I know this is the second day in a row we are featuring a furniture-less New York apartment, but this one offers something different, the chance to see a before and after. This apartment in the Silk Building at East Fourth Street and Broadway used to belong to Britney Spears, and it took her forever and a day to unload it, dropping the list price from nearly $6 million to $4 million before selling it. The couple who bought the apartment in 2006 have now put the home on the market for $6.595 million. The current owners, Jessica Klein, a television writer and producer, and her husband, Isaac Levenbrown, spent several hundred thousand dollars sprucing up the home. And since we have some before pics from Britney's old listing we can see some of the changes. The floors have been darkened, the master bath has been changed and the kitchen has had a really beautiful upgrade.

The apartment, which has three bedrooms and a 24-foot-long terrace, was also once owned by Russell Simmons and before that by Keith Richards. I'm not quite sure what makes this apartment so attractive to the rich and famous but for $6.595 million you can get yourself a heap of celebrity provenance.

[via the NY Times Big Deal]

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--A look at the planned Nobu Hotel and Residences in the Financial District. The project, in which Robert De Niro is an investor, is a 62-story glass tower at 45 Broad Street that will include 77 "super-luxury" condos, a 128-room hotel, retail space and a Nobu restaurant on the third floor.
--Hillary Clinton's communications director Howard Wolfson and his wife, Terri McCullough, who's chief of staff for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have sold their condo at 455 Central Park West for $1.91 million. Not much of a profit, they bought the condo in 2005 for just under $1.8 million.
--Former Mets and Yankees pitcher David Cone is looking for an in-town apartment. He was recently spotted in the Miraval Living condominium sales office on the Upper East Side.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Baron Eric de Rothschild just bought his painter wife, Maria-Beatrice Caracciolo Di Forino, a Village penthouse where she can do some work whenever they're staying in New York. According to deeds, they paid $1.15 million for the one-bedroom, 1,050-square-foot co-op at 40 West 12th Street.
--Hotelier Jeff Klein has sold his house at 153 West 18th Street for $5.95 million.
--The listing for the late Brooke Astor's duplex at 778 Park Avenue is finally online, we covered it as our estate of the day on Friday.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Melissa Etheridge has sold a six-bedroom house in Hidden Hills for an undisclosed price after it had been listed for $4,995,000. The home was purchased by a two trusts (the Olivers Estate Trust and the Veronica Matsui Trust) which may indicate the home was purchased by a celebrity (the Real Estalker says Michael Bolton and Nicolette Sheridan are
--Actress and former MTV VJ Kari Wuhrer has sold a Craftsman-style house in Los Angeles' Windsor Square area for $1.7 million.
--Comedian Carlos Mencia and his wife, Amy, purchased an Encino, CA home in November from actor Eddie Cibrian for an official purchase price of $4.3 million.
--via the Observer, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her NFL husband Tim have paid $3,25 million. for a condo on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

From the Real Estalker:
--The Real Estalker Mama drops a tasty blind item that a mystery billionaire will be bidding on the Kaufmann house auction that will be part of the Christie's auction on May 13.
--Action actor Jason Statham has been spotted checking out the Devlin Drive home, shown above, recently put on the market by Christina Aguilera for $7.995 million. The virtual tour of this amazing home is here.
--Former CSI: Miami actress Khandi Alexander has cut the price again on her Hollywood Hills home. It was ginally listed at $4,495,000 but is now down to $2,995,000 which is not much more than the $2,850,000 she paid back in January of 2006. The listing says "huge $1 million price reduction" in bold block letters with an army of exclamation points.
--Angela Bassett and Courtney Vance have dropped the price on their Hancock Park home from $5.999 million to $4.6 million. The listing is here.
--Britney Spears has been spotted touring a 7,350 square foot house on Tara Drive in the Clark Gable community of Encino.
--Dishonored Lord Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel are quietly putting their Palm Beach, Florida home on the market. No listing price yet but in 2007, the Palm Beach assessor valued the estate at $27,980,115 so we are likely looking at a fairly big number here.
--Football player Pacman Jones has listed Tennessee home, it's our estate of the day later today.
--Once again, Michael Jackson has forestalled foreclosure on Neverland.
--Louwana, a grand old Palm Beach, Florida estate has been listed for sale for $30 million. The listing is here.
--Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn have put their Malibu home for summer rent again for $95,000.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--More background on Roman Abramovich's purchase of Wildcat Ridge. Abramovich also bought another home in the area for $11.8 million in February.
--Baseball great Henry "Hank" Aaron has listed his West Palm Beach, Fla., home that borders a golf course for $900,000.
--A home in Corona del Mar, California has sold for about $28 million, a record for an Orange County off-water property, local brokers say.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Former NHL player Ken Belanger has put his three-bedroom Manhattan Beach townhouse on the market for $1.125 million. It is listed with Ed Kaminsky.

