It’s the “Neverland Ranch” that never seems to sell.
After nearly four years and at least four agents’ efforts, the 2,700-acre former home of the late pop star Michael Jackson is getting another price chop.
The property is returning to the market for $31 million, less than a third of its original asking price of $100 milion in 2015, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The ranch, which is about 40 miles from Santa Barbara, had a hefty discount in early 2017. Then the sellers — a fund managed by Colony Capital and Jackson’s estate — slashed the price to $67 million.
The latest broker to list the renamed “Sycamore Valley Ranch” is Suzanne Perkins of Compass. Perkins was among the agents who originally listed the property in 2015. She told the Journal that the ranch failed to sell then because “a price tag of $100 million is not chump change.”
The latest price chop comes as an HBO documentary, “Leaving Neverland,” which details Jackson’s alleged child sex abuse, is set to air next week.
Jackson paid $19.5 million for the Los Olivos property in 1987, but stopped living there following his 2005 molestation trial. Amid his mounting debt, Jackson failed to pay a $23 million loan on Neverland, and it almost went to auction before Tom Barrack’s Colony Capital stepped in.
After the pop star’s death in 2009, Colony spent millions of dollars upgrading the ranch’s infrastructure and landscaping, with the intention to sell it. [WSJ] — Alexei Barrionuevo