady and John Siegman head to Calabasas, California, to review a luxury condo that allegedly belonged to none other than Kanye West. With its sleek modern design, six-figure architecture, and a price tag that’s been sitting on the market for over 100 days. This episode asks: is the “Kanye premium” really worth it?
Key Takeaways
In this episode:
• Why a property’s “celebrity connection” doesn’t always add real value
• The red flags behind property size discrepancies and unclosed permits
• What buyers should ask about HOA reserves, wildfire escape routes, and earthquake coverage
Whether you’re a California buyer, an investor eyeing luxury condos, or just curious about how fame affects price, this episode is packed with real estate lessons from the world of Calabasas.
key findings & Insights:
• PropertyLens report shows moderate risk but size discrepancy raises questions
• Recent HVAC permit pulled just 11 days ago
• Strong HOA and low crime rate, but wildfire and earthquake risks remain
• Tax spikes suggest a recent ownership change and price correction
• Market value is roughly $800K below listing price
• Mold, radon, and PFAS exposure concerns typical of Southern California
Resources
Realtor.com
Try it: Propertylens.com
Questions Contact us: support@propertylens.com
Transcript
Bob Frady (00:00:00) Ladies and gentlemen, boys and Girls, ships at Sea. It is time for another episode of Property of the Week from PropertyLens. For those of you who don't know. I'm Bob Frady, co-founder and CEO of PropertyLens, and with me as always.
John Siegman (00:00:21) John Siegman, co-founder and president of a PropertyLens. Almost forgot.
Bob Frady (00:00:25) So, Kanye West is selling off properties, some of his properties. We don't know how many he has, and we think that we've located his condo in Carlsbad, excuse me, Calabasas.
John Siegman (00:00:34) No, Calabasas.
Bob Frady (00:00:36) Calabasas is, eh, same thing.
John Siegman (00:00:37) Another place starts with a C. That's by the ocean.
Bob Frady (00:00:41) Calabasas, California and we thought we'd take a look at it and see what we think about the property. Now, this is allegedly the Kanye condo. But we think it is, but we'll just say it's allegedly right now so we don't.
John Siegman (00:00:56) Note, if we refer to it as the Kanye condo, it's always alleged count day, Kanye condo.
Bob Frady (00:01:02) It's alleged and here it is, 23500 Park Sorrento, Unit C34, in Calabasas. I ran this report today just to make sure that everything was still updated and proper. Three bedrooms, four bathrooms. 2,260 square feet. So let's take a look at our property. Here's all the identifying information, John, what's our snapshot telling us?
John Siegman (00:01:24) We've only got two owners in the last 15 years. The property's only nine years old. What this sort of shows you is that it doesn't turn over often. So it's good. It's not a problem. Property tax increase over the last six years. A little higher than anticipated in California thanks to Proposition 13. So we know that it's changed hands within the last six years. Insurance costs. Pretty much close to the 7.4% per year average across the country. So not outrageous. As far as increases go. Repairs, fairly moderate given the price of the condo itself. It's not a flip. Lots of building permits. Yay. So they're keeping it up or other people are keeping it up. You wanna look for the ones that are units. Pacific, two possible damaging events. Those happen to be two wind events that happened earlier this year, and it's not in a flood zone. So there you go.
Bob Frady (00:02:20) From a quick snapshot standpoint, Not bad. What do we got in the pros and cons standpoint? It's relatively new, modern construction. It's energy efficient. There's a low crime rate in the area. You've got good fire protection in that area and you got lots of amenities in the community. If you wanna see more, you can always hit the drop down button and it'll give you more information. Now, on the bad side, John, what do we got?
John Siegman (00:02:44) Not necessarily bad. Let's just say less than good.
Bob Frady (00:02:47) Less than ideal.
John Siegman (00:02:49) Well. Welcome to California, particularly Southern California. We shake and we bake. You got earthquake risk. You got wildfire risk. You're not in the flood zone, but you are relatively close to one mold. You got an ocean. If you're near an ocean, it's gonna be damp and it never gets cold enough here to freeze the stuff out. So do you always have a risk of mold? Then there's a property size discrepancy, which is probably the biggest concern on this list because there's a difference between what the county assessor has to say and what the realtor has to say. And so you wanna find out why this is. Sometimes it's just poor record keeping by the county. Sometimes it's an unpermitted extension. You gotta find that out because lots of bad things can happen. Isn't that right Mr. Frady?