There is apparently a point at which some excessively rich individuals decide to do away with decent standards of dress altogether. They are literally so loaded they can afford to look homeless; their rags become a sort of reverse status symbol. In fact, as author Paul Fussell noted in Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, shabby clothes "advertise how much of conventional dignity [the upper classes] can afford to throw away. The wearing of clothes excessively new or excessively neat and clean suggests that your social circumstances are not entirely secure."

We'd like to think that's the reason behind the appearance of the celebs on Nerve's new list of the "Top 10 Rich People Who Look Poor." It would certainly seem to be for notoriously-underdressed billionaire Condé Nast owner Si Newhouse, who clocks in at # 7. But we think it's more than likely that the Olsen Twins (#6), Britney Spears (#3) and Amy Winehouse (#1), who's reportedly worth $20 million, are actually just slobs. Check out the full list here.

In the last few months, Britney Spears has been spotted around Los Angeles in a variety of vehicles. Now it looks like some of those cars may soon be for sale. Access Hollywood reports that a judge has granted Jamie Spears, Britney's father and co-conservator of her estate, the authority to sell off some of her cars. Britney Spears was also recently order to pay ex-husband Kevin Federline $375,000 to cover his extensive legal fees in the former couple's ongoing dispute over the custody of their two young sons. No word on which of Britney's cars will be sold yet but I'm betting there may be a Mercedes or two with a pop star pedigree on eBay soon.

From the Real Estalker:
--The Desert House, the sleek and modern prototype for the deluxe prefabs created by starchitecture firm Marmol Radziner in Desert Hot Springs has been listed at $1.85 million.
--Did Scott Baio move to a five-bedroom house in Encino? The Real Estalker Mama reports that Baio and his wife, Peaches Renee Sloan, still occupy Baio's home on Royal Oak Road in Encino. It looks like the couple "bought" the new home on the show for reality drama's sake.
--Rande Gerber and Cindy Crawford are renting out a beach front four-bedroom home in Malibu for $22,500 a month.
--Rumors have been swirling that Britney Spears bought a new house in Hermosa Beach before she went into the hospital. The home in question appears to be owned by professional photographer Dani Brubaker (who recently took pictures of Britney and her children for OK Magazine) and it seems unlikely that Britney actually bought this home.
--Has billionaire Ron Burkle helped Michael Jackson save Neverland Ranch? Roger Friedman at Fox News has reported that Burkle might have intervened of Jackson's behalf to provide an extension to give Jackson time to refinance.
--Jennifer Aniston has moved out of the Malibu cottage she's been renting since 2005.
--Jermaine Dupri has listed a five-bedroom home in Atlanta, Georgia for $1.5 million. The listing is here.
--Melrose Place actor Grant Show has listed his three-bedroom house in the Beachwood Canyon for $1,995,000. The listing is here.
--Singer Dido has listed her house in the prestigious Bird Streets area of Los Angeles for $4.6 million. The listing is here.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--A Parisian home that once belonged to Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir is on the market. It is out estate of the day later today.
--NBA point guard Baron Davis of the Golden State Warriors has sold a pair of adjacent condos in West Hollywood for $2.66 million.
--Investment banker Warren Woo has paid $20 million for a house in Los Angeles, plus $2 million more for furnishings.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--A two-floor penthouse at 530 East 72nd Street which was lived in by Frank Sinatra and Mia Farrow and then by Andy Warhol's physician, Denton S. Cox is on the market for $5,995,000 and it's a real fixer-upper. The listing is here.
--Ex-F.B.I. Special Agent Ali Soufan, who now works for Guiliani Partners, and his wife just paid $1.7 million for a new Manhattan apartment.
--Stephen Drucker, House Beautiful's editor, and real estate agent Frank Newbold closed this month on a two-bedroom co-op at 125 East 74th Street for $1.45 million.
--Parker Posey, who late last year listed her apartment in an 1845 brownstone on East 10th Street near Third Avenue for $1.175 million, is in contract to buy a $1.35 million one-bedroom co-op at 30 Fifth Avenue.
--Salman Rushdie's ex-wife, 37-year-old Padma Lakshmi, the model-turned-Top Chef hostess paid $1,651,111 for a long, full-floor loft in Alphabet City.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Wilmer Valderrama has sold a home in Tarzana for $1,750,000 after it had been listed for $2,250,000 and later reduced to $1,950,000.
--Rupert Murdoch has taken $2,000,000 off the asking price of his Long Island, N.Y. mansion, Rosehearty, reducing its listing price from $14,800,000 to $12,800,000. It was our estate of the day back in July.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--A new record residential price has been set for the North Fork of Long Island. A 135-acre estate that includes a 19-acre vineyard has been sold for $19.5 million. The original asking price for Indian Neck Farm was $22 million when it went on the market in 2006.
--Edgar Bronfman Jr. and his wife, Clarissa, finally have taken possession of their 11-room co-op at 1040 Fifth Ave.
--Author and interior decorator Regina "Gigi" Mahon has paid just over $14 million for two condo apartments on the fifth floor at the soon to be completed Plaza.
--Polo-playing communications mogul Adam Lindemann has found a new oceanfront Hamptons hideaway in Montauk for $21.5 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Keith Yamashita, a high-powered business consultant, has listed his contemporary Manhattan Beach home at $3.449 million because he and his partner, Todd Holcomb, are planning to return to San Francisco, where their 10-year-old company, Stone Yamashita Partners, is based. The listing is here.

