Many notable deals we handle (including a couple this week not mentioned in this newsletter) are with notable people. We sign non-disclosure agreements and try to keep their big-ticket purchases out of the papers. But over 25 people touch each escrow we close, and if there’s intense interest in the names on the paperwork, it leaks—no matter how hard we try to keep our clients’ secrets.

 

Case(s) in point: You may have forgotten the criminal acts which some of L.A.’s elite committed in the college admissions scandal. In a number of cases, bribery charges and guilty pleas led culprits to sell their biggest assets—primarily homes—to afford to defend their indefensible acts. This sloughing-off of real estate has allowed innocent, savvy buyers to nab great deals on abodes owned by the law-breaking title holders of some of SoCal’s hottest properties.

 

We’ve written here about those scandals—mostly coaches, officials, and parents—who were looking for a quick real estate exit to free-up cash. This week’s focus is on soon-to-be-sentenced actress Lori “Aunt Becky” Loughlin and her t-shirt maker husband Mossimo Giannulli who are scaling the walls out of their $28,700,000 Bel-Air compound (down from an earlier unrealistic ask of $35,000,000). Lately known around the Bel-Air Country Club (from which they resigned) as “Bonnie and Clyde,” the couple is in escrow on their home with Tinder co-founder and real estate junkie Justin Mateen for $18,000,000. Now that’s a deal admissions forger Rick Singer would endorse!

 

The $18M price represents a brutal loss for USC student Olivia Jade’s parents, who paid $14 million for the digs in June 2015. Lori and Mossimo spent another fortune renovating and upgrading every inch of the .69-acre, golf course-fronting property. When taxes, maintenance costs, and closing fees are considered, any remaining chance of profit for the felonious pair would almost certainly be wiped-out—along with Olivia Jade’s chances at Valedictorian.