From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--A 13,500-square-foot home in Tarzana with a tennis court and koi pond, an underground garage that fits 16 cars is being put up for auction. It was once listed at $9.775 million and cost more than $7.5 million to build. The minimum bid will start at $2.1 million on Dec. 5. The property website is here.
--Personal trainer Bob Harper of "The Biggest Loser" has purchased a home in the Hollywood Hills for $2.9 million.
--Robert Loggia has sold his longtime Bel-Air home for $2.95 million.


From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--Rod Aldridge, the founder of British outsourcing company Capita Group, has picked up a place in New York for $13.75 million at the Superior Ink building on West 12th Street.
--via the NY Observer, Doug Von Allmen, a venture capitalist and victim of alleged Ponzi-schemer Scott Rothstein, has put his duplex apartment at the Time Warner Center on the market for $18.45 million. The listing is here.
--Bank of America portfolio manager Raymond Cubero and his wife, Kathleen Comerford, have changed brokers and dropped the price of their Trump Tower duplex. The four-bedroom "smart house," is down from a high of $14.995 million to $12 million. The listing is here.
--via Curbed, architect Dean Maltz has paid $3.4179 million for a four-bedroom apartment at the Metal Shutter Houses at 524 West 19th Street.
--Gisele Bundchen has officially sold her triplex penthouse at 347 West 11th Street. The 1,700-square-foot apartment, which originally hit the market for $10.9 million sold for $4.4 million.
--Steven "Mac" Heller, the former head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs, has sold his three-bedroom apartment at 14 East 75th Street for $4.725 million.
--via Newsday's Real LI, Billionaire Ron Lauder has sold a 2.77-acre estate in Wainscott for $5.256 million to his daughter Aerin Lauder Zinterhofer.
--Former Ariba CEO Lawrence Mueller and his wife Mary Kay have gone into contract to sell their condo at 15 Central Park West. The three-bedroom apartment which the couple first listed for $16.5 million in May was reduced to $15.5 million in October.
--Alex Acquavella, the son of top NYC art dealer Bill Acquavella, has paid $3.9 million for an apartment at 50 Gramercy Park North.
--Melvyn Blum, a retired EVP at Vornado Realty Trust, has sold his apartment at the Trump International for $6.4375 million.
--via the NY Observer, the Rothschild Mansion has undergone a price cut for the third time this year. It was once listed as high as $35 million and is now listed for $25.5 million. The listing is here.

From the NY Post:
--A four-bedroom condo at The Dakota is in contract for $11.5 million after once being listed for as much as $24 million. The buyer is Mark Fisch, managing partner at Continental Properties, a New Jersey-based real estate firm.
--Nicolas Cage's Olympic Tower condo at 641 Fifth Ave. has just closed at $7.5 million.

--At 76 Crosby St., where Kelly Ripa has a duplex penthouse there was a bidding war for a 2,578-square-foot apartment with a $4.35 million listing price. The two-bedroom home with a deep soaking tub in the master bedroom suite is now in contract after about three months on the market.The new owner will share the second floor with Gawker Media boss Nick Denton. The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
Fashion mogul Tommy Hilfiger has finally sold Stone Hill, his Greenwich, Connecticut home for $20 million. He first listed the estate more than a year ago for $27.9 million.

--The heirs of a California builder have listed the 600-acre Middle Ranch, the getaway spot of film director Cecil B. DeMille, for $28 million. The listing is here.


From the Chicago Tribune's Elite Street:
--Chicago Bears player Dusty Dvoracek has sold his Lake Villa home to teammate Juaquin Iglesias for $344,500. Dvoracek purchased the home in 2006 for $365,000. In January he listed the home for $389,900.
--White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has rented out his four-bedroom, 2,719-square-foot house in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood for one year for $4,995 a month. Emanuel purchased the house in December 1998 for $695,000.
--Nancy Hughes, the widow of filmmaker John Hughes, has bought a 17-room, 6,700-square-foot English country-style house in east Lake Forest, about a block from Lake Michigan, for $5.2 million.