From AOL Real Estate:
--A list of America's richest counties.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--The $50 million Kress Family penthouse duplex at 1020 Fifth Avenue is off the market. It hasn't been sold, the family is just tying up some loose ends.
--Ahmass Fakahany, a top-ranking executive at Merrill Lynch, and wife Alsun Keogh have sold off one of their apartments at the Police Building, thelaw enforcement HQ turned co-op at 240 Centre Street for $2.93 million.
--Actor Tim Blake Nelson and his wife Lisa just sold their 7.5-room prewar co-op at 37 Riverside Drive for $5.25 million. Their buyer is Jonathan Morris, co-founder of the retail fashion Web site Bluefly.
--Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen have put their 12-room condo at One Morton Square, shown at right, on the market for $11.995 million which is $4,695,000 more than they paid for it three years ago, The apartment has been rented out for much of the time. The listing is here.
--Zach Braff has paid $3,200,000 for a 2,500-square-foot apartment in the building at 840 Broadway.


From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Sting and Trudie Styler have pulled their Central Park West duplex off the market. The couple have also purchased a $30 million condo at 15 Central Park West.
--A minor fracas has developed over the listing of Christie Brinkley's $30 million Bridgehampton estate. Stribling agent Jessica Mansell Ambrose has it listed as an exclusive on her site but Corcoran Group broker, Susan Breitenbach is supposed to have the listing.
--Billy Joel and his wife Katie Lee have closed on their latest Sagaponack property for $11.625 million. It was on the market for $12.99 million. Apparently restrictive building codes prohibited the couple from adding to the home they bought from Roy Scheider last spring for $16.75 million. The new property, just west of Scheider's old place, has a three-bedroom home that Joel may use as a studio.
--Seagram heir Edgar Bronfman Jr. has picked up a 10-room apartment for $18.75 million in the Carhart mansion. Bronfman and his wife Clarissa already have a posh co-op on Fifth Avenue so it is not clear what they will do with their latest acquisition.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
The $45 million triplex at One Madison Park, the tower going up at 23 East 22nd Street, will include a one-bedroom unit on a lower floor for use by a private butler, who will be provided by the condominium indefinitely and paid by it as well. The proposal is still in the planning stages.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Actress Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones, has paid $1,240,000 for a two-bedroom Cape Cod-style house in West Hollywood.
--Todd Stashwick, who stars on "The Riches" on the FX network, has paid $1,255,000 for a three-story home in the Hollywood Hills.
--Actress Denise Richards has sold one of the two houses that she owns in Hidden Hills, Calif. for $3,800,000.
--It looks like Avril Lavigne has finally sold her home in the Mulholland Estates neighborhood in Beverly Hills. The house, which was listed at $6,200,000 now shows that it is "looking for backup" in the LA MLS.
--British celebrity Anouska De Georgiou has paid $1,180,000 for a four-unit apartment building in the Los Angeles' Grove area and a few months ago she paid $1,167,000 for a three-bedroom, Spanish-style house in Los Angeles' Fairfax/WeHo area.
--Victoria's Secret model Emma Heming is the latest celeb to pick up in an apartment in the Broadway Hollywood building in Hollywood, paying an undisclosed amount with her then-fiance, party promoter/DJ/nightclub guru Brent Bolthouse for a unit in the building that she no longer occupies. The couple split up and she moved back to New York City picking up a condo in Chelsea.
--Actor Wilmer Valderrama has also picked up a unit in the same building as above.

