Did sit-com star and rom-com movie queen Jennifer Aniston very quietly off-load a pair of New Your City apartments she scooped up less than a year ago for exactly—as per StreetEasy and our bejeweled abacus—$7,019,084?
Stranger things have happened.
A source "close to the building" tattled to the property gossips at the Daily News that Miz Aniston has already sold the apartments, "possibly to someone who already lives in the building." Did you hear the gasps heard 'round the celebrity real estate world. Did she really? Who bought them? Did she turn a profit? Endure a punishing loss? Anyone? Bueller?
The apartments were (and are) not listed on the open market and property records we perused do not yet reflect a transfer of ownership for either of Miz Aniston's unwanted aeries, a one bedroom apartment on the 17th floor and, directly above it, a one bedroom penthouse apartment with wrap around terrace and toe-curling, 270-degree city views.
Miz Aniston has been quite busy the last year shuffling the cards in her real estate property portfolio. Besides the buying and (rumored) selling of her New York City digs, within the last year she's also sold a freshly renovated and expanded Beverly Hills mansion for $35,000,000 to a yoga-minded Orange County-based mutual fund mogul, leased a comparatively tiny ranch-cottage at the tippy-top of the Bird Streets above Sunset Strip, and just weeks ago she and current man-beau Justin Theroux dropped a dramatic $20,970,000 on an real whopper of a house in Bel Air, a glassy, 8,500 (or so) square foot A. Quincy Jones-designed mid-century modern mansioin on more than three gated acres with separate guest house and poolside pavilion.
Between the fast-moving romance and the equally brisk real estate it's a God damn wonder Miz Aniston had two minutes in the last year to make movie and pal around with her deliciously smart-mouthed new b.f.f. Chelsea Handler.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
UPDATE: Huguette Clark
After much speculation about their fate(s) and scads of unsubstantiated whispers about domestic arts tycoon (and building resident) Martha Stewart sniffing and snorting around, a trio of New York City cooperative apartments on Fifth Avenue owned by the estate of the late reclusive copper heiress Huguette Clark will soon—and somewhat surprisingly—hit the open market.
Mysterious Miz Clark passed away in May 2011 at 104 years old after spending the last several decades of her deeply idiosyncratic life living under various pseudonyms in a perfectly ordinary (and purposefully mis-marked) room on the third floor of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
Miz Clark's day-to-day needs were seen to by a small group of nurses and aides and her vast inherited fortune was managed by a couple of not particularly savory-sounding gentleman, that would be attorney Wally Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler. Mister Bock and Kamsler have come under a great deal of (legal) scrutiny since their golden egg went to meet her maker and were recently removed from managing Miz Clark's estate after a Manhattan judge found "'shocking' evidence of tax fraud" and other nefarious conduct by the two men.
When all this ugly business about Miz Clark's state of affairs was busted open wide by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman in the months before Miz Clark died, most subsequent reports then described Miz Clark's New York City apartment(s) as encompassing 42 rooms and having a potential value of somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000,000.
In reality, as pointed out in The New York Post earlier today, Miz Clark's oft-referred-to 42 rooms are in fact spread throughout three separate apartments on two non-contiguous floors in an imposing, limestone-clad pre-war pile on the corner of Fifth Avenue and busy-busy-busy East 72nd Street designed by noted architect J.E.R. Carpenter and have a total value more realistically pegged at a still astonishing $45-65,000,000.
So the story goes, Miz Clark had hardly if at all stepped foot in any of the three apartments for decades before she died but they were none-the-less—as were her other luxury residences in Connecticut and California—kept broom clean and generally well maintained by a skeleton staff of caretakers, gardeners and hired house keeping services.
The three apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue include an approximately 5,000 square foot half floor unit up on the twelfth floor—the top floor—where she reportedly kept an unusually extensive collection of (rare) dolls. The unit—originally designed with a dozen or more rooms plus a warren of staff rooms—is expected to be listed for around $25,000,000 according to The New York Post.
