Back in 2012 Nile Niami was on top of the world. Or, more literally, he was on top of Bel-Air.
In 2012 Niami, a stuntman who transformed himself into one of LA's most-successful high-end mansion builders, paid $28 million for a 4-acre property at the top of a mountain in Bel-Air.
Over the last decade Niami borrowed a reported $165 million to construct a mansion he named "The One."
As of this writing, The One is around 90% complete. Unfortunately Niami ran out of funds before he could get to 100% which would have enabled the the property to receive its "certificate of occupancy" – a crucial piece of paper that allows people to actually live in the mansion.
Even at 90% completion, The One has over 100,000 square-feet of living space, with 20 bedrooms and 40 bathrooms. It features a nightclub, salon, gym, candy room, 50-car garage, 50-seat movie theater, four-lane bowling alley and an Olympic swimming pool. The master bedroom alone is 4,000 square feet.
Here's a nice two minute drone video tour of this monster:
And here's a 35 minute detailed tour given by Nile to luxury YouTuber Michael Blakey:
At one point, Nile hoped to sell The One for…
$500 million
Unfortunately, even after reportedly showing The One to a handful of the wealthiest people in the world, no one came forward with an offer Niami thought was worthy of accepting.
The One defaulted on its $165 million debt load for the first time in March 2021.
In September 2021 the debt holders placed the home into receivership. A receivership puts the home under control of a court appointed "receiver." A receiver then finds the best path forward to extracting the most amount of value from an asset so the debt holders can make as much money as possible.
And next month we may finally see a conclusion to The One… which is still not 100% completed!
On Friday January 7, the home was officially re-listed for $295 million. If it does not get any offers in the next few weeks, The One will head to the auction block in February. Bids will be accepted between Feb 7 and 10. Just to cover its debt load, the home will need to sell for at least $200 million. Bidders will be required to put down a refundable $250,000 deposit to bid and show proof of funds.
A broker representing the home claims that there are two viable offers on the table at the moment, one of which is from a Saudi prince. Unclear how much money they've offered.
By the way, if someone does cough up $295 million for The One, they will then need to spend at least a few million more to complete construction to receive a certificate of occupancy so they can actually spend the night there. The pools already have cracks and there's already reportedly a mold problem somewhere.
Also, if someone pays $295 million, they will owe the state of California $3 million per year in property taxes alone. That's $6 million in pre-tax income set on fire every year for a home.
We will absolutely be keeping a close eye on this auction when it happens next month and will post articles as results are announced.
What do you think will happen after February's auction? If you were taking an Over/Under bet, would you take over or under $295 million?