From the Real Estalker:
--Rumor has it that Jason Lee may be moving to the Los Feliz home currently owned by musician Robert Cray and on the market for $3,250,000.
--The house in Palm Springs that Cher flipped and put on the market at $2,495,000 has been reduced to 1,999,000. It was our estate of the day back in January.
--House flipper turned reality star Jeff Lewis has listed another home, this one in the Los Feliz area for $1.795 million.
--Actor Eddie Cibrian and his wife Brandi have put their Encino home of the market for $4.395 million. The Real Estalker mama wasn't a fan of the property but someone was, is already listed as "looking for backup." Check out the virtual tour and make your own judgement, Valley palace or slapdash decorating at its highest iteration?
--Britney Spears' former NY penthouse is back on the market for $6,995,000. Considering how much trouble Spears had selling this it is pretty amazing that Beverly Hills 90210 producer and writer Jessica Stein and her husband Isaac Levenbrown have put the home on the market for $2,995,000 more than they paid for it in August 2006. Spears also appears to have taken her Beverly Hills house off the market yet again. This after various gossip blogs have reporting that Spears has a fantasy room in the home and that Spears is not exactly the tidiest of housekeepers.
--Actress Angie Harmon and football player Jason Sehorn have put their three-bedroom Beverly Hills home on the market for $1.895 million. The listing is here. The Real Estalker Mama reports that the couple actually live in Hidden Hills in a much larger four-bedroom home that is right next to the one that Melissa Etheridge and Tammy Lynn Michaels recently purchased.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Looks like I got it wrong on which Rising Glen house belongs to Rachel Zoe a few weeks back. Check out the listing for her home listed for $2.995 million here.
--Jerry Rice and his wife, Jackie have put their Atherton, California estate on the market for $22 million. You can see pictures here.
--As we mentioned above, Jeff Lewis of the Bravo reality show "Flipping Out," has listed a home in Los Feliz. Ruth Ryon puts it at slightly more than $1.8 million whereas the Real Estalker Mama had it at $1.795 million. He also recently sold a Spanish-style home in Los Feliz for about its $4.5-million asking price.
--For the first time in 50 years, the Shavelson estate in Studio City has come on the market. The home belonged to directpr and producer Melville Shavelson, who worked on films starring Lucille Ball, James Cagney and Frank Sinatra. The home is a four-bedroom 1930s traditional listed at $4.795 million. The listing is here.

It's been an interesting week for Louis Vuitton lawsuits. The company received the results of two lawsuits and ended up winning one and losing one. Louis Vuitton claimed a Las Vegas company, Huate Diggity Dog, infringed on their trademark with its furry "Chewy Vuiton" dog toys, plush toys that resemble the handbag company's posh purses. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed an earlier ruling that the toys represent a parody, one which is made clear by the fact that the company also makes produces such as the "Furcedes" and "Chewnel No. 5."

Louis Vuitton did better with a lawsuit regarding a Britney Spears video that was found to be violating counterfeiting laws. The beleaguered popstar used a pink Vuitton-upholstered dashboard in a music video. A Paris civil court ordered Sony BMG and MTV to stop showing the video for "Do Something" and handed down a fine of $117,000 apiece. Spears herself was not found guilty but the ruling said that the video said that the use of the Vuitton fabric in the video constituted an attack on the brand and its luxury image.

From Bill Gaynor of Legacy Properties:
--Rock and roll impresarios Janet and Jack Boyle recently purchased a 5500 sq ft ocean front home in Kennebunkport for $3.55 million.
Dr. Neil Warren of E-harmony.com fame recently moved into another Kennebunkport estate. Neil and Marilyn Warren completed the construction of his 12,000 sq ft home that they paid $3,000,000 for in and is said to have invested another $3 million in the finish work.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Rumor has it that Britney Spears has been looking for a West Village loft in the $9 million price range.
Jessica Simpson has also been spotted touring New York listings including one on West 17th Street with a $3.99 million price tag.
--The co-op apartment that served as the office of late historian Arthur Schlesinger has already gone to contract after only two weeks on the market. The two-bedroom apartment had a $1.5 million asking price.
--After selling the townhouse on East 62nd Street that he owned for 20 years, director Martin Scorcese has bought another vintage home just two blocks away. He paid $12.5 million for a six-bedroom townhouse.

From US Weekly:
--Parents-to-be Nicole Richie and Joel Madden recently made an offer on a home in a gated Southern California community only to be denied by their potential neighbors over fears of the swarm of paparazzi that follow the couple.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Singer Michelle Branch has sold her five-bedroom, 5,296-square-foot house in Calabasas, Calif. for $2,940,000.
--Is Nicole Scherzinger, formerly of the Pussycat Dolls, the owner of the house that Daisy Fuentes sold last year in the Hollywood Hills?