Miz Clark's pair of eight floor apartments are expected to sell for a total of $20-35,000,000 according to The New York Post who also revealed some important details about Miz Huguettes eighth-floor apartments that Your Mama did not previously know: The powerful co-op board has yet to determine if they'll allow the two units—adjacent but not actually joined—to be combined into one large apartment. Should the board allow for that option, the full-floor, park view sprawler would likely be more valuable than the two apartments separately and measure in at more than 10,000 square feet, a quite rare amount of contiguous space even for super-swank Fifth Avenue.
We should all expect a feeding frenzy when (and if) the listings go public, especially if they include photos and floor plans for which all us property mad people would hold our breath for a year to get a good, long peep.
photo: James Schaefer for Property Shark
Mysterious Miz Clark passed away in May 2011 at 104 years old after spending the last several decades of her deeply idiosyncratic life living under various pseudonyms in a perfectly ordinary (and purposefully mis-marked) room on the third floor of the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
When all this ugly business about Miz Clark's state of affairs was busted open wide by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Bill Dedman in the months before Miz Clark died, most subsequent reports then described Miz Clark's New York City apartment(s) as encompassing 42 rooms and having a potential value of somewhere in the neighborhood of $100,000,000.
In reality, as pointed out in The New York Post earlier today, Miz Clark's oft-referred-to 42 rooms are in fact spread throughout three separate apartments on two non-contiguous floors in an imposing, limestone-clad pre-war pile on the corner of Fifth Avenue and busy-busy-busy East 72nd Street designed by noted architect J.E.R. Carpenter and have a total value more realistically pegged at a still astonishing $45-65,000,000.
So the story goes, Miz Clark had hardly if at all stepped foot in any of the three apartments for decades before she died but they were none-the-less—as were her other luxury residences in Connecticut and California—kept broom clean and generally well maintained by a skeleton staff of caretakers, gardeners and hired house keeping services.
The three apartments at 907 Fifth Avenue include an approximately 5,000 square foot half floor unit up on the twelfth floor—the top floor—where she reportedly kept an unusually extensive collection of (rare) dolls. The unit—originally designed with a dozen or more rooms plus a warren of staff rooms—is expected to be listed for around $25,000,000 according to The New York Post.
Miz Clark's pair of eight floor apartments are expected to sell for a total of $20-35,000,000 according to The New York Post who also revealed some important details about Miz Huguettes eighth-floor apartments that Your Mama did not previously know: The powerful co-op board has yet to determine if they'll allow the two units—adjacent but not actually joined—to be combined into one large apartment. Should the board allow for that option, the full-floor, park view sprawler would likely be more valuable than the two apartments separately and measure in at more than 10,000 square feet, a quite rare amount of contiguous space even for super-swank Fifth Avenue.
We should all expect a feeding frenzy when (and if) the listings go public, especially if they include photos and floor plans for which all us property mad people would hold our breath for a year to get a good, long peep.
photo: James Schaefer for Property Shark
It's Britney's House, Beotch
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $2,995,000
SIZE: 7,453 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Your Mama's inbox practically overflows this morning with breathless and squinty-eyed queries about the 5 bedroom and 6 bathroom Beverly Hills, CA mansion owned by recently engaged pop music superstar Britney Spears* that unexpectedly popped back up on the (open) market yesterday with an asking price of $2,995,000.
*Technically, the Bev Hills area house is owned by the court-appointed conservatorship that manages Miz Spears financial affairs. More on that in a minute.
Tabloid and celebrity gossip glossy readers will recall this is the very same (in)famous mansion where Miz Spears lived during her chaotic, troubling and terribly public meltdown in 2006-08. Remember those days, kittens, when just about every damn day there was some new, horrible thing in the press about Miz Spears shaving her head and/or clumsily exposing her lady parts? Those days, thankfully and hopefully, are long behind the mother of two, now risen like a phoenix from her mental and professional ashes.
