A pair of Los Angeles developers are putting a 29,600-square-foot Contemporary-style mansion on the market in Bel Air with a price tag of $100 million. They’re touting walls of glass for spectacular city and ocean views, a 16-seat home theater, an infinity pool, tennis court, and a wellness center with a massage table that features a pulsating hydro-massage system. The only wrinkle is, it hasn’t been built yet. Ground won’t be broken on the project until spring, and it won’t be completed until some time in 2018. The mansion at 911

The mansion at 911 Tione Road is one of a handful of high-end properties to hit the Los Angeles market recently before ground has been broken–in fact, before the final permit has even been stamped. In a reversal of the traditional ultra-luxury market practice in which speculative builders near completion before they sell, developers Michael Palumbo and Jay Belson are offering buyers an alternative: a lot with fully-engineered plans for $32 million. Conventional wisdom dictates that builders get the best prices for speculative or “spec” homes (those built without a committed buyer) in the last months of construction, so marketing before then has traditionally been considered unwise. “In the earlier decades it was very unusual for a developer to sell a lot right away,” said agent Joyce Rey, who shares the listing agent with Christopher Damon, both of Coldwell Banker Previews International. “We’d always say in selling you have to have a furnished finished product.” But with foreign money flooding into L.A.’s ultra-luxury market and prices climbing north of $100 million, some ambitious developers are ignoring the old rules. The model at 911

Conventional wisdom dictates that builders get the best prices for speculative or “spec” homes (those built without a committed buyer) in the last months of construction, so marketing before then has traditionally been considered unwise. “In the earlier decades it was very unusual for a developer to sell a lot right away,” said agent Joyce Rey, who shares the listing agent with Christopher Damon, both of Coldwell Banker Previews International. “We’d always say in selling you have to have a furnished finished product.” But with foreign money flooding into L.A.’s ultra-luxury market and prices climbing north of $100 million, some ambitious developers are ignoring the old rules. The model at 911

But with foreign money flooding into L.A.’s ultra-luxury market and prices climbing north of $100 million, some ambitious developers are ignoring the old rules. The model at 911 Tione Road is a kind of hybrid of a full custom-build, in which a buyer buys a lot, deals with the city, and secures the architect, interior designer and construction team, and a turn-key product, where the home is delivered–as the cliche goes–with everything from the furniture to the toothbrushes. This model might appeal to buyers who want some control over their home-building process, but without the headache and uncertainty of the city permitting process and the hassle of hiring all their subcontractors. ”Most of these guys buy from Neiman Marcus and they buy the best of the best,” said Palumbo. “They don’t want to be involved in the daily details.” For a potential buyer, the upside is the opportunity to customize, and possibly a lower cost if the land purchase plus build-out and developer fee doesn’t quite hit that $100 million mark. The model also reduces

For a potential buyer, the upside is the opportunity to customize, and possibly a lower cost if the land purchase plus build-out and developer fee doesn’t quite hit that $100 million mark. The model also reduces risk for Palumbo and Belson, who get their property marketed early and potentially secure a committed buyer sooner in the game. With prime lots a hot commodity in Los Angeles, early marketing allows the developers to compete with finished high-end homes that are already on the market. “Maybe it also helps builders for other projects that they’re doing,” said Jeff Hyland, president of luxury brokerage firm Hilton & Hyland. “Most of these aren’t doing one at a time, they’ve got several.”

Indeed, Palumbo and Belson have followed the same model with two other properties. Their Beverly Hills spec home hit the market with a price tag of $45 million in December for the lot and the plans. They paid $8.05 million in May 2015 for that property, at 1426 Harridge Drive in Beverly Hills, according to public records. They also sold a property at 11005 Bellagio Way for $14.5 million in January 2015.

Nearby, the three-home Park Bel Air development being built by Domvs London has a similar business model. Domvs and its financing partner Junius, a division of JP Morgan, purchased land that was previously owned by real estate heir Steve Bing, who strung together a series of lots and tore down eight houses. Domvs turned the 11-acre property into the three lots; the first, at 788 Tortuoso Way, will be ready for construction by early March and is being offered with fully-engineered home plans for $45 million. For $115 million, Domvs will build those plans, which call for a 42,500-square-foot, six-bedroom main home plus a 15,000-square-foot, five-bedroom guest home.

As with Tione Road, a buyer who comes in early will have the option to customize. “The interior walls you can revise any way you want,” said Stephen Shapiro, co-founder of high-end firm Westside Estate Agency, who shares the listing with his co-founder Kurt Rappaport. “They’ll have a lot of flexibility.”

Developer Scott Gillen has been following a similar plan for quite some time. A former filmmaker, he now has a second career as a builder and has built 18 homes, most of which he has put on the market when they are just dirt. “The brokers usually argue with me about listing before it’s built. They say we need to wait until it’s done,” Gillen said. “We do it anyway and they sell.” In October, Gillen announced the $60 million price tag for a 10,300-square-foot mansion in Malibu that will feature an airplane fuselage as a chandelier. Then he broke ground.

The most ambitious example of this early and high pricing trend is Nile Niami’s 100,000-square-foot Bel Air mega-mansion, reported to have an eventual list price of $500 million. That project won’t be complete until 2017 but has already enlisted Hilton & Hyland to begin marketing. Luxury developer Mohamed Hadid’s 30,000-square-foot Bel Air project is currently stalled due to city approval issues, yet it still has a reported price tag $200 million.

Despite the prices north of $100 million, the City of Angels has yet to break the $100 million sale mark. To date, the highest-priced L.A. trade remains the 2000 sale of billionaire David Murdock’s Bel Air mansion to Gary Winnick for $94 million. The next-highest sale was the 2014 trade of Fleur de Lys, the 45,000-square-foot mansion belonging to Suzanne Saperstein, ex-wife of Metro Networks founder David Saperstein. That home had an asking price of $125 million and was widely reported to sell for $102 million, but multiple sources confirmed to Forbes that the actual sale price was $88.3 million. Sources say that the $102 million may have also included furniture.

The mega-mansion built by billionaire Jeff Greene that hit the market in November 2014 with a price tag of $195 million was price-reduced to $149 million ten months later. It has not yet sold.

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