From The Insider:
Earlier this week I mentioned that Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch had entered the early stages of foreclosure but his representative says that he is just in the middle of refinancing.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Bruce Willis has bought the three-bedroom apartment of Donald Trump enemy Eugenia Kaye at Trump Place's 220 Riverside Boulevard for $4.26 million. Willis was reportedly renting a condo at Trump International on Central Park West for around $50,000 a month.
--Even though Mark Rachesky, the chairman of Leap Wireless, paid $20 million last year for an 18-room apartment at 998 Fifth Avenue, he and his wife, Jill, have now paid $33,444,500 for a duplex at 834 Fifth Avenue, where Rupert Murdoch owns a triplex penthouse. The couple haven't listed their 988 Fifth Avenue co-op yet. Billionaire Len Blavatnik, who we mentioned earlier this week for his possible $125 million apartment purchase, also bought an apartment there last year for $27.5 million.
Acotr/writer Peter Masterson and his wife Carlin Glynn have sold their penthouse duplex at 1165 Fifth Avenue for $10.875 million to hedge-fund star Brenda Earl.
--Mariska Hargatay spent $7 million last month for a a penthouse at the block-long O'Neill Building in the Flatiron District. Rock manager Cliff Burnstein and Sabra Turnbull also recently bought in the building, taking the second top-floor penthouse, for $7,215,000.

From the Real Estalker:
--The Real Estalker Mama does some digging and unearths the fact that Will Ferrell is the owner of one of the homes formerly owned by serial real estate lover and leaver Ellen DeGeneres. His home in the Hollywood Hills was listed at $9,900,000.
--Cinematographer Lance Accord has listed his gorgeously secluded home in the Beachwood Canyon area for $2.325 million (that's the pool, shown above). This one is amazing, check out the property website here.
-- Hillary Swank is looking for a place in New York and may have picked up a two bedroom unit in "Superior Ink" building in the far West Village (via NY Mag).
--Kanye West has relisted his home in Beverly Hills. He bought in February for $7,150,000 and has now relisted at $8,699,000. The property is in tear-down condition but does include plans for a two-story contemporary home. As the Real Estalker aptly notes, that's a whole lotta money for some plans.
--Star stylist Rachel Zoe has put her home on the market, it's our estate of the day later today.
--Robert C. Wright, the chairman and CEO of NBC Universal has put his penthouse at The Heritage at Trump Place" on the market for $14.75 million. Wright and his wife bought the nine-room residence in March 2007 for $10,695,000.
--Mariel Hemingway and Stephen Crisman have put their six-bedroom home in Westlake Village on the market for $3.199 million. The listing is here.
--Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis have purchased a 150-year-old mansion in Somerset, England.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Beck and his wife Marissa Ribisi have bought a home on the Estside for $7 million.
--Former hockey star Luc Robitaille and his family have bought a home in Santa Monica which was priced at slightly more than $4.6 million. Their house in Holmby Hills is still on the market for $3.849 million. The property webiste is here.
--Actor Malcolm Gets has listed his home in Los Feliz for $1.099 million. The listing is here.
--Michael Schur, Emmy-winning co-executive producer and writer on NBC's "The Office," and his wife, J.J. Philbin, co-executive producer and writer on NBC's "Heroes," have put their Miracle Mile home on the market at $1.649 million. The property website is here.

As part of the triumvirate of Hollywood bad girls that includes Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, Britney Spears has not had great luck with cars. Her most recent white Mercedes has been involved in all sorts of minor scrapes and paparazzi incidents. It's no surprise that the free-spending popwreck opted for a new car, and why not go for an upgrade, a brand new Mercedes SL65. After all, a girl who makes over $700,000 a month can afford a $200,000 car. But why the same color, white, as the one before? And, considering her own bad vehicle luck why would she opt for the very same type of car that Lindsay Lohan got her DUI in? Personally I'd like to see Britney in a Lexus hybrid, nice and safe for the kids and a bit kinder to the environment, considering the girl is always on the move, yet still high end enough for a big spender. What kind of car do you think Britney should drive?

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Marilyn Manson has put his five-bedroom Mediterranean-style home in Chatsworth on the market at $1.1 million. A bedroom is shown above. The home is relatively bland on the outside but inside it looks like an antique store met a flophouse. The listing includes pics of the recording studio with a bright purple rug.
--L.A. Clippers star Cuttino Mobley has pulled his home off the market. It was our estate of the day last month.
--Actor/director/real estate investor Vincent Gallo has purchased two units at the Biscuit Company Lofts in downtown L.A He bought the lofts for nearly $2.2 million and plans to use one as an office and another as living quarters.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez has reportedly been in talks with the owner of a seven-bedroom townhouse on the block between Madison and Fifth avenues. The home has no official sales listing but an insider says the price is between $39 million and $41 million. It all depends on whether or not A-Rod stays a Yankee.
--Kelsey Grammer is already looking for a buyer for his Hamptons home. It is our estate of the day later today.
--The co-op apartment that served as the office of late historian and author Arthur Schlesinger has just gone on the market for $1.5 million. The two-bedroom unit is located across a courtyard from Schlesinger's main residence, where his wife, Alexandra, still lives. The listing is here.
--Both Tyra Banks and Halle Berry have been spotted looking at a $8.5 million apartment in the 40 Mercer condo building in SoHo.

