Penny Dollar Pinching In Tinseltown
It’s not just you and me who are cutting back our expenses in light of increased prices for groceries, restaurants, movies, etc. Now celebrities are also being more attentive to how they’re spending, according to MSNBC.com.
Among them: America Ferrera, who’s reportedly down to one house. After “Ugly Betty” moved from L.A. to N.Y.C., she put her $1.5 million Hollywood Hills home on the market.
Watching celebrity real estate is one of my favorite pastimes and the one site that regularly gets the scoop is the Real Estalker where “Mama” has written about who’s buying and who’s selling since 2006. My favorite recent feature was about Brad Pitt who is involved in a”pocket listing” - that is he’s indicated he wants to sell but hasn’t actually listed his Malibu home.
..That the red hot real estate scuttlebutt is starting to shimmy and slide all up and down the Pacific Coast Highway in Malee-boo regarding the Encinal Bluff estate owned by Brad Pitt which is rumored and whispered to be quietly on the market.
According to Our Lady of Malibu, Mister Pitt is asking $18,000,000 for the estate which includes a glass walled contemporary house perched on the bluff above the ocean, a large swimming pool, a tennis court and a-list neighbors like Cindy Crawford and Leo DiCaprio.
Our Lady of Malibu also whispered in Your Mama’s big ear that several big name agents are claiming the pocket listing which could get interesting (and ugly) if everyone doesn’t play nice.
I hope the agents play nice, but I know better. Realtors are really hungry right now. In Tennessee, we’ve JUST lost 5,000 agents who’ve dropped their licenses from December 2008 to January 2009. Some have retired, but many haven’t been able to make ends meet by selling real estate. In my own office, at least a half dozen have retired their licenses because they had just one or two sales in 2008 (or none at all).
So what’s going on in your market? Any celebrities buying or selling? Anyone else buying? Anyone besides banks selling?
