More Mesa Price Hikes to $65 Million
Open Space of 265 Acres Nearly Sold for $50 Million
More Mesa, 265 open acres currently criss-crossed by hiking, biking, and riding trails on the edge of Hope Ranch, was listed at the beginning of the month at $65 million, a price the owners hadn’t attempted since 2019, according to a history at Zillow.
That’s a jump from the previous listing of $50 million, at which price the property was on the verge of a sale in August, said Taffy Bishara, a RE/MAX agent in West Covina who represents the property owner: Khaled Saud Al Shebaily, LLC, a Saudi Arabia-based real-estate group. Al Shebaily, who bought the property in 2012, had been told that the property was likely worth much more than $50 million, Bishara said, he didn’t know by whom. His voice contained a shrug as well as disappointment: “We worked on it for so long, back and forth, the owner is overseas and the hours and days to get ahold of people, traveling, the buyer was anxious to close … “
The full 265 acres is not buildable as both the county’s General Plan and the state Coastal Act restrict development while maintaining access and habitat, a fact that all taking part in the transaction were aware of, Bishara said. “The guy was going to build one house, his own estate, a very wealthy man, but it didn’t work out.”
Valerie Olson with the More Mesa Preservation Coalition has followed the land for more than 23 years. She said the parcels had no water, no power, and no access to the eastern portion, where the 40 acres lie. And she wasn’t certain that any buyer quite understood the obstacles to building, including Santa Barbara’s culture of conservation. “If anyone is going to lay down $65 million, I would look into it very carefully first,” she said.