No matter how you slice it, $2,995,000 is a lot of freaking money for a single family house but, in this case, according to Your Mama's bejeweled abacus, it's also a pocketbook punishing $3,755,000 less than the $6,750,000 property records show Miz Spears impulsively paid for the 7,453 square foot faux-Tuscan villa in January 2007. Miz Spears, at that time an erratic hot mess who gal palled around with party goers like Paris Hilton, quickly caught an extreme case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and the property, which she reportedly purchased almost completely furnished, was back on the market within a month with a $7,495,000 asking price. Since then, the two-story, canyon view mansion has been on and off the market so many times at so many prices that we just can't be bothered to count and recall them all.
Although Miz Spears paid nearly seven million smackers for the well-maintained manse, a little calculating of comparable cribs shows the current price tag of nearly three million dollars stands well in line with the recent sales of equivalently sized and equipped mansions in The Summit, a 24-hour guard-gated community that spreads tentacle-like over the rugged ridges that divide Beverly Hills from Studio City.
The late Ed McMahon's 7,013 square foot mansion just sold for $3,475,000 and actress Holly Robinson Peete (Mike & Molly, Hangin' With Mr. Cooper) and her retired professional pigskinner husband Rodney Peete sold their 7,234 square foot mansion—as a short sale—in November (2011) for $3,015,000 after first listing it in early 2007 for $5,995,000.
Listing information shows Miz Spears former home is offered as a "Probate Sale. Subject to Court Confirmation." The most common kind of court confirmed probate sale is, as anybody who knows any thing about real estate surely knows, when the executor of the estate of a deceased person sells off a piece of real estate. Miz Spears, however and of course, is quite alive.
A little research on the interweb brought to our attention another, lesser known type of probate sale when real property is sold under a conservatorship, as is the situation of Miz Spears' former residence in The Summit. In 2008, when Miz Spears was still in the ugly thick of her troubles, the entirety of her personal and business affairs were placed by court order under a conservatorship headed up by her father and an attorney.
The sometimes long and difficult conservatorship sale process is much better explained on the website of Miz Spears' real estate agent than Your Mama could or would ever care to do justice. If you yearn for the details we suggest you head on over there.
As it turns out, in addition to Brit-brit's unwanted white elephant in Beverly Hills, there are at least three other luxury residences in the Los Angeles area once owned or occupied by Miz Spears and currently for sale on the open market.
The ill-fated pair's Malibu love shack sat smack between a mansion owned by Olivia Newton John (since sold) and two mansions both owned by three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron. Some of their other notable nearby neighbors included mouthy and volatile actor Mel Gibson, octogenarian entertainer Dick Van Dyke, and sit-com star Kesley Grammer and his now ex-wife Camille of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Miz Spears and her ex-mister sold the nearly 10,000 square foot spread for ten million clams shortly after they were divorced in the summer of 2007. The buyer was horror film writer/producer/director Stephen Sommers (Van Helsing and The Mummy franchise) who gave the entire property a complete overhaul and currently has the 6 bedroom and 7.5 bathroom compound back on the market with a $13,500,000 price tag.
Newly single Miz Spears moved from her Serra Retreat retreat to a couple of rented residences before she rather rashly snatched up the mansion in The Summit.
The property, owned by L.A.-based construction magnate (and current resident of Beverly Park) Ron Tutor, was once on the market with an asking price of $18,900,000 but now has a significantly lower $9,995,000 price tag.
