1.Former CSI sex pot Khandi Alexander is having a real bitch of a time getting her Los Angeles khrib sold. The poor thing first listed her Woodshill Trail quoin-set hut (shown above) at an unimaginable $4,495,000 where is sat and sat and sat some more. First came a whopping million dollar price reduction and then the asking price was hacked to $2,995,000, just above the $2,850,000 that property records show Miss Alexander paid in January of 2006 for the 4,126 square foot house with four full floors of elevator-less living. The listing was recently marked "Looking for Backup" which would indicate that a buyer finally stepped up to take this real estate white elephant off Miss Alexander's delicate hands. But alas... that buyer seems to have evaporated like the wind and the house is back on the market and still available for someone who might enjoy spending their evenings peering and peeping through the panes of The Chateau Marmont which is located just behind the house.
2.Academy award winning actress Angela Bassett has also been struggling to unload her Hancock Park home (shown above) for longer than Your Mama cares to remember. First listed for $5,999,000, the asking price for the 5 bedroom and 7.5 bathroom house on guard gated Fremont Place has been karate chopped all the way down to its current asking price of $3,900,000. The listing is currently marked "Looking for Backup" which indicates that the property is in escrow. Hallelujah! Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter can both rest easier now that someone has finally coughed up the cash for Miz Bassett's private gym, hair salon, guest house and European style back yard.
3.Some time ago boob tube scribe and producer Mark Brazill (That 70s Show, 3rd Rock From the Sun) bought a big house on Aberdeen Road in Los Feliz from fashionista music icon Gwen Stefani and her husband Gavin Rossdale. Property records show the notoriously bombastic Mister Brazill paid $4,795,000 for the 5 bedroom and 4 bathroom Mediterranean manse (shown above). Rumors swirled that Mister Brazill only bought the house to thwart a purchase by an industry rival, but that's just rumor and gossip that Your Mama knows nuthin' about so don't any of you children go repeating that like it's gospel 'cause it ain't.
Whatever the reason for the purchase, Mister Brazill clearly had no interest in keeping the casa and quickly flipped it back on the market with an asking price of $4,885,000. After many months of sitting around without a buyer, the price was given a serious karate chopped all the way down to $3,995,000, a figure which Your Mama's bejeweled abacus indicates will result in a teeth chattering financial loss for Mister Brazill.
This is not the first time that Mister Brazill will have to accept considerably less than he wanted for a high priced house. Property records show that in February of 2008 he sold a house in Toluca Lake for $2,850,000 which had earlier been listed at $3,900,000. Uh oh. Your Mama hopes Mister Brazill is still receiving some big fat residual checks to cover his recent real estate losses.
4.Once upon a time funny ladee Brett Butler, a deep voiced southern blond with a reputation for being a wee bit difficult to work, had a television show of her own called Grace Under Fire that ran for five reasonably successful seasons in the mid-1990s. Back in 1994, when the TV money was rolling in like a tidal wave, Miz Butler went out and bought herself a celebrity style house on Woodrow Wilson Drive in the hills high above Hollywood for an undisclosed amount of money.
Fast forward to April of 2008 when Miz Butler listed her 3 bedroom, 4 bathroom and 3,314 square foot house with swimming pool, guest house, three fireplaces and sweeping city and Hollywood sign views with an asking price of $2,347,000. After several price chops and at least one deal that fell out of escrow, the property has finally sold for the nice round number of $2,000,000.
We don't have a clue where the once rehabbed and twice dee-vorced Miz Butler is headed, but Your Mama would not be surprised to hear that she's bee lining it back her native Alabama where two millions clams goes a long way in the in the real estate game.
5.It certainly didn't take long for pulchritudinous Paul Bettany and Oscar winning actress Jennifer Connelly to unload their Brooklyn townhouse. According to the online listing, the 5,276 square foot Golden Age limestone mansion has already gone to contract and the rumor sweeping up and down Park Slope's 7th Avenue is that it's being sold for very close to the $8,500,000 asking price. The extremely successful but low key couple served as the de facto poster children for the Brooklyn real estate renaissance having scooped up their speck-tack-u-lar Prospect Park West mansion with 9 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms in August of 2003 for $3,700,000.
All rumors and reports say that Miz Connelly and Mister Bettany have purchased a $7,000,000 (approx.) loft in the hideously expensive and tragically trendy celebrity and Wall Street enclave of TriBeCa. At least Brooklyn still has Oscar nominated Michelle Williams, one of the gays from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and of course the newly anointed king and queen of Brooklyn based celebrities Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard. For now.
Could this mark the beginning of the end of the Brooklyn or bust trend of the last 5 or 8 years? There isn't anything wrong with living in Brooklyn. In fact there are many and multiple reasons why it's a perfectly lovely place to reside. However, many die-hard Manhattanites moved to the borough of Brooklyn to escape the high cost of living in Manhattan and now that it's nearly as expensive to shack up in Park Slope, will they still suffer the 40 minute subway ride?
