Housing Market News

Just when you thought that every last mom-and-pop store in your neighborhood was succumbing to yet another garish, badly designed bank branch, comes good news: the Invasion of the Bank Branches is coming to an end.

A massive expansion in bank branches during the economic boom -- some 10,000 opened between 2004 and 2005 -- is giving way to closings, cost cutting and retrenchment after many banks merged or went belly up as the real estate market collapsed. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports, the total number of retail bank branches in the country will decline this year for the first time since 2002.

If you're worried about not finding a local branch near your home, never fear: There are still 98,913 bank branches still open and ready to make you wait in line. The good news is that your neighborhood may just regain some of the diversity and vitality that once characterized our cities and towns before the boom priced out smaller merchants.

It is a vintage year alright for California's Napa Valley. Only, not the sort of vintage anyone there can be proud of. A combination of falling land values and changing consumer habits is forcing as many as 10 vineyards into foreclosure fire sales, according to a survey conducted by Silicon Valley Bank that was reported by Bloomberg. In 2008, there were none.

Defaults are also on the rise, underscoring the fact that no area has emerged unscathed by the recession, even one as rarified as Napa Valley, where hi-tech gazillionaires and other "gentlemen farmers" have pushed up land values to extremes in recent years.

Reality television personality Kim Kardashian has purchased a furnished home in the Beverly Hills Post Office area -- that is, within the 90210 zip code. She paid about $3.5 million for the two-story, gated home, reported the Los Angeles Times. (What's with all the gates in L.A., anyway?)

The Tuscan-style 5-bedroom, 4.5-bath home has fireplaces in the dining room, family room, living room, master bedroom and kitchen as well as outdoors. The zaftig star will turn one bedroom into a giant walk-in closet, according to the L.A. Times. But we're more envious of the kitchen that opens up to the outside, and the outdoor massage room.

Calling all Russian (and other) oligarchs and hedge fund types: if you already have a slew of residences around the world, how about something completely different that will make you the envy of other wealthy types? We're talking about your own private island or a yacht marketed as a man-made floating island. Ah, there's nothing like the allure of a private isle, where you can forget about noisy neighbors and prying eyes.

With Greece's government in turmoil over the country's mounting financial woes, two German members of parliament have dared to suggest that the Greeks sell some of their prized property assets -- islands in the Aegean and Ionian seas -- to help meet their debt payments. This didn't go down well with Greeks, of course, who are looking to Germany for a possible financial bailout.

Mel Gibson, who last year split from his wife Robyn after nearly 30 years of marriage and seven kids, is selling one of his Malibu homes for $14.5 million, reports Monsters and Critics.

The recently remodeled home, located at 23333 Palm Canyon Lane, has 6 bedrooms and 6 baths. The estate also features a tennis court, a swimming pool, three guest houses, two offices, a detached gym and a garden cabana with a game room, not to mention fruit orchards and organic gardens (it's not called Lavender Hill Farm for nothing!) You can check out the house, which is listed with Chris Cortazzo of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, at RealEstate.com.

Gibson, 54, bought the 5,403-square-foot home in 1993 (See our slideshow of this home at the end of the article). It's only one of several Malibu homes and other properties that the Braveheart star owns, but it is the one that he and his wife raised their family in and called home.

You're ready to buy a new home: thrilled, right? But somehow, you can't shake that nagging feeling that maybe you're paying more than you needed to. Did your agent act soley in your interest? Or did he/she have other incentives to weigh?

The fact is, you may never know for sure. There is no one national governing body that dictates agents' behavior or disclosures. The National Association of Realtors has a Code of Ethics and Standards, but laws vary by state. Some states don't allow agents to represent both buyer and seller without full disclosure, while others give carte blanche to any and all incentive fees to sell a property.

The agent disclosure issue has become a flashpoint in some states.

At a time when a growing army of Americans face the cold, harsh reality of foreclosure, celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz managed to work a deal allowing her to hold on to not one, but four different chunks of real estate: three brownstones in Manhattan's Greenwich Village and a rather large property in Rhinebeck, New York. This must be the grand-momma of all modification deals!

Not long ago, it looked as if the big-spending, in-hock-up-to-her-ears photographer would lose not only her properties, but the rights to her photographs as well. Then, back in September, she renegotiated a $24 million loan with Art Capital, although still risked losing control of her assets, which were put up as collateral.