Bob Frady (00:03:40) I actually had a house that, I didn't know this at the time when I bought it, 'cause we didn't have all this fancy property land stuff. There was a size discrepancy between what the county or the city thought and what the realtor told me. Well, when I went to relist that house, it turns out there was an unpermitted bedroom that extended into the garage and the city's like, that's not up to code. You're gonna have to rip that out. So to pay to rip it out before I could sell my own house, which was a colo of pain in the neck, not just from the fact that I had to do it, but it shrunk the square footage of my house, which was the total pain. So we've got some nice location benefits. We've got some property features. It's a contemporary design, as we shall see. Now to some people, they like contemporary designs. John Siegman may not be a fan. Bob Frady may be a fan, who knows, but it's very particular when you get into contemporary design with bespoke.. Architectural elements, you know, for those of you who don't speak the king English, that means, you know, custom. So recent updates, yeah, it's fancy, it's fancy schmancy. So, premium's gonna be about 3,600 and the repair cost is gonna be about 17 five. So John, what kind of questions would you wanna be asking if you're looking at this property?
John Siegman (00:04:58) Oh, you'd be wanting to ask a ton of questions. These are the top six. If you ever have a question about what you should ask, you can always ask Lens AI right down there in the bottom, 'cause it will tell you the top 10, 20, 15, hundred, whatever question number you wanna put in there. It will give you, in order the questions that you should ask. So when you look at this property, it's relatively new. It's made up to the current earthquake standards. You would want to know is it insured? Because the structure itself for earthquake should be insured through the homeowners. Same for the other structure risks. So those are two things that you would wanna ask about. It was very windy there earlier this year, and the two wind events in early January. So you'd wanna make sure that there was no damage to anything like shingles or any covering. The roof itself is a mixture of a couple of different things, so you'd wanna make sure that was taken care of. The permits themselves, are they closed or there's stuff that's still open that hasn't been resolved. Because if you walk in. And all of a sudden you wanna do something and you go, Hey, let's go do this. And then you find out you can't until you close other permits. That might be a problem. As one of us has experienced. Not me.
Bob Frady (00:06:23) Once again, I got a bill that was 10 years old from the county, like, this permit was never closed. You can't open a new one. I'm like, whatcha talking about? Because the contractor just never closed it properly. It's like, ugh. So you gotta check and now the seller should check and make sure, but as the buyer, remember, everything is buyer beware. So you gotta make sure that you are being as aware as you can be. So from an inspected expense report, we got some termites. You wanna just check for that? Everything else is just pretty maintenance oriented. We know everything is pretty new in this house. The HVAC system was upgraded, the water heater was upgraded a couple years ago. So all the big things that you're gonna worry about are pretty much taken care of. You still wanna have a little reserve funds just in case, 'cause you never know what's gonna go on. But the number one thing that you would wanna check on is termites. 'cause termites love Southern California. And as we talked about, you know, we've got some toxic exposure at this location, arsenic in the groundwater, mold issues, and PFA contamination in the drinking water. That should largely be mitigated by being on city sewer, you know, but if you're really paranoid, then you'll do a water check on this house. Not enough to necessarily not wanna buy the condo, but enough to make sure you're taking care of your family's health. And then, as we said before, we got wildfire and earthquake termites. It's a 9-year-old house. The roof condition's unknown because it's part of the condom association, and no significant damaging events have occurred. Now, if you want, you can print a list of questions for the seller, or you can print a list of items to give to your inspector and say, make sure you check this out. So we get down to insurance. You know, there's a range between $1,900 to $6,400. You gotta talk to your insurance company because different insurance companies will have filed rates that are different. So let's say you're with company X, Y, Z. We'll call them and you move from one house in California to this house in California, and you say, oh, I like these people. Let's do the same thing. Are they giving me a fair deal on the condo? So that's one of the things that you want to check out, but otherwise it's pretty, pretty straightforward. Now we get into something interesting. John, why don't we talk about the listing details. What do you see here?
John Siegman (00:08:37) I see that the market value is about $800,000 less than the listing price. You know, when you live in Bob Frady's neighborhood, having a little cache saying that you live in Kanye's condo, allegedly carries weight when you're, you know, like me, that carries no weight. So do you really wanna pay for that weight? That's up to you. This is a condo as we'll see in the descriptor. They hired a really expensive architect to come in and do the interior treatment and the interior features. He's got a good name in LA. If you're into modern, this is the person you should call. if you're not, then you're probably paying for a lot of stuff that, quite frankly, your. It's probably never gonna get your money back on.