Hidden Hills, celebrity property watchers well know, is riddled with mansions owned by entertainment and music industry bigwigs who include (but are far from limited to) include Jennifer Lopez, Melissa Etheridge and Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne who have their house in H.H. listed for $12,999,000.
listing photos (Beverly Hills): Prudential California / Beverly Hills
listing photo (Calabasas): Ewing and Associates / Sotheby's International Real Estate
listing photo (Hidden Hills): Partners Trust / Brentwood
listing photo (Malibu): Re/Max / Olson & Associates
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The Teddy Forstmann Property Sell Off
Mister's Forstmann's name many not be instantly recognized by folks who don't read about global finance, big business and other such affairs but he will certainly be known to gossip glossy readers as one of Princess Diana's several (and alleged) man friends and, for the last few years, up until he succumbed to cancer last November (2011), the long-time man-mate of raven-haired beauty and Top Chef hostess Padma Lakshmi.
The peeps at The Post revealed Mister Forstmann's (approx.) 9,000 square foot ocean front mansion on Southampton's supah-swank Meadow Lane will soon hit the market with a $34,000,000 price tag and his New York City spread—a 4,000 square foot duplex atop a Rosario Candela-designed building on East 70th Street with wrap around terrace and Central Park view over the Frick Collection—is currently and quietly being shown to relevant real estate agents and verifiably affluent buyers with an unofficial/off-market asking price of $36,000,000.
What The Post didn't mention is that in addition to his significant east coast cribs Mister Forstmann has long owned a pretty darned delicious estate in the Beverly Hills Post Office area that Your Mama hears through the Beverly Hills real estate gossip grapevine is expected to become available in the not too distant future with an asking price somewhere in the neighborhood of $17,000,000.
Property records are a tiny bit spongy but as best as we can tell Mister Forstmann paid $6,500,000 for the gated estate in May 1990.
The Los Angeles County Tax Man shows the traditional, colonial-style crib sits on 3.59 acres near the top of Coldwater Canyon, was originally erected in 1937, measures in at a sizable but far from overblown 7,136 square feet and includes 6 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. We have no idea if the Tax Man's records are an accurate reflection of the mansion's current size and etc.
The desirably private, plateau-like property has a long and dramatic gated drive that snakes up a tree-shaded hillside to a pair of motor courts, one at the front of the house the other around the side where there's a three-bay attached garage. The far end of the property hangs over famed Mulholland Drive and includes an all but hidden from view, tennis court with night-lights and viewing platform, a massive flat and manicured free-form lawn, various courtyard gardens, and a resort-y swimming pool complex with wide sunbathing and lounging terraces, separate sunken spa, massive outdoor fireplace, and pool side cabana.
Other entertainment industry types who own homes in the immediate 'hood include 2002 Oscar-nominee Queen Latifah, actor/comedian David Alan Grier, and thrice Oscar-nominated actress Amy Adams.
aerial photo: Google
UPDATE: Kim Kardashian
Listen, chickens, Your Mama knows some of y'all would rather run rusty razors up under your toenails than read a damn thing about Paris Hilton's former frenemy turned amateur porn star turned (arguably over-exposed) reality show denizen turned kleig light-luvin' showbiz super-mogul Kim Kardashian. And we feel you. We really do.
None-the-less, pickins are a bit slim today and difficult as it may be for some to believe, for each of the children who could kare less about K.K.'s real estate-related activities, there are 12 more butter beans ringing our virtual bell. The more that bell ring-a-ling-a-lings the more money drops in to Your Mama coin purse. Don't hate because a person has to do what they got to do. Just because Your Mama's wagon is hitched to a BMW-driving doctor doesn't mean we get a free ride and don't have bills to pay like every body else. Not interested in K.K.? Then scoot yourself right along and we'll have something else for you to gnash your celebrity real estate teeth on soon enough.
Last week all us celebrity property gossips went 49 kinds of hog wild about a nearly 7,000 square foot mock-Med meets Asian-infused Craftsman-style mansion in the star-studded and guard-gated Mulholland Estates community near Sherman Oaks, CA that was—y'all will recall—widely and—as it turns out—incorrectly reported to have been leased by the recently married and quickly divorced K.K. for somewhere in the neighborhood of forty grand a month.
