Tesla CEO puts two California homes on market

Los Angeles

TESLA chief executive officer Elon Musk has listed two of his California homes for sale, just days after announcing that he would get rid of most of his possessions.

He is seeking a combined US$39.5 million for the Bel Air properties, including one that was previously owned by the late Gene Wilder, according to the listings on Zillow.

Mr Musk, 48, posted more than a dozen tweets in less than 75 minutes last Friday, including one in which he said he's selling "almost all" of his physical possessions.

As for high-end Los Angeles real estate, it's not exactly a seller's market at the moment. Sales of luxury homes already were suffering from a supply glut and weak demand before the coronavirus pandemic stopped most showings.

Fewer buyers were coming from China, Russia and the Middle East amid international tensions, and limits on state and local tax deductions dampened the appeal of owning California homes for wealthy US buyers.

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With demand slowing, more and more would-be sellers are taking their homes off the market, said Beverly Hills real estate agent Jade Mills. But shrinking inventory means some homes will still find buyers.

Even with last Friday's stock swoon and the pandemic, Mr Musk and Tesla are still having a pretty good 2020.

The shares have surged 68 per cent this year as of May 1, helping to boost his net worth by US$8.3 billion, the second-most of anyone in the 500-member Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person. Mr Musk ranks No 24 on the list with a US$35.9 billion fortune.

Mr Musk bought the two homes in 2012 and 2013 for a total of about US$24 million. They form part of a five-house collection he owns overlooking Bel-Air Country Club.

In 2018, he turned to Morgan Stanley for US$61 million of mortgages. The two homes he is now looking to unload account for about US$26.3 million of that total. BLOOMBERG