Bob Frady (00:09:28) That's one big key thing. The second is that this was listing is from July. It's now 108 days on the market. What does it mean when it's been on the market for a long time? John Siegman.
John Siegman (00:09:38) First thing is it's overpriced. The second thing is deals are falling apart. What we don't know is how many times people got to the table and couldn't get this over the line. But we can tell you that 15 to 20%. Of all contracted real estate deals right now, in November of 2025 are falling out. Falling out. Not this is, you've gone through, you've made offers, you've agreed, you've done all sorts of stuff, and they're not getting done. And a lot of that is just because people aren't comfortable, because there's a lot of unknowns, a lot of unknowns that you can eliminate with this report.
Bob Frady (00:10:24) To me, that's an opportunity to negotiate. And usually people don't move on price for one of two reasons. Number one is because they're just insistent that eventually the market's gonna come back and the pendulum will swing the other way and they'll get the price that they want. They have a number in their head and they're married to it. And the second is that. They can't sell it for less for one reason or another. You know, there may be obligations behind that would turn them upside down so they hang on as long as they can. If you are on the market for 108 days, chances are you're overpriced. And to me, knowing this going in, like that's an opportunity to negotiate. Now, maybe you get a box of Yeezys for some, for, you know, autograph Yeezy's. Come with the place. Assuming that this is Kanye's content,
John Siegman (00:11:03) I'd hope you'd at least get one of the Grammy awards hanging on the wall.
Bob Frady (00:11:07) There's all sorts of things that you can negotiate that are not necessarily reflected in the list price. It's negotiation time. It's 108 days too long. Here's the description. Vincent Van Duysen. Very fancy architecture, so, and all sorts of nice things, you know, good appliances, all that stuff. It's in Los Angeles County. It's about eight miles from the coast, which is nice. And the USDA plant, Hardy, the zone is 10 a, so stuff's gonna grow there. You can plant whatever you want. So when we look through the prior ownership, we see some interesting things. this was initially sold in 2017, in a trust, for $1.6 million, then listed in 2022 for $3.5 million, moved over into a different trust, which probably caused the reset on the taxation and. Now listed for $2.95 million. So that's a pretty steep discount. So one of the things you have to deal with from a psychology of the seller is either A, they're desperate to move it, or B, they're mad because the price just went down half a million dollars and I ain't giving you another dime. You know, that's who knows what you're gonna run into. But those are both possible outcomes from having such a large price reduction in a property, even though it was three years ago. So if we look at the property taxes, you know, there was a, there's an aberration in here in 2022 for some reason, but it's,
John Siegman (00:12:41) it could've been the sale of the property.
Bob Frady (00:12:43) Yep. And then we've got. Internal part of the property. Modern, modern, modern. I'd be afraid to put like some toast in this house. 'cause I'd be thinking it's gonna mess everything up. It's very modern and that limits your appeal and that's great. You know, for if you love it, as my dad would say, if you like that kind of thing, then you'll like that kind of thing. Not everybody does. And that's okay if you're going in here, chances are you like that kind of thing. So if we look at damaging events, what do we see?
John Siegman (00:13:15) Two wind events. for those of you paying attention to the news,
Bob Frady (00:13:19) yes, that's exactly when the LA fires were, and luckily the winds were blowing in the other direction away from the property had they been blowing on shore. But a 65 mile an hour wind on shore is pretty unusual for this area. Then it would've gone the other way. Hence the wildfire risk for this location.
John Siegman (00:13:39) Yep.
Bob Frady (00:13:39) So we've got, a 9-year-old roof, 80 year concrete tile. It's all good. So, we don't have a picture of it 'cause it's part of the condo association. So from a structural standpoint, you get some termites and you get some water hardness as anyone who lives in Southern California knows it's a long way from the Colorado River into Los Angeles. So the water hardness is an issue that will invalidate some of your warranties if you're not careful. But otherwise, it's not a ton there, which is nice.
John Siegman (00:14:12) Not a lot to be afraid of.
Bob Frady (00:14:15) Here's all the permits. We got a few.
John Siegman (00:14:18) 11 days ago. Look at that.
Bob Frady (00:14:20) Yeah, look at that. Mechanical system's up 11 days ago.
John Siegman (00:14:23) So somebody's doing something.