It wasn't long after our (embarrassingly bloated) discussion of the Mulholland Estates mansion before we received a covert communique from a chatty tattletale—let's call her Wanda Dishsomedirt—who whispered in Your Mama's ear that K.K. recently twice toured an 8,000-plus square foot mansion privately situated behind the elaborate gates of a small and swank enclave high in the rugged mountains above Beverly Hills.
Everybody with a damn brain understands that just because K.K. (allegedly) took a couple of spins through the posh property priced at almost eight-point-five million bucks doesn't mean she'll actually proceed with a purchase contract or lease agreement. All of this is just some silly celebrity real estate rumor and gossip at this point.
Should the house huntress decide to lease or acquire the mini-estate in question, however, listing information indicates she'd lay claim to a red tile-roofed, 10-year old mock-Med mansion replete with a grand two-story foyer, formal living and dining rooms plus a great room with projection system and high-def movie screen, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and a 150-bottle wine cellar.
Listing information goes on to show the walled, gated and landscaped acre-plus grounds include a long, gated driveway at the front that leads to a tiled motor court with 3-car garage and at the rear a deep, bougainvillea-draped patio that overlooks the swimming pool, party-sized 12-person spa, and soccer pitch-sized lawn. Beyond all that is an expansive view of the surrounding canyon and mountains.
K.K. kurrently owns a nearly 4,000 square foot faux-Tuscan villa in the Beverly Hills Post Office area purchased, according to property records, in February 2010 for $3,400,000. It was here at the front gate of K.K.'s 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom mansion where some creepy "fan" showed up with his luggage and attempted to persuade the K.K.'s private security detail he was meant to move in to the mansion during the taping of whatever reality program K.K. was scheduled to begin taping. It was this intruder alert ridiculousness that had has led K.K.—so the scuttlebutt goes—to seek out a new krib that offers a higher level of security and a greater degree of privacy.
Were K.K. to ask Your Mama's advice—and we'd bet both our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly she won't—we'd suggest she hightail her Alaska-sized backside right on back to the hot as Hades far western suburbs of Los Angeles from whence she came where she can currently choose from two mansions previously leased by pop music megastar Britney Spears.
Several years ago Miz Spears rented the so-called Chateau Suenos, a nearly 10,000 square foot faux-French "chateau" set on 1.2 landscaped acres in a double-gated enclave in Calabasas. The 6 bedroom and 7 bathroom beast of a house, which Your Mama heard but can not confirm was twice toured by Justin Beiber, has been on and off the market for—literally—years and is currently listed at $5,999,000.
Perhaps a better or at least more grandiose option for K.K. might be the upscale but guard-gated, low-key, and celebrity-friendly Hidden Hills community—long the locale of the Kardashian-Jenner family seat—where she might want to konsider the massive, 19,107 square foot Tudor-style mansion recently vacated by Miz Spears and now available to pre-qualified buyers only with an asking price of $9,995,000. Some of the children may recall the owner of the three-plus acre high-maintenance estate—that would be construction tycoon Ron Tutor—unsuccessfully attempted to sell the 10 bedroom and 13 bathroom estate with a much higher $18,900,000 price tag.
None-the-less, pickins are a bit slim today and difficult as it may be for some to believe, for each of the children who could kare less about K.K.'s real estate-related activities, there are 12 more butter beans ringing our virtual bell. The more that bell ring-a-ling-a-lings the more money drops in to Your Mama coin purse. Don't hate because a person has to do what they got to do. Just because Your Mama's wagon is hitched to a BMW-driving doctor doesn't mean we get a free ride and don't have bills to pay like every body else. Not interested in K.K.? Then scoot yourself right along and we'll have something else for you to gnash your celebrity real estate teeth on soon enough.