From the Real Estalker:
--Real Housewives of Atlanta's Kim Zolciak is not moving to Los Angeles and is staying put in her Atlanta, GA area townhouse condo.
--Zsa-Zsa Gabor may have lost as much as $10,000,000 in the Madoff scandal and has had a $118,000 tax lien placed against her Bel Air Road residence. An unpaid tax lien can force the sale of a property if the debt is not paid.
--LaToya Jackson has seen condominium at the Regency Towers inside the Las Vegas Country Club in Las Vegas, NV taken away from her in foreclosure proceedings. Rumor has it that she now lives in a condo in one of the tall apartment towers that line Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood and Century City.
--Actor Gale Harold has listed a four-bedroom duplex in Los Angeles for $1.3 million.
--Ali Larter and Hayes MacArthur have picked up a four-bedroom home in Los Angeles for $2.925 million.
--Nicolas Cage has listed a three-bedroom home in Newport Beach, California for $995,000. He bought the home in 2006 for $1.7 million for his father who recently died. The listing is here.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Actor Rob Lowe and his makeup artist wife, Sheryl Berkoff, have sold a six-bedroom house in Montecito, Calif. for $7.6 million.
--A look at "Harry Potter" actor Rupert Grint's real-estate empire: two country mansions plus another house, all worth about 9.2 million pounds.

From Brickwork: The London Property Blog:
--via Telegraph, Suzie Quatro, best known to U.S. fans as Leather Tuscadero from Happy Days is selling her mansion 'Hyde Hall' for £2.3 million. The listing is here.

It's official, Nic Cage is no longer a homeowner in New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reports on the foreclosure auction which saw Cage losing both his French Quarter and Garden District homes. Cage's lender, Regions Bank, bought both homes back for a total of $4.5 million, which is two-thirds of the value that appraisers hired by the bank had determined they were worth. There were no other bids for the property. Cage did not attend the auction. The city will collect $151,729 in unpaid property taxes. Cage owed approximately $5.5 million on the homes. The bank is free to go after Hancock Park Real Estate Company, Cage's real estate holding company, for the other $1 million and can also try to sell the homes at market value to raise the money.

Cage bought his six-bedroom Garden District home in 2005 for $3.45 million and listed it for sale for $3.7 million. Cage's New Orleans other home, the haunted LaLaurie mansion was bought by Cage in 2006 for $3.45 million. He listed it for $3.9 million. He has blamed his former business manager, Sam Levin, for his recent financial woes including a $6 million IRS bill. He still has homes in Las Vegas, England, Rhode Island and the Bahamas either on the market or about to be sold.

We've been hearing rumors of it for a while but Stephen Shapiro, the real estate agent for Nicolas Cage's Bel Air mansion, confirmed to Curbed LA that an offer for the house has been accepted. The home was first on the market at $35 million and after time on and off the MLS plummeted to $17.5 million. In early September a sealed bid action was set with a minimum bid of $9.95 million. Shapiro didn't reveal who has purchased the home or for how much although one of Curbed's commenters suggests $15 million which seems to be a fairly decent guess and would still allow Cage a nice profit above the $6.469 million he paid in 1998.

Last week Cage sued his former business manager for at least $20 million claiming that the manager, Stephen Levin, mismanaged his funds so badly that he has been forced to liquidate his real estate holdings. Cage also still has an over $6 million IRS bill to satisfy.

Thanks to those of you who forwarded me the latest on the Nicolas Cage saga,This week we saw his two New Orleans houses listed in a sheriff's sale and heard rumors that he is selling his castle in Bath, England. Many have speculated about what could have happened to Cage, a man who has made a great deal of money over the years for starring in many Hollywood blockbusters.

Now it turns out that Cage has someone to blame, his business manager Samuel Levin. TMZ has a copy of a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The suit claims that Levin was reckless and incompetent and put Cage into a situation in which he has to sell off major assets and is facing tax liabilities (he owes the IRS over $6 million). Cage wants at least $20 million minimum from Levin in order to set things right, a number that reflects just how much Cage has lost over real estate deals in the past couple of years. Levin worked for Cage seven years but it wasn't until he fired Levin that Cage said he learned the full extent of the damage done.


[Thanks Stephen and Bill]

More real estate news from Nicolas Cage. Various sources have reported that the real estate loving action star is selling his £5 million home on the edge of Bath, England. This Is Bath says that Cage will be in Bath on November 26 to switch on the city's Christmas lights but will be putting the 18th century Midford Castle on the market. The article says that Cage still plans to be in the area on a regular basis. The castle is a Grade One-listed building and has seven bedrooms. He brought the property, which includes two cottages, a ruined chapel and 58 acres of land.

The castle was built by card player Henry Disney Roebuck in the late 1700s. Legend has it that the castle's unique three-sided footprint was designed to match the ace of clubs. It was in serious disrepair when Michael and Isabel Briggs bought it in 1961 for just £15,000 and spent 45 years restoring the home.