Bob Frady (00:14:25) We just a couple of pretty faces here. You know, we're actually digging this stuff out, making it appear as quickly as we can. So 11 days ago there was HVAC permit issued for this location. So you wanna check and make sure, see what's going on, all that good stuff. And it may be associated with the condo building. It's a little hard to tell sometimes. But it's a question you should ask. You know, our goal here is not to say you should or should not buy a condo or a property. Our goal here is to say, here's the questions that you should ask to make sure that you don't get screwed in the buying of a property. That's how I would say it, John, and say it more elegantly. So we've got lots and lots of permits. There's no flood risk at the property, but you can see right here, there's a wash. Down there, it's close. So you, it's close, you know it's not enough to impact your property, but it's close. there's no LOMRs and LOMAs, but you're 260 feet away. Less, less than a hundred yards away from the ditch that can fill up with water. 'Cause as much as you have wildfire risk, you also have a lot of water risk because it's canyon. And that's what happens. So, like we said, earthquake and wildfire. pretty much everything else is nice. Crime is low in this area. Any sex offenders in the area, John?
John Siegman (00:15:44) Well, one about a half a mile away. Right there on the edge.
Bob Frady (00:15:49) Yeah, just, just on the edge of our half mile measurements. We see one now. There's big freeway in the way, so you know, you not gonna have somebody walking into your house, but something to keep an eye on. What have we got in terms of, oh, this is fun. I always love this. This particular element. What's the number one thing on here?
John Siegman (00:16:09) Natural disaster resilience. It applies to the city and how prepared they are to deal with it.
Bob Frady (00:16:18) What does it mean are bad?
John Siegman (00:16:20) It means that you better, pretty much be ready to get out on your own.
Bob Frady (00:16:25) If there's a wildfire in the nearby area and you're hanging out, good luck. Get out. This is what it means. And there's not much public transportation because Calabasas liked it that way. Yeah. You're not taking the bus. Yeah. But it is very quiet. It's very quiet, very quiet. Lots of points of interest within five miles. You know, childcare centers, colleges, private schools, public schools, that's where everything is located. Then we've got toxic exposure, mold, PFAS, radon. There is an elevated level of radon here. Now in a condo without a basement, and you may not want to test this, but you may just to make yourself feel better. And if there is, if it is elevated, you should take it out because radon as. Repeated listeners know is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the US. If we look at contaminated sites, there's a couple right nearby. So we've got a brownfield, excuse me, electrical transmission lines. We've got an underground storage tank at, the motion picture and television fund. it's a third of a mile away. If that's leaking, then it can be problematic, but. Again, not as much as if you're on, city sewer. Which you are.
John Siegman (00:17:44) And sooner or later, all underground storage tanks leak.
Bob Frady (00:17:47) Yes. Much as you might not wa like it, they all leak. Good. Fire protection. Good medical response. Okay. Law enforcement response. You know, it's a, the days of one Adam 12 are kind of over, so sometimes it takes a little while to get response from the county. Health and safety centers for people who are concerned about those sorts of things. There's fire stations that are nearby. There's, hospitals that are nearby, within a few miles, so that's pretty good coverage for that. And then the estimated utility costs are a couple hundred bucks a month, for this location. You could save that with solar, but it's con you can't always get solar. It's a condo. Let's be serious. Yeah, you're not gonna use that much.
John Siegman (00:18:26) Yeah.
Bob Frady (00:18:27) And then you've got, well listen, in a modern apartment, who knows, you might keep the air conditioning on freezing cold.
John Siegman (00:18:34) Which would even, so, I mean, you know, you don't have a lot of heat to overcome.
Bob Frady (00:18:39) Yeah, that's true. Except the hot air that you might be generating. Like my house needs a lot of air conditioning 'cause I generate so much hot air insurability outlook. It's about $440 a square foot to replace it. So your. Contents are gonna be an order of magnitude less than the sales price. So whatever insurance policy you get should be fine for covering, the location unless you've got some. A closet full of Rolexes or something like that, which case you might wanna get a rider for jewelry.
John Siegman (00:19:08) Well, if you're living bass, that's very possible.
Bob Frady (00:19:11) Yeah. You could be actually a Rolex salesperson and live in that house and just have a whole bunch of stuff with you. If you wanna get insurance, you can click on a view, my quote from some of our friends at Smart Financial. And then you've got a property timeline. So pretty straightforward, pretty clean. If I'm looking at this condo, I'm like, Hey, it's not bad. You know, there's things I can do to make it certainly seem a little bit better, but otherwise I think I'm in a pretty good spot with this condo. Let's say that you were looking at 23500 Park Sorrento, C34 in Calabasas, California. What are the top three things you would be concerned about with this location?
