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The Selling of 10508 Wilkins Avenue
The Wilkins property was built in 1928 and likely designed and constructed by the Jans company, who developed and built out most of this tract (between Santa Monica and Wilshire Blvds.) which Jans had promoted as “Westwood Hills”. At that time Spanish Revival architecture was very popular and when Jans developed “Westwood Hills” many of the homes they built in the tract that were of Spanish Revival style. The subject property was an earlier model as much of the tractor was built in the 1930s possibly for this reason 10508 Wilkins is one of the few Spanish style homes that features a rotunda entry. Currently it is one of only two remaining homes in the neighborhood featuring that design. In addition to the rotunda entrance, the classic terra-cotta roof tiles and the stucco exterior of this home had some other design features that I believed would make the home very desirable to home buyers. Features such as wooden trusses in the living room, venetian plaster walls, vintage Malibu tile in the bathroom and peg and groove hardwood floors. The property also features a beautiful, private, drought-tolerant, bricked in back yard, bordered by lovely, verdant gardens.
Where the home suffers is in its functional utility. The eat-in kitchen is small and it has a dropped wood ceiling. Moreover, as a result of the layout of the home, the kitchen is a highly trafficked room creating an overall feeling of a cramped, congested, claustrophobic kitchen. This effect was exaggerated because the owners are home-bound and have in-home care, and would likely be gathering in the kitchen during showings and open houses. To compound the issue, it does not appear that the kitchen could easily be opened up to the rest of the house which is the type of floor plan that most home buyers are seeking these days. Lastly, the upstairs features two bedrooms but only one bathroom. This was a common and perfectly acceptable configuration for homes in 1928 but, it doesn’t work for the vast majority of home buyers in this millennium.
When meeting with the homeowners all of the aforementioned features and concerns were discussed and evaluated. The sellers ultimately decided to list the home for $2,149,000. They believed that this would be a very attractive price that would generate a lot of interest from investor-buyers looking for a flip or build-as-new project and, lovers of classic Spanish Revival architecture wanting a vintage home to lovingly restore, update and enjoy for many years as the owners had.
10508 Wilkins Ave. came on the market in September after a series of rate hikes over the spring and summer. The seller were concerned that the higher interest rates might dampen people’s spirits but, the enticing pricing had done it’s trick and at the first open house we experienced a rush of activity! By days end 73 groups (not individuals) had stopped by and toured the home. As anticipated, their was a lot of interest and as hoped it came from investor/developers and owner-users. The home was held open for brokers on the following Tuesday with great turnout again and again with lots of interest and discussions of offers from agents and buyers. Knowing this the sellers and I agreed that we should set and publish (in the MLS) an offer deadline and so we did and then waited to see what developed. . .
Please re-visit on 12/16/2022 or later for the rest of the story. Thanks
Michael “Mickey” Kessler
Associate Manager
Coldwell Banker Realty
310-367-2322
Cal DRE# 01088842
Sent from my iPhone
Please excuse any typos or errant autocorrects