From Berg Properties Celebrity Big Time Listings:
--Johnny Damon has signed an $8 million contract to sell his three-bedroom apartment on the 39th floor of One Beacon Court. It was an estate of the day this summer.
--A 10,276-square-foot mansion in Bel-Air enclave that was owned until 2005 by St. Louis Rams co-owner Georgia Frontiere has been completely rebuilt and has just come on the market for $29,975,000. The listing is here, no interior pics unfortunately.
--Clay Aiken has sold his condominium unit in Charlotte, N.C. for just $71,000.
--Public records reveal that manager and producer Sandy Galin sold his Beverly Hills home to movie producer Roger Birnbaum for $16,500,000.
--Public records reveal that Tommy Lee paid $5,850,000 for a house in Calabasas.
--Public records reveal that Matt LeBlanc sold his house in Hidden Hills, California for $9,139,000.
--Chicago sports broadcaster and former NFL player Mark Malone has paid $700,000 for a Chicago loft unit that is in the same building as David Schwimmer.
--Chicago chef Charlie Trotter has paid $2.425 million for a Chicago condo.
--A Studio City home that once belonged to "Frasier" actress Jane Leeves is on the market for $2,995,000. The property website is here.
--a Hollywood Hills that once was owned by Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli and that later was owned by Sammy Davis Jr. has sold for $2,793,500.
-The official sale price on Melanie 'Scary Spice' Brown's home in Los Feliz is $1,810,000.
--The exact price for basketball star Chris Webber's three-bedroom home in Malibu was $3,750,000.
–Public records confirm that 'Grey's Anatomy' actress Kate Walsh paid $4,750,000 for her new Los Feliz home.
--The sale price for Natalie Portman's house in Sea Cliff, NY was $1,750,000.
--Leeza Gibbons may have finally sold her home which was on the market for for $7,995,000.

From the Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder has sold one of his many Hamptons holdings: three acres in Sagaponack, N.Y., for about $3.74 million.
--Jane Magazine founder Jane Pratt has sold her Manhattan townhouse for more than its $3.65 million asking price
--Thee owner of Buffalo Bill's 492-acre onetime hunting camp in Cody, Wyo., has cut its price to $9.75 million after it failed to sell for about two years at $12 million. The listing is here.
--California Rep. Ellen Tauscher has put her Bay Area home on the market for $1.6 million, a $50,000 reduction from the last time she listed it. The listing is here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Francois Pinault, who owns Christie's plus Gucci and is the future father-in-law of Salma Hayek, has just paid $16.9 million for the top penthouse at Barbizon/63 on East 63rd Street, the 80-year-old neo-Gothic women's hotel that has just been turned into superluxury condos. The home will be an over 5,000 square foot one bedroom sprawl.
--Lucie Arnaz Luckinbill has bought a two-bedroom apartment near Columbus Circle through the Lucille Ball Morton Trust for $1.15 million. The apartment is an investment and she is renovating it herself.
--Iinvestor Lily Lee Lee Wong paid $12.1 million for a 15-room, 115-year-old townhouse at 21 East 84th Street in June, and by the end of July she had listed the place for $24.5 million, more than twice what she paid. The house spent four years on the market before this summer's sale but was designed by Grant's Tomb architect John Duncan, and has original stained lead glass windows, six wood-burning fireplaces, and more than a half-dozen crystal chandeliers.

From The Real Estalker:
--Nicole Richie has put her West Hollywood condo on the market for $2.3 million. You can check out pics here.
--Kanye West was recently spotted checking out Tyler Perry's nearly undeveloped 22-acre property in the super luxe guard gatef Beverly Ridge Estates that is on the market for $15,000,000.
--It turns out that Britney Spears has not purchased a new house in Malibu but is renting for $35,000 a month with an option to purchase.
--"Lost" actress Cynthia Watros Gilliland and her restauranteur husband have put their Hancock Park home on the market for $3,799,000. The listing is here and on the realtor's main website it says it has already been reduced to $3,650,000.
--Producer Dawn Parouse and Jonathan Feldman are also selling in Hancock Park. Their lovely home is listed at $3,395,000 and you can check out the listing, with many pics here.
--Melissa McCarthy who played Sookie on the Gilmore Girls has listed her West Hollywood home For $1,515,000. The listing is here.

When it comes to the world of Britney Spears, you just never know. The gossip game of did she or didn't she surrounds this girl on a multitude of levels. One of those levels is definitely real estate. It has been widely reported this week that Britney checked out today's estate in Pacific Palisades not once but twice. They even report she flushed all the toilets and took a swim in the pool during her visit to the pad. Now the Real Estalker says she hears it's not a go and I trust her judgment but I'm taking a look at this house anyway mainly because I just like to imagine what Britters might have thought as she went flouncing through here.

