Xorin Balbes/Monte Arroyo | LEFT: Instagram/@xorinbalbes; RIGHT: instagram/@montecitostyle
Xorin Balbes bought a nearly 4-acre Montecito estate for $11.5 million in late 2022, and less than three years later, the property known as Monte Arroyo changed hands for $32 million, after Balbes undertook a major renovation and spent tens of millions of dollars on the property, according to The Real Deal.
The estate sits at 465 Hot Springs Road in Montecito, the Santa Barbara County community that is known for large properties, secluded estates and proximity to the Pacific coast. Balbes was a developer and celebrity home designer, and bought the property in November 2022 after it had been offered for $15.995 million earlier that year. The final purchase price was $11.5 million, and at the time, the property covered 6.27 acres and included a roughly 14,900-square-foot house built in 1910. Balbes sold off about two acres during the redevelopment, which left the estate with about 3.97 acres. The house itself was later described as a 13,560-square-foot residence, with the renovation being carried out as a speculative project rather than a restoration that was intended for Balbes to occupy permanently. Xorin Balbes/Monte Arroyo | LEFT: Instagram/@xorinbalbes; RIGHT: instagram/@montecitostyle The renovation changed the value of the property The estate was listed in June 2024 for $52 million, which was more than four times what Balbes had paid for the property less than two years earlier, and that asking price was later reduced to $42 million and then to $37.5 million before a buyer was found. The Real Deal reported that the sale closed in October 2025 for $32 million, and the buyer was not publicly identified in the report. The listing history also shows how dramatically the asking price shifted during the project, since the property was repriced to $37.5 million in January 2025 after the $52 million launch. The final $32 million transaction was still nearly three times the $11.5 million purchase price, but it was $20 million below the first asking price. The house was originally built in 1910 and had been expanded over time, which included changes made in the 1970s. The property was already a large residence with an observation tower and extensive grounds when it went on the market in 2022. Balbes had a history of working on high-end residential properties before taking on Monte Arroyo | instagram/@montecitostyle From an older estate to a $32 million sale Balbes had a history of working on high-end residential properties before taking on Monte Arroyo, and the Real Deal described him as a celebrity home designer who had previously been associated with luxury house flipping. The numbers make the transformation easy to track, since the original 2022 purchase was $11.5 million and was subsequently reduced from 6.27 acres to about 3.97 acres after Balbes sold off land. The renovated property was offered at $52 million in 2024, then repriced, and finally sold for $32 million in October 2025. Monte Arroyo spent more than a year on the market after its $52 million launch, with successive reductions before the transaction closed at $32 million. The property had gone from a $11.5 million acquisition in 2022 to one of Montecito’s multimillion-dollar luxury sales three years later, and the final price was close to three times the original purchase price, while the estate itself had been substantially altered in size and condition during the intervening period.
The property had therefore sold for roughly $20.5 million more than Balbes’ original purchase price. Balbes acquired an older estate and then repositioned it as a high-end modern property rather than constructing a completely new house from scratch. The Montecito project followed that same model of acquiring an existing property, undertaking extensive work, repositioning it for the luxury market and selling it. The finished sale also shows the difference between a property’s asking price and what a buyer ultimately pays. You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.
