Jason Segel Spreads Out Above the Sunset Strip

BUYER: Jason Segel
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,849,000
SIZE: 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As it turns out late night chat show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel isn't the only high-profile Tinseltowner to recently create a small compound up in the hills behind the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.

In March of 2007, property records show actor/writer/producer/composer/comedian Jason Segel forked over $2,240,000 to purchase a 2,876 square foot Spanish-style casa with 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.

Thanks to our friend and informant Lucy Spillerguts we've recently come to understand that in May of 2010, Mister Segel paid another $1,849,000 for the two-parcel spread immediately next door to his previously purchased residence. In addition to the 5 bedroom and 3 bathroom faux French Normandy chateau-style residence called the Villa Chateau (shown above) the property has a private swimming pool with brick terrace that with a nip and tuck could be every bit as sensational as the fabled oval cement pond at the Chateau Marmont.

Put on your thinking caps, children, and recognize that Your Mama does not know or claim to know a damn thing about Mister Segel's real estate motivations as they relate to the purchase of this property. However, we can imagine that it may one day prove a savvy investment. If hotelier Andre Balazs–the cosmopolitan proprietor of the Chateau Marmont–ever wants to expand his historic hotel the proximity of Mister Segel's properties might just make their annexation highly desirable.

Six-foot-four Mister Segel is best known for his affiliation and professional collaborations with budding Hollywood honcho Judd Apatow and his role on the long-running sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

Extra celeb real estate tidbit: Mister Segel's house sits sugar-borrowing distance from the fully-renovated Spanish-style residence that Oscar-nominated actor/artist (and Academy Award show host) James Franco sold in February of 2010 for $3,300,000.

listing photos: Hilton & Hyland

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Church Ready to Build Subsidized Housing in Shaw, Tear Down Old Homes

A church in Shaw is closer to knocking down a small swatch of DC history to make way for a public housing project on Rhode Island Avenue. The United House of Prayer for All People, at 601 M St, NW, owns a vacant lot and 4 row houses at 625 Rhode Island Avenue, and plans to demolish the latter in order to build a 4-story, 16-unit subsidized housing project.

According to the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the church has applied for a raze permit, not yet issued, to replace the townhouses and begin construction "within the next couple of months." The homes are not in a historic district, according to DCRA, which means no exemption is needed to raze the property despite their age - which was not available within District government records. The property is adjacent to the vacant lot known as Parcel 42, where protestors staged a demonstration last year criticizing the level of subsidies intended for the lot, complaining that the District, which had planned a subsidized housing project, was not providing enough subsidies and that Washington D.C. had insufficient low-income housing.
The application to demolish the buildings has not yet been approved, though the fact that the land falls outside the historic district means approval is perfunctory and a matter of paperwork. Suzane Reatig Architecture has designed a 32,125 s.f. building comprised of 16 units, eight of which will be affordable to households earning 60%–80% of the AMI, with a mix of two and three-bedroom units, ranging from 1,150 sf. to 2,200 sf. The District government approved a planned unit development (PUD) for the zoning change, with LEED certification. "We're going to have some awnings on the top, that will be an interesting feature. There will be a wedge shaped private garden on the west side that will be a visual amenity" said Megan Mitchell, a project designer at the architecture firm, which has worked with United House of Prayer for All People on previous projects.

The Church was contacted but would not comment on the proposed building or the razing of the townhouses.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

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HML #15 Closed And Apartment January Financials.

Escrow closed on this property on Monday, so hard money loan #15 was paid off. Looking for another place to invest now.

The January financials for the apartment have arrived and, as we expected, things continue to improve. Occupancy increased to 93%, up from 88% in December. Revenue increased by $5,000 and management expects the same increase for February. Our property tax impound amount will drop by about $8,000 per month with the March payment following our successful property tax valuation appeal last August. The property still lost money in January, but occupancy is heading up and expenses are heading down, so we are moving in the right direction. For January, our budget called for an $8,500 loss and our actual loss was closer to $11,500, so we are $3,000 off of our budget. If trends continue, we should be looking good for February.

