DailyFinance.comhttp://www.dailyfinance.comDailyFinance.comhttp://o.aolcdn.com/os/df/2013/img/2-dailyfinance_logo_m.pngDailyFinance.comhttp://www.dailyfinance.comen-usCopyright 2013 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/Candy Spelling's Manor -- Candyland -- Sold!http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/14/most-expensive-home-in-the-u-s-is-sold/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/14/most-expensive-home-in-the-u-s-is-sold/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/14/most-expensive-home-in-the-u-s-is-sold/#commentsFiled under:

andy Spelling may be relinquishing her title of having the most expensive listing in America -- $150 million. The Manor, the home she built in 1990 with her husband TV magnate Aaron Spelling, is under contract to be sold to Petra Ecclestone, the 22-year-old daughter of Formula One magnate Bernie Ecclestone, AOL Real Estate has learned.

Although none of the listing agents would comment, the assumption is that Ecclestone, who is to be wed in August and divides her time between Los Angeles and Great Britain, paid the asking price since Spelling has refused to blink on the price. The home had been listed on-and-off for several years, always at $150 million. AOL has learned that it was an all-cash offer and is expected to close escrow within two weeks.

The 56,500-square-foot home has 123 rooms, which include 14 bedrooms and 27 baths. There is also a bowling alley, 16 covered parking spaces, and several rooms devoted to gift-wrapping and storing silverware. It sits on five prime acres in Holmby Hills.

A crowd of paparazzi were gathered on the street in front of the house today, leading some to conclude that the sale of the Spelling Manor had drawn international attention. It turns out that First Lady Michelle Obama was visiting across the street.

If the sale closes, expect these agents to be several million clams happier: Rick Hilton and Jeff Hyland of Hilton & Hyland and Sally Forster Jones of Coldwell Banker. Hilton and David Kramer, also of Hilton and Hyland, represented the buyer.

Meanwhile, Spelling is expected to move into the penthouse of the Century, a newly constructed building. Her two-floor unit, while substantially smaller than the Manor at just 16,500 square feet, has a killer 360-degree view. The lower floor of her new digs has a living room with two fireplace and dining room that seats 25. The upstairs master suite is about 4,000 square feet. There is also a conservatory with a rose garden, a swimming pool and deck.

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]]>Kendra BarnettTue, 14 Jun 2011 06:00:00 EST'Best Time' Ever to Buy a Home? Best-Selling Author Says Yeshttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/02/best-time-ever-to-buy-a-home-best-selling-author-says-yes/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/02/best-time-ever-to-buy-a-home-best-selling-author-says-yes/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06/02/best-time-ever-to-buy-a-home-best-selling-author-says-yes/#commentsFiled under: ,

Adam Leitman Bailey is author of The New York Times best-seller "Finding the Uncommon Deal." He believes that this is the best time in modern real estate history to be buying a home. (Read a sample chapter here.)

AOL Real Estate interviewed Bailey about the market and how savvy home shoppers can find the steal of the century.

So many homes today are being bought by investors. How can John Q. Public compete with the pros and snag an honest-to-goodness bargain in today's real estate market?

Today, more than any other time in history, information is the key. You need to become an expert on your local market. There are three things you must do: Look within a small geographic area; look intensely for a short period of time; look at many, many properties.

After a while, you will know what the price should be and will spot a bargain when you see it. Spreading out your search over various neighborhoods, or taking a year to do it, or only going to open houses on Sundays won't cut it. The market is rapidly changing and very hyper-localized. Focus narrowly and focus intensely.

Anything else to know to uncover bargains?

Yes, you need to understand the distressed market and the new tools and weapons at your disposal to find an uncommon deal. Play the short sales game. A short sale signals a seller in trouble, trying to avoid foreclosure -- but in order to do that, they need to beg the bank to let them off the hook.

Some sellers don't have the communication skills to get the deal done. As a buyer, ask the seller's permission to speak to the bank. To do that, you need a contract and make sure you can get out of the deal in no more than 90 days. Make sure you have the property inspected too. Sometimes the repairs cost as much as the house; you don't want that.

Many people find the prospect of buying a distressed property daunting. Is it really a good idea?

