Ritz-Carlton Finally Halfway Sold Out; 3 Investors Own 63 Units

After a year and a half, South Park's Ritz-Carlton Residences at LA Live are now 50 percent sold! Shower of balloons! Champagne cork popping! Lakers girls! The 224-unit building (well, really just the top of the building; the rest is hotel space) first opened in early 2011, when, as the LA Times points out, "the local condo market had stalled." Now, with construction having stopped for a while there, supply has dropped and "Foreign investors and wealthy Southern California residents in search of a pied-a-terre have helped" push the Ritz past the halfway mark. Only about one-third of owners in the building live there full time and 63 of the units have been bought by just three investors. According to the LAT, "Recent buyers at the Ritz-Carlton Residences include investors from China and South Korea who are purchasing units for use by their children attending USC or the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising" (we'd previously heard the building is popular with Asians). Units at the Ritz range from $1.3 million to $9.3 million. A rep for developer AEG "predicted that 75% of the units would be sold by the end of the year."
· Downtown condo sales revive as Ritz-Carlton hits halfway point [LAT]
· Half of New Ritz-Carlton Condo Buyers Are From Asia [Curbed LA]