Malibu mansion nets $210m as California's priciest home

Los Angeles: It's a price tag that you'll probably have to take a second look at: the founder of eyewear maker Oakley just sold his Malibu home for a whopping $210 million.

The uber-luxury pad - which is a lot of money even by the jaw-dropping standards of Malibu's expensive real estate - is now the costliest home ever to be sold in California.

The sum tops the mere $200 million that Jay-Z and Beyonce lavished last year on their own Malibu compound.

Eyewear impresario James Jannard, who founded Oakley in 1975, made a tidy profit on the house, having bought it in 2012 for just $75 million, reported the Los Angeles Times, which said it had seen real estate records of the sale.

The identity of the buyer was not clear, the outlet said, with paperwork showing it had been purchased by a Delaware-based limited liability company.

The 15,000-square-foot (1,400-square-metres) sprawls across 9.5 acres (4 hectares) of desirable clifftop, featuring its own 300-foot stretch of oceanfront.

It has eight bedrooms, an unnecessary-sounding 14 bathrooms, a huge courtyard, a gym and two guesthouses.

Malibu, a sought-after beach enclave 45 minutes outside Los Angeles, is a favourite haunt of celebrities and the mega-wealthy.

With the Jannard sale and the Jay-Z/Beyonce purchase, the city now holds the record for the three most expensive homes in California, after venture capitalist Marc Andreessen reportedly paid $177 million for an estate there in 2021.

California is both the richest and most populous state in the United States, with a huge disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

The state suffers from an acute housing shortage that has pushed prices way above the national average.

In the six counties of the sunny south, the average house now changes hands for almost $900,000 - more than eight times the mean annual income.