In 2017, Cindy Crawford and Casamigos co-founder Rande Gerber bought a Beverly Hills home for $11.6 million; four years later, they sold it for $13.5 million, a $1.9 million gross gain

Cindy Crawford has spent the last four decades being photographed in the homes of others, magazine shoots, ad campaigns, the occasional paparazzi photo over a hedge. So it's understandable that one of her most discussed real estate transactions actually involved buying a property, living in it, and selling it at a price that seemed impressive on paper but was less impressive when you do the math.

In 2017, Crawford, along with her husband (and Casamigos tequila co-founder) Rande Gerber, paid $11.6 million for a midcentury home in Beverly Hills’ Trousdale Estates neighborhood, previously owned by OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder. Four years later, they sold it for $13.5 million. That's a $1.9 million gain. According to Money, citing Redfin’s research, celebrity-owned properties tend to sell more slowly than comparable homes, lasting roughly 36 days longer on the market, and typically close below asking price: exactly what happened with Crawford and Gerber’s property.

The "profit" probably wasn't much of a profit at all


A $1.9 million headline gain over four years sounds solid, until you subtract everything that comes with owning a multimillion-dollar property. Standard California real estate agent commissions alone typically run 5–6% of the sale price, meaning on a $13.5 million deal, that’s potentially $700,000-plus gone before anything else is counted.

Add four years of property taxes (California’s roughly 1–1.25% rate alone would mean well over $100,000 annually on a home of that size), normal maintenance costs, and the fact that the property was initially put up for sale for roughly $16 million in 2020 before ultimately selling for $13.5 million, nearly $2.5 million below that original asking price. This isn't the only case in which a celebrity's real estate transaction was presented in a way that made it seem like a win on paper, but not so much once all the costs were included.

Does being famous help you sell the house faster?

It's actually surprising how split the evidence is on this, but according to a UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate study comparing celebrity versus non-celebrity owned property sales in similar Los Angeles zip codes, same month and same year, there was no statistically significant difference in price per square foot in any of them; in simpler terms, there isn't really a "celebrity premium" built into the prices of homes in one of the most competitive regions for big name buyers, where it's all about square footage, location, and quality. That may also be why Crawford's and Gerber's property didn't sell particularly quickly, despite initial reports that the home was a hot commodity.

In fact, that seems to be precisely what happened with this property: it didn’t exactly fly off the shelves, remaining on the market for roughly a year before a significant price cut. The eventual buyer was WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, who already owned the house next door and purchased Crawford and Gerber’s home in 2021 to expand his adjacent estate compound.

Why should this matters

It's easy to dismiss these kinds of celebrity real estate stories as just celebrity gossip fodder, the kind of clickbait that people will read over their morning coffee while they're waiting to see if something more important happens. But there's actually a sort of universal lesson to be learned that extends beyond supermodels: the idea that real estate "profits" (be it for an average buyer or a luxury home in Malibu) are always smaller than their sticker price implies.

Kiplinger, reporting on an Agent Advice analysis of more than 130 celebrity property sales, found that the average sale turned a profit of about $2 million, and many fell under that amount once expenses were factored in. Crawford and Gerber are hardly hurting financially; they still live primarily in Malibu and hold an extensive real estate portfolio. But their Beverly Hills experience is still a sobering reminder that applies to people of all means.