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Jimmy Kimmel Kreates a Kompound Above the Sunset Strip

BUYER: Jimmy Kimmel
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,250,000
SIZE: 1,962 square feet, 3 bedrooms 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in late 2008 late-night talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel scooped up a newly constructed and very contemporary crib up in the swanky star-studded hills behind the iconic Chateau Marmont Hotel on the Sunset Strip.

The Jay Leno mocking Mister Kimmel paid, according to property records, $6,000,000 for his crisp and clean-lined wood and glass residence that measures 5,500 square feet includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms in the main house. A separate structure offers an office area, home theater and guest or staff quarters with private facilities.

Property records now show that in January of 2011 the same real estate trust associated with Mister Kimmel's kontempo-krib up behind the Chateau Marmont snatched up the property immediately next door paying $1,100,000 for the 1,962 square foot single-story dwelling that includes 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Don't Your Mama know a damn thing about nuthin', of course, so what Mister Kimmel plans to do with the property is a real mystery.

Mister Kimmel's nearby neighbors include celebs like John Krasinski and Cameron Diaz. Emmy winning screenwriter Ryan Murphy (Glee, Nip/Tuck, Running With Scissors) still owns (and badly wants to sell) a Carl Maston-designed mid-century modern-style house just up the hill from Mister Kimmel but presumably the budding tee-vee tycoon has already moved or will soon move to the Ralph Flewelling-designed hacienda in the flats of Beverly Hills that he bought in September 2010 for $10,o00,000 from actress and house flipper Diane Keaton. Miz Keaton, we heard recently from real estate yenta Kenny Kissintell, has set up temporary house in fish-lipped actress Meg Ryan's stunning Spanish style mansion in Bel Air that happens to sit right next door to the Richard Neutra-designed digs of smoldering fashion guru turned filmmaker Tom Ford.

Anyhoo, records indicate that Mister Kimmel continues to own his previous home in the Hollywood Knolls neighborhood of Los Angeles that he bought in May of 2002 for $925,000 as well as a house in the seaside enclave of Hermosa Beach, CA located a short block-and-a-half from the beach and that records indicate he bought in May of 2004 for $1,650,000.

listing photos: Prudential California via NeighborCity

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Ignore The Case-Shiller Index; Focus On The Future Instead

Last week, Standard & Poor's released its Case-Shiller Index for December 2010. The index is a home valuation tracker, meant to meausure the change in home prices from one period to the next.

December's Case-Shiller Index showed major devaluations nationwide. As compared to December 2009, on a year-over-year basis, home values fell in 18 of the Case Shiller Index's 20 tracked markets, and the U.S. National Index dropped 4 percent overall. 

The retreat puts December's home values at similar levels as compared to early-2003.

That said, buyers and sellers in the Newcastle area would be wise to take the findings lightly. The Case-Shiller Index is inherently flawed. As such, its results are neither practical -- nor relevant -- to everyday Americans.

There are 3 Case-Shiller flaws, in fact.

The first flaw is the index's limited sample set. Wikipedia lists 3,100+ municipalities nationwide and we can be certain that real estate is bought and sold in all of them. The Case-Shiller Index, however, measures just 20 of them. That's less than 1% of all U.S. cities. And then, within those tracked cities, Case-Shiller reports an average, lumping disparate neighborhoods and streets into one big number.

The "national figures" aren't really national, and the "city data" doesn't apply to your home, specifically.

The second Case-Shiller Index flaw is how it measures home value changes. The index only consider at "repeat sales" of the same home, so long as that home is a single-family, detached property. Condominiums, multi-family homes, and new construction are ignored in the Case-Shiller Index.

Because distressed properties account for such a high percentage of resales lately -- 36% in December --foreclosures and short sales skew Case-Shiller Index worse.

