What I'd Buy This Week in Rancho Santa Fe

The multi-million dollar fixers everyone else is overlooking

I don’t want the perfect house.

You know the ones. Everything is too manicured. Everything is styled. Everything is agreed upon.

There is no room for improvement. Everyone walks in and nods. That’s the problem.

That house has already decided what it is. Where you sit. How you live.
What it’s supposed to feel like.

There’s nothing left to read. There’s nothing left to debate. There is no walking around the property, wine glass in hand & the Stones playing on the record player at sunset, and envisioning the new pool you might resurrect.

I want the one that’s a little off. Not bad. Just not being seen properly. Not wrong. Just misread.

Like a late bloomer.
The ugly duckling.

Those. Those are the ones.

The ones people move past because they don’t immediately make sense. The ones that make you pause for a second.

That’s the house.

Because at this level, nobody is buying a house.

They’re buying how it feels to move through it.

And when something doesn’t land, it’s almost never the house.

It’s the way it’s being presented.

And that, my friend, is my drug. Let me reconstuct the forgotten, the aged, the potential. I feel a business model incoming…

The multi-million dollar fixers I’d buy today.

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5443 Calzada Del Bosque

Ohhhh, my spanish love. You are so ripe for the spotlight.

This is being called dated. It’s not. It’s original. And that distinction matters. You walk in and the issue is obvious.

Too much weight.

The house wants to be lighter and everything around it is working against that. Start in the courtyard. That’s the center of the house. Right now it’s doing nothing. That’s where the pool is built. Right in the middle. Visible from everywhere.

Now the house has a reason to open up.

Inside, you don’t rebuild this. You edit it. Take things away. Quiet it down. Let the structure come back. Create a neutral palette. Tone on tone.

The kitchen needs to function, not perform. Full chef’s dream incoming. Plenty of room for all the boujee choices.

And the primary? The primary needs to feel like a retreat, not another room.

Once those are right, everything else follows.

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16039 Via Del Alba

I love this house. I’ve walked this house many times. I almost bought this house.

But it needs an intervention. It has the potential to become a bad-ass classic.

This one is straightforward. It’s the finishes.

Of course, any staged home is a bit of a tough sale for me. But trust me this one has potential.

And you don’t need to overthink it. But time does need to be spent on the fixture selection, a new kitchen layout & some serious upgrades.

The property itself works. The guest house works. The barn works. The layout works.

It just hasn’t been pulled together. It’s like a facelift. Bones are there. Needs a tweak.

This house wants to be quieter. More controlled. More intentional.

You simplify it & it resolves itself quickly.

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18024 Avenida Alondra

The one everyone’s sleeping on. Wanna know why? Because it’s a sh*t ton of work. And it will probably be scraped for a 20M single-story cookie-cutter. Cool. So not.

This is the one you either see or you don’t. Most people won’t.

But I see that aerial shot and my heart sinks. I want in.

Buyers will walk it, hesitate, and move on.

Which is exactly why it’s still for sale. This isn’t a turnkey decision. It’s a commitment.

You start with the land. Then the structure. And you ignore everything that doesn’t matter.

If it’s done right, it becomes something very specific. Not broad. Not for everyone. But clear. There’s no halfway version of this that works.

Most people want the house that makes sense immediately.

I don’t.

I want the one that takes a second.

Because those are the ones that turn into something.

And usually, the ones that feel the best to live in
are the same ones that sell for the most later.

They are the authentics. And you can’t recreate that.

Funny how that works.