...according to this article posted on the MSN Real Estate webpage.  Originally asking $8.599 million, the price was recently dropped to $7,999,999.  The mansion is located in a guard-gated community in the ritzy Newport Coast area of Orange County.  It is situated on a half acre lot, built in 1997 and has 8,500 square feet of living area.  Some of the amenities include an 850 square foot gym, in-house hair salon, extra deep custom pool, but most interesting of all...a personal shark tank. 

While Kobe's 8,500 square foot house is huge by all means, it is dwarfed in comparison to his former teammate Shaquille O'Neal's 70,000 square foot mansion in Florida.  I recall seeing the house when it was first featured on MTV Cribs some years ago and it was just GARGANTUAN.  I understand Shaq has many kids, but 70,000 square feet?  Isn't that a little over the top? 

Living in Newport Coast, Kobe has somewhat of a commute to his office at Staples Center Los Angeles, but that's not a problem.  He makes the 49 mile trip in minimal time, and a scenic one to boot with this ride, a custom chopper helicopter.  Of course when you are an NBA legend, 5-time world champion and future hall-of-famer, the sky is the limit (no pun intended).    

According to this article here, home values in the U.S. are within 14% of the of the all time highs when the real estate market peaked in 2006.  However, it says California remains 24.7% away from the 2006 price peak.  Since keeping up with neighborhood trends and values are part of what an appraiser does, I concur with the article to an extent and believe there is some validity to it. 

The real estate market began crashing in 2006, and the downturn lasted about 3-4 years.  After all was said and done, property values declined anywhere from 25-65%, depending upon the area. 

The hardest hit areas were the inner cities and outlying desert communities where sub-prime lending ran rampant.  What followed was a tremendous wave of bank foreclosures and homeowners with upside down mortgages.  Consequently, the market became saturated with REOs and short sales after a few years into the crash.  These distressed sales became the predominant influence in the market.  Declining property values of about 50-65% below the 2006 peak were common in these areas.  There has been some recovery in the past couple of years, but values are still anywhere from 30-50% off from the market highs.

The majority of the southern California real estate market are suburban middle-class neighborhoods.  These areas also took somewhat of a beating, but have made a decent recovery in the past few years.  In general from what I have seen, prices are still about 25% off the peak highs.  This is where I agree with the article.  It seems to be relative to suburban middle-class neighborhoods in southern California.              
By contrast, I noticed that housing values in some of the local beach city communities where I work were hit only modestly by the market downturn.  In some cases (such as Manhattan Beach), the housing market has not only caught up, but even surpassed the peak levels from eight years ago.

Based on my experience and observations, that old adage seems to once again ring true: The three most important factors in real estate......location, location and location.