Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
NBA’s DeMarcus Cousins, Rick Harrison of ‘Pawn Stars’ sell mansions
Highest 2021 luxury sale is at $8.25M
NBA center DeMarcus Cousins and Rick Harrison, the star of “Pawn Stars” on the History Channel, have sold their Las Vegas homes as the valley’s luxury housing market remains hot more than two months into 2021 and prices are rising.
Cousins sold his Las Vegas mansion on a 2-acre estate for $7.5 million, the second-most expensive sale of the year in a deal that closed March 18. The most expensive sale this year was a $8.25 million home in The Ridges in Summerlin.
Harrison sold his two-story, five-bedroom home in Red Rock Country Club for $3.15 million in a deal that closed March 19.
The sales weren’t yet recorded this week by Clark County, and the names of the buyers weren’t available.
Cousins’ former Mediterranean-style home is in the exclusive Queensridge enclave with its 12 homes, and he sold it for $1 million more than the $6.5 million he paid for it in October 2017, according to county records. Cousin put the mansion on the market for $8 million.
The sale comes nearly a month after the Houston Rockets released Cousins, who is now a free agent.
Before his release, Houston guaranteed his $2.3 million contract for the rest of the season.
Harrison’s home, 2556 Red Arrow Drive, is in Red Rock Country Club in Summerlin. It measures 8,845 square feet. When Real Estate Millions featured the home in March 2019, it was listed for $4 million.
The 8,845-square foot home is in its own gated community of Red Rock Estates inside Red Rock Country Club. Harrison bought the house, which was built in 2001, more than five years ago, but with his six children grown, he said no longer needed the space and has found a new home.
The Red Rock home, which has golf course and mountain views, has a 12-person theater; game room with wet bar and balcony; gym; backup generator; 11car, climate-controlled garage; 400-plus-bottle wine cellar; resort-style backyard with kitchen and barbecue area; pool bath with steam shower; and lagoon-style pool with a lazy river and waterfall. The home has a separate air-conditioned solarium with a glass wall that opens to the backyard.
Zar Zanganeh, broker and owner of LUXE Estates & Lifestyles was the listing agent. Christine Thomas with Realty ONE Group was the buyer’s agent.
Cousins’ home
Cousins’ two-story home, 9511 Kings Gate Court, has 10 bedrooms, 12 bathrooms and a four-car garage. It was built in 2003 and measures 20,120 square feet.
Cousins’ listing agent, Realtor Bob Barnhart of Luxurious Real
Estate, said the property resembles a Beverly Hill estate and describes it as “modern luxury meets Mediterranean” after Cousins spent more than $1 million renovating it. Barnhart also represented a California buyer, a business owner, whose name will not be listed in the transaction. It will be listed under a trust, he said.
The mansion has a porte-cochere entrance, circular drive and motor court in the gated-compound estate.
A three-quarter indoor basketball court with a scoreboard on the main level was in place before Cousins bought the home, but it can be retrofitted into an eight-car garage, Barnhart said.
The main level has a gym, movie theater, billiards room with extensive wet bar, sports media room, two bedrooms, two offices, den, formal dining room, formal living room and great room that covers the kitchen, family room and breakfast nook.
“When you walk into the house, you have the grand foyer and 30foot ceilings and a large fireplace,” Barnhart said. “Everything looks out to the resort pool. It has a lot of large sliding doors.”
The backyard has a two-layer resort-style pool and spa with a waterfall and private pool guest house with a kitchen. The backyard has a walking path around the perimeter, he said.
The upstairs has two master suites, with the main master having a separate sitting room with a fireplace. There are three other bedrooms. Most of the upstairs rooms have a private balcony. The floor is accessible by an elevator, and other rooms can be used as an office or den, Barnhart said.
Cousins changed the color scheme of the home with paint, wallpaper and flooring, Barnhart said. Most of the older colors were brown and cream, but they’re now white and gray that the market demands, he said.
“They went through the whole kitchen and updated the cabinets and countertops,” Barnhart said. “They added a saltwater aquarium. A lot of the different television walls in the family room and media room have been changed. Even the game room and pool guesthouse was redone.”
The master bedroom and bathroom underwent an extensive renovation with spa-quality finishes.
“You wouldn’t recognize the changes compared to what it used to be,” Barnhart said. “It’s this Mediterranean home that meets this modern flair of fit and finishes. It’s sharp and dynamic in the look.”
The home’s carpeting was changed from brown to gray, and in the master bathroom white and gray stone and man-made stone was installed to replace travertine tile.
Barnhart said Cousins was diversifying his real estate portfolio in the U.S. and still plans to make Las Vegas home. He will be buying or building another house here, he said.
Luxury market outlook
The luxury resale market remains hot at the start of 2021 after a record-breaking 2020. Through the end of February, there were 192 sales of homes and condos above $1 million and 251 pending sales. The average home sold in February was on the market for 62 days, and the average price was $1.91 million, according to Forrest Barbee, a Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices.
Through February 2020, there were 93 sales and 126 pending sales. The average home sold in February 2020 was $1.69 million, and the average number of days on the market was 114 days, according to Barbee.
“This is the best time I have seen luxury homes selling in this market,” Barnhart said. “We are very light on inventory and the sales are very competitive. It shows you the strength of the market that someone would write (another) offer on this home despite a cash buyer and 15 days away from closing.”
Barnhart said the inventory of luxury homes remains limited “and that says the market is extremely hot, and when everything is back open again, from conventions and Raiders stadium, and we’re at full capacity, which is hopefully soon, I think we’re going to another bump in the luxury real estate market as well.”
Luxury Realtor Tom Love, broker and owner with the Tom Love Group, said he has never seen a market like this in the 33 years that he has been selling real estate in Las Vegas. He said the luxury sales pace is even better than the second half of 2020.
“You put a property on the market, and the interest level is to the moon,” Love said. “People are writing multiple offers even in the $1 million-plus range. It’s like nothing I have ever seen before. It’s a great time to be a seller.”
Love said not only are they seeing people moving from out of state but local residents who are moving up because interest rates have been in the low 2 percent to low 3 percent range, and they have profited from the stock market gains.
“The biggest problem has been the lack of inventory,” Love said. “We don’t have enough listings for the demand from buyers that we have. That’s why prices are going up. The secret is out that if you want to buy a house, you have to pay top dollar for it because there’s no deals right now in the marketplace.”
Highest sale of 2021
The most expensive sale of 2021 was for $8.25 million at 23 Hawk Ridge Drive in The Ridges in Summerlin. The two-story, five-bedroom home with a seven-car garage measures 10,933 square feet. The sale closed Feb. 10.
“It’s a contemporary home with gorgeous and stunning big spaces, fantastic great room and dead-on Strip views,” said Ivan Sher with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, the home’s listing agent. “It had an attached guesthouse that they used as an office. The garage had a lift option, so you could double the space.”
Sher said the luxury market remains strong and described how everything is selling and prices are going up with low inventory.
“We’re still getting a ton of action from California, but the local market is also starting to pick up,” Sher said. “It’s not slowing down at all, and there’s an influx of $10-million-plus buyers. That means there are more people looking for homes more than $10 million than I have ever seen in the city. There’s enough to bring people here.”
Natalie Cornejo of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services was the buyer’s agent for Stephen and Dawn Hutchison, according to county records. Kevin Hooks was the seller.