Another private Palm Beach deal: House sells off-market; it was listed last season in the MLS

Just because a house in Palm Beach fails to sell while it’s listed in the multiple listing service doesn’t mean it won’t eventually find a buyer off market.

That was the case recently with Canadian investment banker Adrian Tauro’s three-bedroom, two-story house at 221 Oleander Ave. on the near North End.

The house changed hands privately for a recorded $7.1 million via a deed recorded Nov. 17. But it was listed last season with Premier Estate Properties through agent Margit Brandt, initially at about $8.3 million and then with a price drop to about $7.9 million. The listing later exited the MLS.

The buyer who closed the sale last month has a Greek connection. The deed shows the buyer as a Delaware-registered entity named 221 Oleander PB Corp. with a mailing address in Athens. Because of Delaware’s strict privacy laws, not other information about the buyer was immediately available in public records.

Brandt confirmed her involvement on the seller’s side of the November deal but declined further comment. It’s unclear if any other agents were involved in the sale of the house.

Off-market sales have become increasingly common in Palm Beach, which saw housing inventory hit historic lows during the real-estate boom that soon followed the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. Even though the number of listings is increasing, many agents are still putting together private deals to meet the demand from house-hunters.

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Tauro has bought and sold several houses in Palm Beach over the past few years. He bought the home on Oleander Avenue in early 2022 for a recorded $6.3 million in an off-market deal and then made improvements to the landscaping, including new exterior lighting, he told the Palm Beach Daily News earlier this year. He also replaced the interior lighting fixtures.

Completed in 2018, the house was developed on speculation by a company managed by Palm Beach real estate investor Edward Kettenbach and designed by Daniel Menard of LaBerge & Menard. With 3,168 total square feet, the house has an open-concept family room, living room and kitchen with floor-to-ceiling windows.

The house replaced a four-unit apartment building and first changed hands in 2019 for a recorded $2.7 million. The lot is in the middle of the block, four streets north of Royal Poinciana Way.

Brandt’s sales listing last season described the house as being in “turn-key” condition with marble counters and high-end appliances in the kitchen, along with a den and “fabulous outdoor dining and lounging space both upstairs and downstairs.”

Toronto-based Tauro is a senior financial adviser with a private client group at ScotiaMcleod, part of Scotia Wealth Management, the investment arm of Scotiabank (the Bank of Nova Scotia).

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Tauro told the Daily News he bought the house as a pied-à-terre after his December 2021 sale of the custom home he built across town in the Estate Section at 95 Middle Road. Agent Suzanne Frisbie of the Corcoran Group was the listing agent in the Middle Road deal, which recorded at $26.75 million. Broker Christian Angle of Christian Angle Real Estate acted on behalf of the Middle Road buyer, jewelry designer Marissa Klass.

Tauro has since upsized to another North End house at 224 Via Marila, which he bought for a recorded $9.5 million in April. Built in 1960, that four-bedroom, Bermuda-style house had been extensively renovated by the previous owners, Maryland insurance specialists and retirement advisers Michael Steranka and Jane Sinclair.

The Via Marila house — with 4,683 square feet of total living space — was built on a lot of nearly four-tenths of an acre, several streets north of the Palm Beach Country Club. Brandt acted on Tauro’s behalf in the April deal opposite listing agent Gary Pohrer of Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

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Darrell Hofheinz is a USA TODAY Network of Florida journalist who writes about Palm Beach real estate in his weekly “Beyond the Hedges” column. He welcomes tips about real estate news on the island. Email dhofheinz@pbdailynews.com, call 561-820-3831 or tweet @PBDN_Hofheinz.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach sees another off-market house sale on North End of town