A reader left me a hot tip this morning that he had seen a couple of interesting foreclosure New Orleans auction notices come up on the Trulia website. Could they be the homes Nicolas Cage has been trying to sell in New Orleans? A quick look at the Orleans Parish Sheriff website confirms that both of Cage's New Orleans homes on the market including the haunted LaLaurie mansion are listed as part of a November 12 auction. The houses each appear with a claim of $5,548,260.78 and Regions Bank is listed as the claimant against a real estate L.L.C. known to be used by Cage to purchase the homes.

It's just the latest turn in Cage's complicated financial saga.
Just the other day we learned that Nicolas Cage's current total owed to the IRS is now a steep $6,257,005. He recently sold both his Bel-Air, California Tudor home and his New York City apartment. Homes in Las Vegas and Rhode Island remain on the market


[Thanks Bill!]

For Nicolas Cage the internet seems to full of some good news and some bad news today. First the bad, TMZ has documents that show that Nicolas Cage's current total owed to the IRS is now a steep $6,257,005. But here's the good, he may have finally unloaded his Bel-Air Tudor home. The home which once belonged to singer Tom Jones and to Dean Martin was for sale for as high as $35 million back in 2006. A sealed bid auction was scheduled for September 24 with the minimum opening offer set at $9.95 million. The MLS now has the home as "looking for backup" which means an offer has been made, and hopefully will stick. Cage paid around $6.5 million for the home in 1998. Cage also recently sold his New York City apartment which had been listed at $9.75 million.



He still has four homes on the market in the U.S.:
His Las Vegas home is listed at $9.49 million.


His Rhode Island home sits at $12 million.


One of his New Orleans homes is listed for $3.45 million.


The other, the haunted LaLaurie mansion is still listed for $3.55 million.

From Homes of the Rich:
--Real estate developer, Lee Najjar, the rumored "Big Poppa" of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" housewife Kim Zolciak has put his Atlanta mansion up for sale for $25 million. The nine-bedroom home, shown above, was completed this year but retained the original 1920s facade. It has multiple kitchens, a ballroom, theater, hair/nail salon, smoking room and recording studio.

Stockworth Realty Group is selling Orlando Magic star Dwight Howard's four-bedroom home near southwest Orlando. It is listed at $2.95 million.


From the Chicago Tribune's Elite Street:
--NBA player Ben Wallace has reduced the price on his former Lake Forest, Illinois mansion. It is now listed at $2.49 million.

--Former Bears quarterback and current ESPN commentator Brian Griese has sold his four-bedroom house in Glencoe, Illinois for $2.125 million.

From the NY Post:
--Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander has just closed on a $25 million penthouse at the new Superior Ink condo building in the West Village. Superior Ink already has a list of buyers in contract that includes Hilary Swank, Marc Jacobs and NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson. But a week later the unit has hit the market for $39.5 million (via Curbed). His Hamptons home is for sale for $20.5 million.
--Designer Tory Burch has bought the Howard Gittis home at 500 Ox Pasture Lane in Southampton. Sources say the mansion and an adjacent parcel of land was sold separately to Burch and another buyer for around $40 million. The home had been on the market at a variety of prices over the years but Corcoran Group broker Tim Davis split up the estate into different parcels to attract buyers. Burch bought the house, and a neighbor bought an adjacent parcel because he didn't want to see anything developed on the land.
--Kimberly Dawn Neumann, a 39-year-old Broadway actress is the winner of the contest conducted by discount clothing retailer Daffy's that offered a two-bedroom apartment in the West Village for $700 a month for 10 months.
--An Italian-born real estate mogul and diplomat, Daniele Bodini,has just bought an apartment above Sting's duplex at 88 Central Park West.Bodini paid $10.9 million for the seventh-floor, 3,500-square-foot co-op. Sting's 6,600-square-foot apartment has been on and off the market, it currently remains on at $19 million.


From Cityfile's Buyers and Sellers:
--The townhouse at 11 East 82nd Street that we covered earlier this year as an estate of the day has gone into contract after more than a year and a half on the market. The limestone mansion was most recently priced at $29.5 million.

