After five years of scorching-hot growth for Los Angeles' residential market, a few August reports showed signs of cooling — but the city still is outpacing other metropolitan areas (including New York and San Francisco), with the median home price tracking 7 percent above 2015's average. And an explosive new listing — the $195 million Beverly House, an estate once owned by William Randolph Hearst — hit the market only weeks after the Playboy Mansion closed for a record $100 million. Such eye-popping properties are all in a day's work for THR's top agents, who tout the Teflon markets they dominate — from the Westside to Hidden Hills — where no client request is too outrageous (marijuana dispensary, please!), as two agency upstarts look to shake up the L.A. "knife fight."