The home has five bedrooms and is located on a nice three-acre chunk of land which has been landscaped with waterfalls, koi ponds and fruit trees. Lovely stuff but perhaps a little tranquil sounding for a nightlife-loving young girl. Britney seems to like the Tuscan look as evidenced by her last real estate adventure in Beverly Hills. And it does have a celebrity pedigree. As Mr. Big Time reports, it was owned by Ray Liotta from 1995 to 2003 (he bought it for $2.25 million).

This home was built in the early 1990s and it's got a smidgen more character on the interior than other homes we have seen with this look. The current owners certainly have some interesting taste in art which must have captivated Brit and the entourage. And I am not quite sure what to make of the massive room with the huge bed, the foosball table and the pool table in it. The two marble master bathrooms seem to be a pop princess' dream (if a bit of an unsafe place to give the kiddies a bath). It is listed at $6.65 million.

From the NY Post's Gimme Shelter:
--Sarah Ferguson is buying a large two-bedroom apartment in the Cipriani Club Residences at 55 Wall St., where she already stays while visiting Manhattan. The asking price is $2.95 million asking price.
--Billy Joel has lowered the price on his Centre Island mansion by $5 million.
--Developer Steven Roth's Park Avenue apartment, which was originally listed at $9 million, finally has a buyer.
--"Dora the Explorer" co-creator and head writer Eric Weiner has $4.4 million penthouse on upper Broadway.
--The brownstone where Katherine Hepburn lived for seven decades is available for rent for $39,500 per month. The listing for this classic home is here.

From The Real Estalker:
--Britney Spears and Kevin Federline have reduced the price on their Malibu house to $11,999,999 from $13,500,000. Britney has also taken her Beverly HIlls home off the market.
--Daniele Gaither, formerly of MAD Tv has put her Los Angeles home on the market for $1,099,000. The listing is here.
--Television producer Phil Rosenthal and his wife Monica have put their Hancock Park mansion on the market for $5,950,000. The listing is here.
--Celebrity hairstylist Jonathan Antin has put his Los Angeles home on the market for $1,699,000. The listing is here.
--Cheech Marin and his wife Patti have listed a four-bedroom Malibu home for $3,595,000. The listing for this intriguing Craftsman home is here

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Figure skater Scott Hamilton has sold a house he owns in Thousand Oaks, Calif. for $3,295,000.
-- Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, are the latest celebs to buy in at the Sierra Towers in Los Angeles, purchasing a two-bedroom, 20th-floor unit in the Sierra Towers condominium building that had been listed for $2,497,000.
--TV director James Burrows has listed his gorgeous Bel-Air mansion, shown above, for $12,850,000. The listing is here.
--A lovely two-bedroom contemporary house in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills that actor Joel Grey remodeled during the 1990s has been listed for $1,895,000. The listing is here.
--A five-bedroom, midcentury house in the Hollywood Hills area that the late singer Bobby Darin lived in in the 1950s and actor Brock Peters owned until his death in 2005 is on the market for $3,689,000. The listing is here.

From The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Ellen DeGeneres has put her Montecito house on the market for $24 million, less than six months buying it for $15.75 million. It's our estate of the day later today.
--Former basketball star Latrell Sprewell has put his house in Purchase, New York on the market for $4.99 million. The seven-bedroom home is still being lived in by his girlfriend who is the mother of four of his children. The listing for the large Colonial is here.
--Memphis Grizzlies forward Mike Miller and his wife, Jennifer, are asking $7.99 million for a six-bedroom home in the pricey Lake Sherwood area. The house has a dedicated website that showcases the brand spanking new home.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
-- Scottish comedian Billy Connolly and his wife Pamela have bought a loft apartment in the Flatiron district for $3.85 million for a 10th-story loft at 105 Fifth Avenue.
--Seema Boesky, the ex-wife of Ivan Boesky, has sold he penthouse in the Belaire building where Cory Lidle crashed his plane, for $4.3 million.
--Billionaire philanthropist Jon Stryker has sold his 62nd-floor apartment in the south tower of the Time Warner Center for $8.55 million.
--Party-planner David Tutera has picked up a full-floor condo at East 21st Street's Infinity Flats listed at $4.495 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and his wife have listed their Santa Barbara home for nearly $4.4 million.
--Xorin Balbes, a designer-developer has renovated the El Cabrillo bungalows in Hollywood. Seven on the ten courtyard-style units
have already been sold and the three left are selling for $745,000 to $999,000.