Last week all us celebrity property gossips went 49 kinds of hog wild about a nearly 7,000 square foot mock-Med meets Asian-infused Craftsman-style mansion in the star-studded and guard-gated Mulholland Estates community near Sherman Oaks, CA that was—y'all will recall—widely and—as it turns out—incorrectly reported to have been leased by the recently married and quickly divorced K.K. for somewhere in the neighborhood of forty grand a month.
It wasn't long after our (embarrassingly bloated) discussion of the Mulholland Estates mansion before we received a covert communique from a chatty tattletale—let's call her Wanda Dishsomedirt—who whispered in Your Mama's ear that K.K. recently twice toured an 8,000-plus square foot mansion privately situated behind the elaborate gates of a small and swank enclave high in the rugged mountains above Beverly Hills.
Everybody with a damn brain understands that just because K.K. (allegedly) took a couple of spins through the posh property priced at almost eight-point-five million bucks doesn't mean she'll actually proceed with a purchase contract or lease agreement. All of this is just some silly celebrity real estate rumor and gossip at this point.
Should the house huntress decide to lease or acquire the mini-estate in question, however, listing information indicates she'd lay claim to a red tile-roofed, 10-year old mock-Med mansion replete with a grand two-story foyer, formal living and dining rooms plus a great room with projection system and high-def movie screen, 6 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, and a 150-bottle wine cellar.
Listing information goes on to show the walled, gated and landscaped acre-plus grounds include a long, gated driveway at the front that leads to a tiled motor court with 3-car garage and at the rear a deep, bougainvillea-draped patio that overlooks the swimming pool, party-sized 12-person spa, and soccer pitch-sized lawn. Beyond all that is an expansive view of the surrounding canyon and mountains.
K.K. kurrently owns a nearly 4,000 square foot faux-Tuscan villa in the Beverly Hills Post Office area purchased, according to property records, in February 2010 for $3,400,000. It was here at the front gate of K.K.'s 5 bedroom and 4.5 bathroom mansion where some creepy "fan" showed up with his luggage and attempted to persuade the K.K.'s private security detail he was meant to move in to the mansion during the taping of whatever reality program K.K. was scheduled to begin taping. It was this intruder alert ridiculousness that had has led K.K.—so the scuttlebutt goes—to seek out a new krib that offers a higher level of security and a greater degree of privacy.
Were K.K. to ask Your Mama's advice—and we'd bet both our long-bodied bitches Linda and Beverly she won't—we'd suggest she hightail her Alaska-sized backside right on back to the hot as Hades far western suburbs of Los Angeles from whence she came where she can currently choose from two mansions previously leased by pop music megastar Britney Spears.
Several years ago Miz Spears rented the so-called Chateau Suenos, a nearly 10,000 square foot faux-French "chateau" set on 1.2 landscaped acres in a double-gated enclave in Calabasas. The 6 bedroom and 7 bathroom beast of a house, which Your Mama heard but can not confirm was twice toured by Justin Beiber, has been on and off the market for—literally—years and is currently listed at $5,999,000.
Perhaps a better or at least more grandiose option for K.K. might be the upscale but guard-gated, low-key, and celebrity-friendly Hidden Hills community—long the locale of the Kardashian-Jenner family seat—where she might want to konsider the massive, 19,107 square foot Tudor-style mansion recently vacated by Miz Spears and now available to pre-qualified buyers only with an asking price of $9,995,000. Some of the children may recall the owner of the three-plus acre high-maintenance estate—that would be construction tycoon Ron Tutor—unsuccessfully attempted to sell the 10 bedroom and 13 bathroom estate with a much higher $18,900,000 price tag.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
UPDATE: Justin Beiber
The celebrity real estate gossip grapevine was on fire yesterday with rumors and reports of international pop music wunderkind Justin Beiber dropping ten (or more) million bucks on 9,000-plus square foot modern mansion in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills. The house, it was first reported in the Daily Mail, was meant to be an 18th birthday present to himself.