Now, Colony Capital, an L.A.-based private-equity that specializes in distressed real estate, has agreed to take over all of the debt and, as part of the deal, will help Leibovitz market her famous pictures, according to the Financial Times and others.

Well, OK, it wasn't actually a mortgage modification, but it's a whopper of a deal for Annie.

Don't overlook Twitter.com when searching for your dream home. You can find agents and properties via the social media site -- not just where Lindsay Lohan's partying and what Martha Stewart's dogs are up to. Thousands of real estate agents worldwide are actively tweeting (not surprising as they are experts at self-promotion and networking) but how does a would-be savvy buyer determine whose tweets are trustworthy?

Spice Girl Mel B mistook a property appraiser parked outside of her Los Angeles home with a camera for a paparazzo and sic'd her hubby on him. The appraiser, Amada Aguirre, claims he was assaulted by Scary Spice and husband producer Stephen Belafonte while just trying to do his job. Apparently, he was scared enough to file a lawsuit alleging assault, battery, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

A press release issued by the law firm, Frederick S. Schwartz, Esq., says that Aguirre had no idea the home belonged to a celebrity.

As if appraisers weren't vilified enough these days, thanks to a few bad (ok, really bad) apples!

Underwater on your mortgage? Thinking about asking your lender to sign off on a short sale, or even just mailing back the keys? If you've tried to request clearance for a short sale, you know that most banks have hesitated to give an OK to borrowers who want to bail out for less than their property is worth. But thanks to the Obama administration, your moment may have now arrived.

As detailed by The New York Times today, starting on April 5th the Department of the Treasury will support short sales and deeds-in-lieu-of-foreclosure as options for homeowners who owe their lenders more than the sale price of the property.

Retired tennis pro Pete Sampras and his wife, actress Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, just listed their brand new compound in California's Lake Sherwood area for $25 million. Maybe they're in on the new downsizing trend: They couple and their son have apparently moved into the smaller 6-bedroom Brentwood home they purchased for $5.6 million in December.

Twitter helped a man in Great Britain sell his house as a for-sale-by-owner, The Daily Mirror reported.

Peter Bouvier closed on the Southampton home about three months after his tweet -- that's after a real estate agent had been unable to sell it despite months of trying.

The Daily Mirror crowned Bouvier the "first person to sell his house on Twitter," and other outlets quickly followed suit. But is he really the first? And can tweeting really help sell your home?

You're strapped - down to your last $1000. Who do you pay first: your credit card or your mortgage?

The answer might surprise you.

New studies show that the fiscal downturn has gotten so bad that consumers are now choosing to pay off credit card debt before making their mortgage payment.

Apparently, developers feel they haven't been getting theirs. With new home development stalling, developers seem to think that the only way they can increase profitability is to build it into their work. Behold then, the latest financial scheme from the housing industry: a flip tax that gets paid to the developer every time the home gets sold.

Not surprisingly, developers are embracing the private transfer fee -- a sort of lien attached to a newly built house (or land), reports the Washington Post. Every time that house is sold over a 99 year period (thank God we're not talking about 100 years!!), 1 percent of the price gets kicked back to the original developer and, in some cases, is shared with their investor partners. When you figure that the average homebuyer these days keeps a house for about 6 years, that's one hell of a revenue stream for developers and their investors!

All eyes are on Hollywood when the Academy bestows little gold statuettes on the actors and actresses who helped us escape into other worlds (even 3-D ones!) over the past year.

But here at HousingWatch, we're also interested in the real world. Sure, they can act, but how real estate savvy are this year's nominees? And what do their home-buying decisions say about them?

To answer that, we've decided to present our first-ever Celebrity Real Estate Awards, culled from this year's nominees. We unfortunately couldn't give Oscars - or at least our official nod - to all of the nominees. For one, we can't reward Carey Mulligan for being evicted from an apartment in London for "rowdy behavior" and "wild parties." And for some nominees, we just can't figure out where they call home these days (readers, any word on Gabourey Sidibe's home, let us know!) And frankly, as much as we love George Clooney, he's received enough publicity recently regarding his real estate acquisitions and we'd like to give him a rest.

But for those we did evaluate, we came to a unanimous, albeit unilateral, determination. And the winners are....