This distressed market presents the greatest buying opportunity. At the same time, it's also the most difficult market. You can become very rich. The housing market won't recover for years, but if you buy a place and live it, you likely will have enough equity over time so that it becomes an asset in your retirement. I believe prices will continue to drop for another couple of years.

What is biggest obstacle people face right now in the homebuying market?

Their credit scores. Banks won't give out loans unless you have great credit.

With so many people losing their homes to foreclosures or selling short, will lenders stick to their policy of not giving loans again for seven years to those who default -- meaning none of these people will be able to re-enter the homebuying market?

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If Obama wants to really do something for Americans, he should address the seven-year rule. It needs to be legislated that short sales don't bring down your credit scores so badly. This of course raises the question of whether the government should be telling private business how to run itself.

How's the short-term future looking to you?

There are more problems coming. Higher unemployment.... Business can't keep making bad loans. Maybe it's not such a horrible thing to deny people loans when they can't afford them.

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]]>home saleshousingreal estatetime to buy a homeKendra BarnettThu, 02 Jun 2011 16:00:00 ESTCredit Score Catch-22: Mortgage Shopping Can Raise Your Ratehttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/20/credit-score-catch-22-mortgage-shopping-can-raise-your-rate/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/20/credit-score-catch-22-mortgage-shopping-can-raise-your-rate/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/20/credit-score-catch-22-mortgage-shopping-can-raise-your-rate/#commentsFiled under: , ,

By Ann Brenoff, AOL Real Estate

It's a Catch-22 if ever there was one. The very process of shopping around for a low interest rate on a mortgage can adversely impact your credit score and cost you your eligibility for the cheaper loan you're seeking.

Each time a lender does what is known as a "hard pull" on your credit report, their action actually shaves a few points off your score. A lower credit score means a higher mortgage rate. (You can check your own score 500 times a day and it won't matter. A hard pull is when a third party checks your score with the intent of extending you credit.)

With lenders tightening the noose, credit scores have become a matter of great concern for home buyers struggling to qualify for loans. Getting a favorable loan rate can mean saving hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of the loan, so the idea that just in the course of loan-shopping you are doing yourself financial damage is logic-defying. But it's true.

The one break you can get is to do all your loan shopping within a two-week window. All checks done within this period will count as one -- and drop your credit score by just two to five points. But step outside that window, and each hard pull of your credit will cost you two to five points. Shop among eight lenders and you could see your scores drop by 40 points -- a drop that takes at least six months to recover from.

Tracy Becker, a national credit-score specialist located in New York's Hudson Valley and founder of the 20-year-old North Shore Advisory, offers these tips:

1. Don't open or close any credit accounts for three months prior to applying for a loan.

Yes, you read that right: Closing a credit account hurts just as much as opening a new one. Even the act of ending your car lease will cost you up to 60 points on your credit score.

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Somewhere, some place, some analyst determined that one of the symptoms of a person about to go into default was that they began to close credit accounts. Well, duh. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you find yourself overextended? Apparently the credit scorekeepers lump the financially solvent in with the defaulters' profile. So if your car lease is about to expire, extend it for three months while you loan shop, says Becker. And don't apply to increase your credit limits on any cards or take out any new ones.

2. Don't apply for a loan until you have a signed contract to buy a house and then do an intense day of loan-shopping.

The idea is to have all your hard pulls done within the 14-day window. One obvious problem is that not all home deals come to fruition. Estimates are that about 35 percent of open escrows fall apart. That means that those 35 percent of buyers will likely be back out there looking for another home and another home loan. And when they find it, their earlier efforts could work against them. The one glimmer of reasonableness here is that if you return within 90 days to the initial lender you approached, they will consider the credit score they pulled on that first go-round.

Becker had a client about a year ago who wanted to refinance his Long Island home. Not knowing the rules, he shopped for a loan about 30 times over a five-month period. He also went shopping for a car loan, got a credit card limit increase and was looking for a student loan for his daughter. The result: His credit score dropped 40 points and he couldn't get the mortgage loan he wanted, at a cost to him of an extra $600 a month.

Another of her clients had a credit score of 722 when he started looking to refinance his home. But he went out and bought a car, dropping his score by four points. Once under the credit threshold of 720, the refi application was denied. "Ultimately he paid down some balances and got back the extra points, but it was a lot of stress, a lot of paperwork and two-and-a-half months to get the loan he wanted," says Becker.

