Real Estate newsletter: A Halloween house-and-horror combo

Welcome back to the Real Estate newsletter. As cobwebs and skeletons adorn the porches of homes across California, one listing in Spaulding Square is getting into the Halloween spirit more than any other.

Hallowed in Halloween history, the Dutch Colonial-style abode famously served as the facade for the protagonist’s house in Wes Craven’s classic slasher flick “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” It surfaced for sale this week at $3.25 million alongside a spooky batch of listing photos that show Freddy Kreuger making himself at home in the two-story house.

The agents will be handing out candy to trick-or-treaters there on Halloween, but don’t wait until then if you want to make an offer. They’re due by midnight Oct. 31.

The week’s other notable listing arrived in Brentwood, where Lakers co-owner Jesse Buss, who serves as the team’s assistant general manager, is asking $10.95 million for a modern hillside mansion. Coincidentally, it sits just down the street from a 16,000-square-foot spot that Lakers star LeBron James bought for $23 million in 2017.



New housing data dropped, and it painted a picture of a Southern California market that’s going from hot to simply warm. Home prices rose to a record $688,500 in September, but the 12.9% price appreciation compared to a year earlier was the smallest jump since January. It’s still a seller’s market, but bidding wars are dwindling as some burned-out buyers are giving up their search.

We also got a dispatch from the heartland from economy reporter Don Lee, who profiled families who had left big cities for Middle America during the pandemic. One couple picked up a place in Nebraska that was one-tenth the price of a typical house in Burbank — but as the world slowly returns to normal, will they stay?

Did someone say Burbank? The San Fernando Valley city got huge news on the commercial front this week: Warner Bros. Ranch will be redeveloped with 16 new soundstages in an ambitious project that will bring 926,000 square feet of new construction.

While catching up on the latest, visit and like our Facebook page, where you can find real estate stories and updates throughout the week.

A piece of horror movie history just surfaced for sale in Spaulding Square — but you’ll have to act fast. The home fictionally known as 1428 Elm St., which served as the facade for the protagonist’s house in Wes Craven’s 1984 classic, “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” has come to market for $3.25 million.

To match its spooky past, offers for the film-famous residence are due by midnight on Halloween.

It’s the first time the home has listed for sale since Lorene Scafaria — director of films such as “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” and 2019’s “Hustlers” — bought it for $2.1 million in 2013. Surprisingly, the facade still looks similar to how it did in the movie; green shingles still top the portico entry, but the bright-red front door has since been painted black.

Built in 1919, the Dutch Colonial-style home was a natural choice for the film, which takes place in the fictitious town of Springwood, Ohio. According to the listing agents, Spaulding Square has a distinct lack of palm trees and a variety of other vegetation that give the streets a classic look, so filmmakers often shoot in the neighborhood to portray places outside Southern California.

Lakers co-owner Jesse Buss is making moves away from the court as NBA season tips off, listing his Brentwood mansion of three years for $10.95 million.

Buss, who splits a majority share of the Lakers with his five siblings and serves as the team’s assistant general manager, paid $9.75 million for the modern residence when it was newly built in 2018. Records show he moved to Encino earlier this year, shelling out $5.9 million for a Mediterranean-style estate off Mulholland Drive.

The place he’s selling sits a few houses down from the home of LeBron James, who paid $23 million for a 16,000-square-foot showplace there in 2017. It’s one of two homes that James owns in Brentwood in addition to the Beverly Hills compound he bought last year for $36.75 million.

Southern California home prices set another record last month, but the market is cooling despite the all-time price high, writes Andrew Khouri.

The region’s six-county median sales price — the point at which half the homes sold for more and half for less — climbed 1.3% from August to $688,500 in September, according to data released Wednesday from real estate firm DQNews.

Although that’s a record number and up 12.9% from a year earlier, the annual price appreciation was the smallest since January. The number of homes sold was essentially flat, rising just 0.6% from September 2020.

Heath Clendenning, an L.A.-area agent at Highland Premiere Real Estate, said that though the market isn’t quite as hot as earlier this year, it’s still decidedly a seller’s market and multiple offers are common.

“People were buying homes sight unseen,” he said. “People are at least seeing the homes now for the most part.”

Fed up with pandemic restrictions and their cramped studio apartment in Burbank, Patrick and Emma Janssen upped stakes and moved back to their native Nebraska last fall, writes Don Lee.

At first, Emma, 36, taught writing to her Caltech students remotely, then switched to teaching at a Nebraska school. Thirty-eight-year-old Patrick left a flagging career as an actor and landed a new job with a Nebraska news channel.

Now, a year on and a shivering Great Plains winter behind them, the Janssens are expanding the three-bedroom house they bought next door to Emma’s parents in the 135-year-old farming town of Winside, population just over 400.

The new house cost about one-tenth of a typical Burbank house, and they have more yard space than they know what to do with.

Storied movie studio Warner Bros. Ranch in Burbank will be redeveloped with 16 new soundstages as demand for facilities to make movies and television shows spurs expansions by studio owners scrambling to serve soaring entertainment production in Southern California, writes Roger Vincent.

Warner Bros. is selling its satellite 32-acre lot as part of a previously announced deal but will lease it back from the new owners in 2025 after a more than $500-million makeover that will transform the lot in what will be one of the largest new studio developments in the country when it gets underway next year.

The lot’s existing facilities, including five soundstages, offices and sets, will be replaced. The studio will be remade with 926,000 square feet of new construction, including 16 soundstages with connected production support space, a 320,000-square-foot office complex, a commissary, a parking garage and a dedicated set- and prop-building space (known as a mill in industry jargon).

What we’re reading
If you’re not in the market for a real home at the moment, what about a Lego one? The toy brand just announced a new 3,995-piece set to build the iconic house from “Home Alone,” complete with re-creations of Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as the “Wet Bandits” and even a Lego cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan, Polygon reports.

Need a horror story this Halloween? One woman who has three Amazon smart speakers in her home requested data that Amazon had collected about her and received a ZIP file filled with thousands of audio clips she claims were recorded through the speakers. New York Post has the details.