List and Wait

To be clear, he’s not saying the property won’t fetch that price, just that it might take a long time. While for-sale homes in Santa Barbara County stayed on the market for an average of just 75 days in 2015, according to Zillow, it’s perfectly normal for unique and high-end homes to stay on the market for much longer than that. (And no, despite rumors last year that China's version of eBay unsuccessfully tried to auction it off, Neverland's sellers aren't resorting to wild techniques; a source close to the property called it a hoax.) 

“Any property in the valley that’s even $3 million and up, it’s typically on the market for two to three years,” says Natale.

Take this $125 million, 12-bed, 13-bath home, an hour from Neverland right in Montecito, with those ocean views and almost 30,000 square feet. It’s been on the market since 2014, repped by the same folks taking on Neverland. There hasn’t been a price cut.

On Zillow, there were only four other properties asking $100 million or more this year. One of those was the Playboy Mansion, which was hoping for a cool $200 million earlier this year, but is now listed as “off market” (sorry, Bunny lovers).

The $100 Million Club

The others include a $135 million, 8,000-square-foot Beverly Hills estate (yes, in the 90210 zip) with seven beds and 10 baths; it has been on Zillow for about 150 days. On the East Coast (there’s no public listing between the coasts in this price range), there’s a 13-bed, 35-bath(!) home on the Long Island Sound, asking the same price as Neverland; it’s been on Zillow for almost 200 days. 

Some sellers do consider price chops. Take Elk Mountain Lodge in Aspen. Owned by Bill Koch, the 27-bed, 32-bath mansion hit the market last year for $100 million. It was delisted, then came back a couple of weeks ago asking $80 million.

The truth is, not much is selling for those prices, anywhere, or at least not publicly. The most expensive home sold on Zillow in 2015 was $46.3 million. That was Kenny Rogers’ old place, 23,988 square feet in Bel Air. The last property on their list of the 10 most expensive homes sold last year is in Great Neck, N.Y., sold for a wee $19.9 million.

That doesn’t mean there’s truly a limited supply. Likely many high-end properties aren’t public listings.