--Filmmaker Keiko Ibi put her one-bedroom condo at 15 Central Park West on the market for $3.75 million earlier this year. Now she and her seventh floor neighbors, Young-oh and Byungwha Yoon, have listed their two apartments together for a combined $10.285 million. The listing is here.
--Three months after he paid $12 million for a 49th-floor apartment at One Beacon Court, Archibald "Archie" Cox, Jr. has sold his former apartment in the same building for $5 million.
--via the NY Times, Hedge funder John Griffin and his wife Amy, who paid $32.25 million for a full-floor apartment at 1030 Fifth Avenue last year have listed their old apartment in the same building for $16.5 million.
--Photographer Kelly Klein, Calvin Klein's second ex-wife, has paid $2.091 million for a two-bedroom co-op at 2 West 67th Street.
--Bjork and Matthew Barney have closed on the purchase of a condo at 160 Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights. Their former place at 180 West Houston Street is still on the market for $1.7 million.
--Attorney Bruce Kaye and his wife Deborah have sold their two-bedroom condo at 15 Cenral Park West for $11.7 million. They paid $7.8 million in July 2008.
--Brandon Fradd, founder of the hedge fund Apollo Medical Partners, has sold his apartment at 68 Jane Street for $3.7 million.
--Investor Paul Cejas has dropped the price of his apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue from $18.5 million to $16.5 million. The listing is here.
--via NY Mag, Alec Baldwin has taken his apartment at the El Dorado off the market just a month after listing it. Will he be sticking around?

--Artist Bruce Robbins has dropped the price of his loft at 43 Clarkson Street. It was first listed for $4.895 million back in 2008 and is now for sale for $3.249 million.
--via Real Deal, Turkish tycoon Turgay Ciner has picked up a second apartment at the Plaza. He paid $10.725 million for an apartment two floors below the 17th-floor apartment he bought in January 2008 for $9.16 million.
--via Curbed, Paul O'Reilly-Hyland and Joelle Wyser-Pratte, who are both managing partners at Ounavarra Capital, have put their 4,700-square-foot Sutton Place townhouse on the market. The renovated manse at 3 Riverview Terrace is currently listed for $19 million.
--via Curbed, NYC's skinniest townhouse has had a price cut, from $2.75 million to $2.499 million.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--An apartment which was once on the market for $80 million has sold for $37.5 million.

--A condo at the 40 Mercer Street building designed by architect, Jean Nouvel has sold for $4.22 million. It was once listed as high as $7.25 million.
--Andrei Vavilov, the Russian oligarch who sued the Plaza last year over a duplex penthouse and triplex penthouse he was supposed to buy there for $53.5 million, then paid $11 million for another unit, has finally left the building. He sold his apartment for $8.4 million.

From Homes and Property UK:
--A home in the Notting Hill area of London which was lived in for three years by Salman Rushdie is now listed for £2.25 million.

From the LA Times Hot Properties:
--Actress Jennifer Carpenter, who stars on "Dexter" with her husband, Michael C. Hall, has listed her two-bedroom Hollywood Hills home for $695,000. The listing is here.
--Phoenix Pictures Chairman and co-founder Mike Medavoy and his wife, Irena, have purchased a Beverly Hills home for $5.85 million.
---A 1929 Los Feliz home once owned actor Cary Grant and, later, drummer Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers has come on the market at $3.485 million. The listing is here.

Nic Cage really wants to unload his Bel-Air home. The LA Times reports that home, which was most recently listed at $17.5 million will be auctioned in a sealed-bid sale scheduled for September 24. The house, which was once listed as high as $35 million can be had for as low as the minimum bid of $9.95 million. Cage bought the home over 10 years ago for around $7 milllion.

There's lots to love about this home. The 1940 mansion is Old Hollywood at it's most grandiose and has also been owned by Tom Jones and Dean Martin. It has six bedrooms, a theater, wine cellar and library. An acre of grounds includes a swimming pool and an outdoor kitchen with a brick oven.

Settle in with a cup of coffee on your Saturday morning, we've got a picture-ific update to the endless saga that is Nicolas Cage's real estate listings. His home on Copa de Oro Road in Bel Air, California has been on and off and back on the market several times. But as the Real Estalker says, he looks serious this time, cutting his price down to $17.5 million, neatly half of what he was asking back in September 2007 but still healthily above the $6.469 million he paid in 1998. The new listing has a gorgeous tour from Westside Estate Agency.

The pics reveal a lot more than we have seen of the house before. I've always known that Nicolas Cage is a bit of a collector but this house showcases the many things that he has amassed over the years. The framed comic books and even the giant Mickey Mouse in the casual dining room were no surprise but the huge amethyst geode was a bit of a shocker. Over at the Real Estalker Mama's place there's been quite a discussion over the decor. It's a crazy pastiche of objects, Cage is a collector who has never had to restrain himself with thoughts of budget. Rather than restricting himself to theme rooms, he has combined different styles and time periods in a way that seems more Charles Foster Kane than middle-aged movie star. The resulting spectacle is far from being a cozy domicile but it is definitely worth a look.