And, lastly, the Case-Shiller Index is flawed by "age". Because it reports closed sales a 60-day delay, December's Case-Shiller Index is measuring the values of home sales contracts from September and October. The Case-Shiller Index, therefore, is a snapshot of the not-so-recent past, and does little to tell us about the next 60 days.

Overall, the Case-Shiller Index is helpful tool for economists and policy-makers, but it doesn't do much good for individual homeowners across the city of Seattle or anywhere else. For accurate, real-time housing data in your local market, talk to a real estate professional instead.

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Dane and Gayheart Settle in the Post Office

BUYERS: Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart
LOCATION: Beverly Hills, CA
PRICE: $2,400,000
SIZE: 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen children, Your Mama has a number of celebrity real estate tidbits and morsels that have been cluttering up our trusty laptop computer for too long and it's high time we vanquish them to the 'been-there-done-that' dust heap. We're going to start the arduous process with the Beverly Hills (Post Office) property snatched up way back in June of 2010 by married television stars Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart.

Sadly we know far less about Miz Gayheart's professional achievements than we do about her sometimes bumpy personal life. She got her start in the early 1990s as a fresh-faced model for Noxema but in early 2001 that image was tarnished when she ran over a 9-year old kid in a crosswalk and killed him. It was not, of course, on purpose. She later appeared in a couple of television shows including Nip/Tuck (2004-2006) and Vanished (2006). She hasn't really worked much on the boob-toob the last four or five years but she has performed on Broadway in Steel Magnolias and Boeing-boeing.

Although he's made a few appearances on the silver screen with roles in Burlesque, Valentine's Day and Marley & Me Mister Eric Dane's real claim to Hollywood fame and fortune is, of course, as Dr. Mark "McSteamy" Sloan on the television hospital (melo)drama Grey's Anatomy, a role he's worked and worked and worked since 2006.

The couple made a baby girl they named Billie that was born in the March of 2010, about a month before they closed on their new country farmhouse-style crib in the Beverly Hills Post Office. Eight or so months before that, an embarrassing home video was released that showed the couple frolicking in a hot tub with a former Miss Teen USA. All three of them were nekkid as jaybirds and (allegedly) high as kites. Naturally, a big tabloid brouhaha ensued. Now listen puppies, Your Mama is not the moral po-leese and heaven knows our closet is full of skeletons so we don't fault these two from doing whatever it is they did that night in the hot tub with the former Miss Teen USA. Our issue is that they were stupid enough to video tape the romp. Let Your Mama offer all you young and sexy celebs a word of free and unsolicited but sage advice: If you do not want a video tape of you doing the naughty-naughty or smoking salvia to show up on the interweb then don't video tape your damn self doing that kind of crap. Seriously people. Use some common damn sense for chrissakes.

Anyhoo, as fascinating as their video-taped proclivities may be, it's their real estate doings in which we're actually interested. Property records indicate that in July 2006 Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart paid $1,640,000 to acquire a modestly-scaled if not exactly inexpensive home in the Sunset Plaza area of Los Angeles above the Sunset Strip. Miz Gayheart got herself knocked up in 2009 and like so many other rich and famous folks fixin' to procreate, they started to hunt for a new house in which to bring up baby. According to both Lucy Spillerguts and The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, the couple settled on what we might call a contempo-country-style house in the rugged Franklin Canyon area of the Beverly Hills Post Office. Property records show Mister and Missus Dane coughed up $2,400,000 for the 3,602 square foot residence.

Listing information Your Mama managed to tease out of the interweb indicates the upscale farmhouse-style abode was built in 2004 and includes 4 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers. The walled and gated house sits hard up against the all but traffic-free tail-end of a canyon road where it's nestled into a steep hillside. The drive gate slides opens to reveal a cramped-looking flagstone "motor court" and front-facing two-car garage. Hopefully Mister and Missus Dane moved those potted dwarf fruit trees that lined the driveway when they bought the house because anyone with more than half a glass of wine in them would surely plow through them trying to back out of the garage.

