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Rich Malibuites Disappointed by Rental Season Yet Again

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Another year, another story about how Malibu summer rentals aren't fetching quite such obscene amounts of money as they did in years past. "It was a disastrous leasing season ? The renters needed to save money, and the lessors needed to make money," a Prudential Malibu agent tells the LA Times. The market definitely has been off--rental closings were down by a quarter over just last year and there were only half as many in 2012 as there were in 2008--and real estate people blame a stronger sale market, "spurred by a sense that the market has seen bottom." With things this tragic, literally everyone has complaints:

-- Agent Chad Rogers "completed lease deals this year at $80,000, nearly $90,000 and $125,000 a month," but many owners were upset that many renters only wanted the place for a few days or weeks--"Owners of $10-million-to-$20-million homes want to do one or two leases at the most and then not think about it ? The majority in the [Malibu] Colony don't want to rent for less than a month."

-- One such homeowner in the Malibu Colony priced his house at $125,000 a month this summer and was hoping for a three-month lease. However, he only got offers for two one-month stays. But he can suck it up and take a bath: "If I could get $70,000 a month for a year ? I'd take it."

-- Meanwhile, agent Stephen Shapiro says there weren't enough rental houses in the super-ultra-deluxe-Mitt-Romney-style category: "There were far fewer high-end houses available in the $100,000-plus range."

-- Shapiro did manage to broker a deal for $300,000 for two months "for a double-lot oceanfront compound in Malibu Colony with a sun deck by the sand, a six-bedroom main house and a two-room guest cottage," but that doesn't touch the record ($200,000 a month in 2009).

-- And some sad tales to play us out: Miami Heat President Pat Riley had to chop from $35k a month to $18,500; Pierce Brosnan's house was asking $250,000 a month before it was pulled from the market with no lease reported.
· Once-hot rental market for luxe Malibu homes cools [LAT]
· Discounted Malibu Summer Rentals "Still a Shitload of Money" [Curbed LA]