From the NY Post Gimme Shelter:
--Howard Stern's Hamptons rental has been sold for around $34 million, a record sale for Southampton Village.
--Lasata, the gorgeous East Hampton mansion where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis spent most of her childhood has been sold for $24 million to Reed Krakoff, the president of Coach.
-- Lorraine Bracco has taken her Bridgehampton house off the market and is instead working on selling her three-bedroom Snedens Landing home which is on sale for $3.2 million. It is our estate of the day, later today.
--Treat Williams is selling the New York apartment he's lived in for 30 years and heading to Utah. The Upper West Side apartment is listed for $4.75 million. The listing is here, and as you can see above, includes pictures of Treat and his family at play in the home.
--Mario Batali's landlord, who's trying to boot out the Del Posto restaurant, is paying a record price for a Manhattan home located below Canal Street. Keith Rubenstein is paying $20 million for a 6,000-square-foot apartment at 101 Warren St.
--Rumor has it that the owners of Bob Guccione's former Upper East Side residence have an accepted offer on the house which has a $59 million asking price. Looks like me might have a record breaker here.

From the NY Observer's Manhattan Transfers:
--Billionaire J. Christopher Flowers has put the East 73rd Street mansion he bough three months ago on the market back on the market for $6 million more than he paid. The 21-room limestone mansion is now listed for $23 million. The listing is here.
-- Luca Orlandi, the founder of the Luca Luca fashion line has bought a duplex penthouse co-op for $3.345 million.
--Vincent D'Onofrio has sold his East Village apartment for $2.6 million.
--Imagine Films co-chairwoman Karen Kehela Sherwood and her novelist husband, Ben Sherwood, have sold their 11th-floor loft at 684 Broadway for $2.45 million.

From The Rat and the Mouse, a London real estate blog
--Noel Coward's home between 1930 and 1956 is on the market for £4 million. A brochure can be downloaded here.

From the NY Times Big Deal:
--Michael Hirtenstein who paid $15.7 million in cash a few years ago to buy a 4,825-square-foot penthouse in the north tower of the Time Warner Center recently sold for $27 million. Hirtenstein rented out the apartment for the last year and a half to Jay-Z for as much as $70,000 a month and then sold to Todd Wagner, the business partner of Mark Cuban. Hirtenstein closed a 27-foot-wide mansion on Gramercy Park last week which he plans to hold for a while and then resell.
--Thomas Sandell, an investor and hedge fund manager in Manhattan, has sold a Fifth Avenue apartment without the big profit he was expecting. It was originally bought as raw space by Lily Safra, the widow of the banker Edmond Safra, for $13.1 million then sold to Mr. Sandell in January 2005 for $13.6 million. He put it up for sale at just under $20 million but finally sold it for $15.8 million.
--The Christian Science church in the heart of Greenwich Village will soon be home to nine new 2,200-square-foot condominiums. The church is not leaving the space.

From The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties:
--Bank of America's chairman and chief executive, Kenneth D. Lewis, and his wife, Donna are selling the South Carolina vacation home they share with another couple for $3.795 million. The listing is here.

From Berg Properties Big Time Listings:
--Actor Noah Wyle has officially sold his 5,149-square-foot house in Los Angeles' Los Feliz area for $4,225,000.
--Max Weinberg, from the Conan O'Brien show recently sold his Santa Monica house and is trying to sell or rent his home in the Brentwood area for $8.2 million. The listing is here but it says status pending so perhaps it is already sold.
--Singer Pat Benatar and her guitarist husband, Neil Giraldo, have paid $1,675,000 to buy 9.83 acres in Malibu.
--James Haven, Angelina Jolie's brother, has sold his two-bedroom condo in West Hollywood for $635,000.

From the Real Estalker:
--Britney Spears has put her latest home back on the market. She has listed it with the furniture that she also bought with the house for $7.495 million. The listing is here.
--Damon Dash is selling his Benedict Canyon home. It is listed at $3.795 million.

From the LA Times Hot Property:
--Posh and Becks, otherwise known as David Beckham and his wife, Victoria may have looked at more than 20 homes before returning to London basically checking out every Westside estate listed in the $18-million-to-$30-million range.
--Macy Gray has sold her Encino home for its last asking price of about $5.6 million.
--The last home of actress Bette Davis, an apartment-turned-condo, has come on the market at close to $2.3 million. The listing is here.

Star Magazine is reporting that Britney Spears has bought this Mediterranean villa in Beverly Hills listed. The six-bedroom home is listed $7.2 million and the listing currently shows "sale pending" at the agent listing. Star reports that Britney looked at it on December 7 and stayed in the house for five hours, even getting ready for her evening out there.

The home was built in 2001 and has over 7400 square feet, of space including a double-height living room, office, media room and attached maid's quarters. Our friend Zillow reports that it was sold in 2002 for $2,650,000. Overall it's not a bad house, it's posh and spacious if perhaps a bit unremarkable. Sounds perfect for her.