John Siegman (00:19:54) My concern would probably still be. For the fourth time, Kanye Cooties, alleged.
Bob Frady (00:20:00) Explain yourself, Mr. What does that mean?
John Siegman (00:20:03) Let's say that this is Kanye's condo. Just imagine yourself as Kanye. There's stuff that's gone on in this condo that you need Service Master to come in to take care of.
Bob Frady (00:20:21) So you do, I'm saying your inspection at do your inspection with a black light kind of a thing. That's, you know, that's.
John Siegman (00:20:27) You know what he, you're gonna want to just, you know, be sure Part of the appeal of this condo is its contents and it's history. Yes. Yes. And how it looks and the feel and all the rest of that. So you're going to want to make sure if part of the cache of purchasing this property, because it had been a Kanye. Property, all of the stuff comes along with it.. You can't just say, well, so and so lived here, and then change the thing out. It's not on the historical registry.. But someday it might be.
Bob Frady (00:21:07) See, that's such a big, it's such a big thing in la It's like, it just used to be Clark Gable's house. I'm like, yeah. So it's like, no, nobody ever says, it used to be Bob Frady's house. It's like they're like, so not yet. It's like, holy cow. But it is, it's a big thing and there's a premium that you're paying for, so that's number one. What's number two?
John Siegman (00:21:28) Oh, number two, I'm gonna make sure that I know how to get the hell out. You're living in an area that is prone to earthquakes and wildfire. A wildfire.. By far is more of a risk and you need to be able to figure out. I gotta do this pretty much on my own because the city itself is not good at dealing with these events. You know, the condo itself should be perfectly fine, but they're not gonna let you stay in the case of an event. So you should be looking at, how do I get out? 101. You know, there aren't a lot of options, from that location. So you gotta be, you know, comfortable with that thought that, hey, what do I do if, third thing that I would definitely want to look into is how well funded the HOA is.
Bob Frady (00:22:32) Now one of us is an HOA manager.
John Siegman (00:22:35) One of us is and is, you know, on two HOA boards. I am the board for one HOA, and I'm on a board of another HOA and the funding of the HOA determines how much is gonna come outta your pocket in case of a special assessment.. If they're properly funded, there should be no special assessments unless it is really off the charts. So you'd want to know, you know, how well funded they are, where they are with their reserve study. All of the pieces and parts that go into it. because this is a good size building, there are multiple, multiple units, and you know, you're taking care of the structure, you're taking care of the pool, you're taking care of the spa, you're taking care of the gym. There's a lot of features that go along with this condo, all of which you're paying for on a monthly basis. And you wanna make sure one, that you're gonna use them. Two, that everything is, you know, copacetic and should something go bad, they're not gonna come knocking on your door. Ask me to write a check for $5,000- $6,000.
Bob Frady (00:23:54) So if I were looking at buying this property, there would, three things I would be concerned about is, number one, do I want to pay the premium that they're asking for? In terms of the market value. So they're asking for something that's between $400,000 and $500,000 more than the market value. So do I wanna pay that just for the honor of owning the alleged. Kanye condo. So that's number one. Do I wanna pay the premium? Number two is there's a size discrepancy. I would investigate that size discrepancy to make sure that everything that was done is copacetic with the city, because that will get inspected at some point, and you're gonna either end up paying more taxes or you're gonna end up. Having to change things and nobody likes that. And then the third is, is my water heaters dropped down? Maybe I have a tankless one. What has been done to prepare for the events of earthquake and wildfire for this location? So yeah. But overall, you know, I'd feel comfortable in saying, maybe I can work a little deal, maybe I can get a discount, maybe I can get some things thrown in. But it's been sitting for a little while. So, you know, why is the biggest question I suppose I would have. But other than that. It doesn't look too bad. Not too bad at all.
John Siegman (00:25:12) I see it as a feature. Bob Fredy address.
Bob Frady (00:25:15) Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't wanna live in a condo unless I'm old. I wanna, if I'm gonna move into a condo, it's gonna be an assisted living condo. Got nurses running around and stuff like that. You know, clean up the drool off my kid. So, that's our. That's our show for today. Subscribe because it makes us feel better about ourselves. If you are even thinking about buying a property and you wanna put this power to work for you, go to PropertyLens.com and get a report. It's worth the money for this week's episode of Property of the Week with PropertyLens. I'm Bob Frady.
John Siegman (00:25:54) I'm John Siegman.
Bob Frady (00:25:56) Till next time.