3. Don't let your balances exceed more than 10 percent of your available credit for at least three months, and pay your bills on time.

Getting a home loan these days is hard for everyone, and near impossible for those who have bad credit. Becker says to keep your balances below 10 percent of your available credit for at least three months prior to applying. That means if you have a credit card with a ceiling of $10,000, don't let the balance exceed $1,000. And since the credit reporting bureaus don't update their sites daily, you need to allow for a three-month delay.

FICO last month released information about how easily even a single unpaid bill can wreak havoc with your credit score. If you have a score of 780 and are 30 days late on your mortgage, your score will drop to 670 and it will take you three years to recover it. (Obviously, the F in FICO doesn't stand for Forgiveness.)

Credit consultant and head of New Start Financial Corp. Wayne Sanford -- a.k.a. "Wayne the Credit Guy" -- says that credit scores are just part of the equation.

He recently worked with a Texas family trying to buy a $330,000 home in Plano. The couple was ready to put $150,000 on the purchase and had scores of 690 and 740 between them. Yet the loan was flagged because a well-known national furniture store had marked their account as having a "consumer dispute." It was a computer error; the account had never been disputed and had in fact been paid in full on time and was closed. Nevertheless, it held up their loan and they almost lost their house deal.

Sanford advises running regular checks on your credit--which, by the way, won't impact your scores.

For more on credit scores and related topics, see these AOL Real Estate guides:


More on AOL Real Estate:
Find out how to calculate mortgage payments.
Find homes for sale in your area.
Find foreclosures in your area.
Get property tax help from our experts.

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]]>advicebuy a houseconsumer financecredit reportcredit scoreFICO scoreshome loansinterest ratesmortgage ratesmortgagesreal estatetipsKendra BarnettFri, 20 May 2011 12:30:00 ESTWho Gets the House? Estate-Planning Don'ts From Celebshttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/13/who-gets-the-house-estate-planning-donts-from-celebs/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/13/who-gets-the-house-estate-planning-donts-from-celebs/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/13/who-gets-the-house-estate-planning-donts-from-celebs/#commentsFiled under: ,

Recently we wrote about real estate and divorce. But breakups aren't the only partings that can get messy when it comes to property. Death has a way of sending real estate holdings into the same kind of turmoil.

Should the daughter who moved in with her mother to take care of her be allowed to live in the house after Mom dies? Should the new wife get the home the first family was raised in? What if four siblings inherit a vacation home and all but one want to sell it?

Family dynamics and human nature transcend wealth and fame. The issues of how to pass on your real estate holdings have played out on a public stage, thanks to celebrities like Michael Jackson and Katharine Hepburn. There are lessons to be learned from them.

AOL Real Estate spoke with attorney Danielle Mayoras, co-author of "Trial and Heirs," for advice on how to avoid property-inheritance mistakes.

1. Don't rely on verbal agreements.

Singer Don Ho, according to several of his adult children, made a promise to his estranged first wife on her deathbed that he would let their six children inherit the family's beachfront home in Lanikai, Hawaii. The eight-bedroom house had been in the family for decades and was where his first wife lived until her death. The problem: Ho made his promise verbally, never in writing. He subsequently listed the house for sale, but his adult children reportedly didn't think he was serious, nor did they think anyone would pay the asking price of $10 million, so they took no legal steps to block it.

While the home was still on the market, Ho died of a heart failure. The trust lowered the price on the 17,000-square-foot estate to $6.8 million - at which point all heck broke out among Ho's 10 children, including four from subsequent relationships. The Lanikai house sold for $6.05 million in 2008, but that hasn't stopped the squabbling. About a month ago, six of the adult children were forcibly evicted by the police from Ho's Diamond Head property. Figure the only winners in this ongoing legal battle are the lawyers who are getting richer.

Much of the squabbling would have been eliminated had Ho's alleged verbal promise been put in writing, says Mayoras.


2. Don't just create a trust; fund it too.

As detailed in Mayoras' book, Michael Jackson created a family trust - but he didn't transfer his assets into it. A startling number of trusts are created and then left unfunded, she says. In the case of a home, a new deed must be prepared that transfers ownership of the property from your name into the trust's name, a transfer that must be signed and recorded. "It's like transferring your cash from one pants pocket to the other one," Mayoras says.

