Alva Herd; Automobile Dealer and Real Estate Broker

Alva (Al) Herd, 91, a major Southern California automobile dealer and real estate broker. Born in Glenwood Springs, Colo., Herd moved alone to Oakland when he was 13. He gravitated to Los Angeles in 1921 and a decade later opened a car dealership at Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue. He conducted automobile auctions in four states and was one of California’s largest dealers in the 1930s and 1940s. Herd switched to real estate in 1947, brokering land purchases for what is now the City of Industry, Rancho Mirage, the Del Amo Shopping Center and the Howard Hughes RKO Ranch. Herd handled sales of estates to celebrities in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, along the Sunset Strip and in the Hollywood Hills. He earned national publicity as one of the first to use creative financing packages when inflation pushed up housing prices in the 1970s. On Sunday in Los Angeles.