Celebrity homes in US selling at bargain prices | North America | News

Celebrity homes in US selling at bargain prices | North America | News


Celebrities in the US are selling some of their luxurious properties at bargain prices because they too are suffering from the country’s real estate slump.
Singer Sheryl Crow is selling her Nashville mansion at auction after failing to find a buyer at the $7.5 million asking price. She bought the three storey five bedroom house for $6 million in 2006.

It has seven bathrooms, a theatre room, swimming pool, a staff annex, six car garage, a three bedroom guest cottage and a fourteen stall barn and indoor riding arena.

Actor Nicolas Cage has at last sold his Bel Air home for just $10.5 million, a third of the price he had hoped for. The property was put into foreclosure earlier this year after failing to sell.

The buyer was identified only as a limited liability company, a common cloaking device in high profile real estate transactions.

The 1940s Tudor style property which has a central tower, a wine cellar, a 35 seat theatre, six bedrooms, nine bathrooms and a swimming pool had failed to generate any bids in April when it was offered at the county courthouse in Pomona. But the 11,817 square foot mansion drew a steady stream of potential buyers and multiple offers after Citibank put it back on the market and reduced the price to $11.8 million.

The sale reflects the continued price falls in the luxury market in the US. A newer, slightly smaller house sold last year on the same street in Bel Air for $22 million, according to public records.

Cage, 46, won an Oscar for his role in Leaving Las Vegas has faced problems with his property portfolio and last year sued his former business manager, Samuel J. Levin accusing him in court papers of leading him into financial ruin. The actor is currently filming in Romania.

Levin filed a countersuit, describing Cage as setting off ‘on a spending binge of epic proportions’ and stating that by July 2008, Cage owned 15 palatial homes around the world, four yachts, an island in the Bahamas, a private Gulfstream jet and millions of dollars’ worth of art and jewellery.