The exterior of the yellow clapboard house is defined by the many over-sized four-over-four sash windows and the interior spaces exude a country charm with wide-plank pine flooring, wainscoting, beamed and vaulted ceilings, and a slew of fireplaces including but not limited to three fashioned from rustic river rocks.

Inside there are formal living and dining rooms and a country kitchen that at the time the couple purchased the property had eggshell-colored bead board-accented cabinetry with a crackled paint treatment, a mix of black granite and butcher block counter tops, a commercial grade range and a prodigious pot rack that loomed ominously over the center work island and breakfast counter. We can only hope and pray they removed the pot rack before it came crashing down on their house maid as she washed out the baby bottles. In the nearby family room French doors and windows line one wall and flank a river rock fireplace on a second wall. The doors swing open to a quaint covered porch that wraps around and runs along the back of the house.

Outdoor spaces are multiple and varied. In the front there's a flat grassy pad perfect for a swing set and/or naked croquet and other party games. On the second floor, a wide vine-draped deck off the master bedroom overlooks the expansive flagstone terrace that wraps around the free form swimming pool, spa and fire pit. At one end of the pool an open air cabana provides respite from the noon-day sun and at the other, a pergola shades a mac-daddy barbecue that probably cost as much as a Toyota. Water spills down a tumble of rocks on the hillside into the pool where a butt-busting and lung bursting stairway zig-zags up the dangerously steep hillside behind the house to a square gazebo set into a small stand of what appear to Your Mama's know-nuthin' eyes to be oak trees. Presumably a lovely view can be enjoyed by anyone with the physical gumption to scramble and drag their booties up the damn hill.

Now, puppies, Your Mama asks that y'all use your real estate noggins and recognize that the listing photos of this house show it as it appeared when Mister Dane and Miz Gayheart bought the property. One imagine's they've but their own decorative stamp, be that what it may be, on the property.

Property records indicate that in addition to their new family next in the Beverly Hills Post Office Mister and Missus Dane have hung on to their previous and previously mentioned residence above the Sunset Strip.

listing photos: Coldwell Banker

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Pending Home Sales Drop For Second Straight Month

After a strong run to close out 2010, the market for home resales softened a bit in January.

On a seasonally-adjusted basis, the Pending Home Sales Index dropped 3 percent last month, and December's figures were revised downward for a loss, too, according to the National Association of REALTORS®.

A "pending home sale" is defined as a home under contract to sell, but not yet closed. 

The forward-looking index is now at a 3-month low on a national level, but still well ahead of its rolling 6-month average.

Unfortunately, national data isn't overly helpful for buyers and sellers of real estate. The National Association of REALTORS® knows this, of course, and makes an effort to get more granular, supplementing the Pending Home Sales Index report with a region-by-region breakdown. 

Between December and January, only the South Region increased in sales volume. The Midwest led the losers:

• Northeast Region: -2.4%
• Midwest Region : -7.3%
• South Region : +1.4%
• West Region : -5.2%

Even still, however, regional data remains too broad to be practical. The South Region, for example, is comprised of multiple states with thousands of cities and town. The housing market dynamics of a specific neighborhood in a specific regional city will differ from that of another neighborhood in another regional city.

Real estate data must be local to be relevant.

Overall, then, what may be most telling from January's Pending Home Sales Index is how weather can influence results.

Most of the country faced drastic weather conditions in January, ranging from raging snowstorms to bitter cold. Events like that tend to put a damper on home sales, a contributing factor in why the number of new contracts fell.

Another reason is rising mortgage rates. Conforming and FHA rates rose week-by-week in January, robbing home buyers of 10% of their purchasing power. This, too, can slow down purchase activity as buyers adjust their expectations.

Looking forward, we should expect the Pending Home Sales Index to resume rising. Inclement weather doesn't kill demand; it just delays it. And mortgage rates have settled somewhat. These two factors should help release pent-up demand just as the Spring Homebuying Season gets underway.

As more buyers enter the market, negotiation leverage will shift to home sellers, pressuring Renton home prices higher. The lowest prices of the year -- and the cheapest financing -- could be what you see today.

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