Another episode in the soap opera known as Nic Cage and the revolving real estate deals has begun. The New York Observer reports that Nicolas Cage has once again put his 3,550-square-foot apartment in the Museum Tower back on the market. It was briefly on the market last year for a day or so last year but now the apartment is for sale again for the same price of $9.75 million. The listing calls it "LA glamor in the heart of NYC." The home consists of two adjacent apartments, with internal access to each other on the 48th floor. The home has gorgeous views especially from the corner living room with a shag rug which shows views to the Empire State Building and down to The Statue of Liberty as well as west to the Hudson River. The master suite opens out on the city and has a huge master bath with a separate tub and steam shower. The other apartment offer space for guests and also includes a fully equipped gourmet kitchen. This home is listed at $9.75 million the same price it was at last year.

Nicolas Cage has pulled his Bel Air home off the market but still has several other homes on the market including a home in Las Vegas, two homes in New Orleans and a home in Rhode Island.

Today while working on a piece on the biggest real estate price drops, I discovered that one of the biggest, Nicolas Cage's Bel Air home, has been pulled off the market. Cage bought the vintage Tudor from singer Tom Jones in 1998 f for $6.469 million. He has been trying to sell the home off and on since 2006 when it was listed at $35 million and it has been on and off the market. This time the seven-bedroom home went as low as $17.5 million before Cage pulled the listing. The star is likely waiting until the real estate market peps up a bit to put his treasure back up for sale.

Nicolas Cage is at it again chopping the prices on some of his many homes for sale. Dakota over at Curbed LA reports that Cage has cut another $2.25 million off his gorgeous Bel-Air home. The Tudor which Cage bought from singer Tom Jones for $6.469 million back in 1998 was once listed as high as $35 million three years ago.

Cage has also shaved a modest $250,000 off one of his homes in New Orleans taking it down to the $3.45 million he paid for it in 2007.

Believe it or not there is even more of Nicolas Cage's real estate to cover. I thought we went over most of it a few weeks ago but the Real Estalker reminds me that there is another Cage home up for sale. It's another New Orleans classic and this one has quite the spooky past.
Cage seems to have a natural love of the macabre, he collects ancient skulls, horror movie posters and haunted houses. The LaLaurie house is a six-bedroom home on Royal Street that was a house of horrors in the mid 1800s. Delphine LaLaurie is believed to have tortured her slaves. Accounts differ as to what actually happened but the stories span the range from starving, beating and imprisonment to far more lurid and unspeakable acts. In 1834 there was a fire at the house and Madame LaLaurie disappeared never to darken the door of her own home again. Some reports say screams and the sound of chains dragging on the ground have been heard in the house and several owners have bought the home and then quickly sold it.

The gray home has a modern interior including a new kitchen and beige walls. This one isn't as charming as his other New Orleans home and he has accented it with red velvet furniture and some rather sinister art depicting vampires, gargoyle-topped buildings and strange monsters (all of which makes the crucifix on the wall in the dining room seem a bit disturbing). Cage bought the home in December 2006 for $3.45 million. Cage put it on the market last fall for $3.9 million but it is now listed at $3.55 million making this one a definite money loser for him.

For a more Earth day friendly estate, check out the Earthship on the Bright and Spacious blog.

The real estate habits of Nicolas Cage are legendary. He does more buying and selling in a year or two than most of us could do in a lifetime. In the U.S. he currently has three properties on the market but overseas he's just sold one of his many homes. Cage bought the 11th-century Schloss Neidstein in 2006 for $2.3 million back in July 2006. It is believed that he spent millions in renovations on the 10-bedroom property which is on a hill and overlooks more than 395 acres of forest and meadows. But after all that work, Cage did what he always does, he moved on. The Telegraph says that Cage spent only one night in the castle.


Cage has a variety of properties up for sale from a $7 million island in the Bahamas to homes in Nevada, California, Rhode Island and Louisiana. While I've covered the other three, I haven't given the New Orleans, Louisiana house estate-of-the-day treatment yet. It seems a grave mistake on my part because it's quite lovely. The Garden District home has six bedrooms and grounds that include a heated pool and statuary. Inside the home's graceful lines, marble fireplaces, plasterwork, stained glass and curved staircase are elegantly preserved. The kitchen seems to be an overly modern off note but otherwise the home is beautiful and the rooms done in shades of periwinkle and pale blue are particularly winning. Cage bought in 2005 for $3.45 million and this home is now listed at $3.7 million.

UPDATE: This home is now listed at $3.45 million.

Experience more lush living in luxury homes and mansions or see the stars living large with celebrity homes galleries at AOL Real Estate.

[Thanks, Lana!]