Your Mama was skeptical of the scuttlebutt from the get go and said so in our discussion of the (alleged) real estate matter. Our leeriness proved justified today after celebrity gossip juggernaut TMZ reported Mister Beiber's "people" confirmed to them that although the newly 18 year old did tour the humongous house above Lake Hollywood—currently leased by sit-com star and Twittering fiend Ashton Kutcher—it's not at the top of his list of potential pads.
The Beib's "people" further elaborated that the young and very rich, 5-foot 5-inch (or so) megastar has also toured three homes—two of them more than once—in the comparatively far-flung, upscale western suburb of Calabasas but has not made an offer and continues on his house hunt.
The peeps at TMZ heard Ashton Kutcher actually wants to buy the modern mansion he's currently renting above Lake Hollywood and Your Mama heard from a well-placed little birdie The Beibs and his familial entourage have been shacked up for a number of months in a celeb-owned crib in the historic, leafy and gated Laughlin Park enclave in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood where some of the other homes are owned by high profile peeps such as pop star Natasha Bedingfield, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, will.i.am. of The Black Eyed Peas, and the charming and funny in real life hospital drama actress Ellen Pompeo.
Your Mama was skeptical of the scuttlebutt from the get go and said so in our discussion of the (alleged) real estate matter. Our leeriness proved justified today after celebrity gossip juggernaut TMZ reported Mister Beiber's "people" confirmed to them that although the newly 18 year old did tour the humongous house above Lake Hollywood—currently leased by sit-com star and Twittering fiend Ashton Kutcher—it's not at the top of his list of potential pads.
The Beib's "people" further elaborated that the young and very rich, 5-foot 5-inch (or so) megastar has also toured three homes—two of them more than once—in the comparatively far-flung, upscale western suburb of Calabasas but has not made an offer and continues on his house hunt.
The peeps at TMZ heard Ashton Kutcher actually wants to buy the modern mansion he's currently renting above Lake Hollywood and Your Mama heard from a well-placed little birdie The Beibs and his familial entourage have been shacked up for a number of months in a celeb-owned crib in the historic, leafy and gated Laughlin Park enclave in Los Angeles' Los Feliz neighborhood where some of the other homes are owned by high profile peeps such as pop star Natasha Bedingfield, Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, will.i.am. of The Black Eyed Peas, and the charming and funny in real life hospital drama actress Ellen Pompeo.
First-time Buyers
There are lots of first-time buyers in the market now, and they are driving the action. It's clear that it's harder to get a mortgage now than it was when those of us who are older bought our first homes, and the qualification standards are stiffer, even though rates are lower.
Because they are buying for the first time, they are often more hesitant to buy in situations where they might not feel comfortable. Therefore, they often request more in the way of repairs, tests, and allowances for improvements. In addition, having buyers ask for contributions to closing costs is a trend that we have seen in increasing numbers. Sellers should not be insulted, since first-time buyers have no history, so no way of knowing that such a proposition might seem aggressive.
Since beginning buyers often look at more options, open houses have been very popular. There may also be more repeat showings, with relatives and friends coming to weigh in on the potential purchase. The closing can take longer as well, since documentation requests may be unfamiliar and take more time to fulfill.
Whatever the downsides, there is a great upside: They are very motivated to buy and own their own homes, and they are out there!
Because they are buying for the first time, they are often more hesitant to buy in situations where they might not feel comfortable. Therefore, they often request more in the way of repairs, tests, and allowances for improvements. In addition, having buyers ask for contributions to closing costs is a trend that we have seen in increasing numbers. Sellers should not be insulted, since first-time buyers have no history, so no way of knowing that such a proposition might seem aggressive.
Since beginning buyers often look at more options, open houses have been very popular. There may also be more repeat showings, with relatives and friends coming to weigh in on the potential purchase. The closing can take longer as well, since documentation requests may be unfamiliar and take more time to fulfill.
Whatever the downsides, there is a great upside: They are very motivated to buy and own their own homes, and they are out there!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)