Because Jackson never took that step, his family had to go through probate court and expose all his dirty laundry to the public eye. If the trust had been properly funded, probate wouldn't have been necessary - although we suspect Michaelmaniacs would have still found a way to poke their noses into the affairs of the estate.


3. Prove your competency at the time you write your will.

More than one eyebrow was raised when Florida heiress Gail Posner left $3 million in cash and a house worth $8 million to her three dogs. She also left $27 million to her household staff, caregivers and body guards. Much to his chagrin, her only son got just $1 million. The case is in the court system right now and thus far, the son has not been successful in his legal challenge claiming the staff exerted undue influence on his mother, but Posner's mental competency has certainly been called into question.

Bottom line, says Mayoras, "if you are going to do something creative with your assets -- like give an $8 million house to your dogs -- make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's." Specifically, she suggests taking a few extra steps to prove you are of sound mind when you made these decisions. She suggests having a lawyer videotape you reading your will, maybe even explaining your choices. A doctor's letter confirming mental competency can be attached.


4. Expect post-mortem disagreements and address them while you are alive.

Whether you leave your assets to your pet, a la Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley, or to your favorite charity, you can pretty much expect your human children, spouses, former spouses and business partners to wonder why they didn't get more. Even in families that get along, there are frequently disputes about the division of assets after someone dies.

Know what you want to do and spell it out clearly -- which, of course, is often easier said than done.

celeb estate In the case of actress Katharine Hepburn's New York townhouse (pictured), the listing agent recalls being mortified to learn that before putting it on the market, Hepburn's heirs stripped the Turtle Bay Gardens home of all personal possessions and painted the walls white.

"Imagine Katharine Hepburn with white walls," says an incredulous Eileen Robert of the Corcoran Group. All the celebrity premium Robert had hoped to use in marketing was gone. "You had no sense that Hepburn had lived here."

Robert remedied the problem of "where'd Katharine go?" by finding old photos of the elegant actress and blowing them up to life size. She placed them in the rooms where they had been taken - Hepburn in the kitchen, Hepburn at her dressing table, Hepburn writing a letter.

It worked, and the unit sold for around $4 million. The unit is now available for lease at $25,000 a month through Trudy Schlachter of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

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]]>celebrity real estateKendra BarnettFri, 13 May 2011 07:53:00 ESTChoosing a Real Estate Agent: Beware These Little White Lieshttp://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/10/choosing-a-real-estate-agent-beware-these-little-white-lies/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/10/choosing-a-real-estate-agent-beware-these-little-white-lies/http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/05/10/choosing-a-real-estate-agent-beware-these-little-white-lies/#commentsFiled under: ,

Real estate agents are our friends and business partners, right? Actually, maybe not. While on a personal level, many agents are lovely people, buyers and sellers frequently mistake the relationship for a friendship -- and that's not a good thing. An agent may be representing you in the largest money transaction of your life, but he or she is there for a very specific reason: to earn a living. And the only way an agent does that is when a deal closes escrow.

So: No deal, no money. Suddenly agents' interests don't appear quite so precisely aligned with yours, do they?

To be fair, agents rely on repeat clients and recommendations from those who are satisfied with their work. But you need to protect yourself too. When you interview agents to sell your house, listen carefully for these statements. If you hear one, proceed with caution.

1. "I think I have a buyer for your house." In an initial listing appointment, agents frequently hint that they have a potential buyer for the home. It plants the idea in the seller's mind that this could be a done deal sooner rather than later -- and that's music to the ears of sellers who would love to skip the part where you have to keep the house immaculate and show-ready. But that's not a good enough reason to give the guy your listing; if he really has a buyer, he'll show your house even if you list with someone else.

2. "We just got a great offer!" The offer is significantly less than you -- based on your agent's advice -- just listed your home for. So what's so great about that? In most cases, an offer can be seen as an opening volley. That's fine. But let's call a spade a spade. Kudos to the agents who present low-ball offers with the admission that the only great news here is that someone is interested in negotiating with you. An agent who states it otherwise is just trying to get to the finish line, where his commission check is waiting.

3. "There's no problem with me representing both the buyer and the seller." It may not be a problem for your agent, but it could very well be a problem for you. A seller wants every last nickel he can squeeze from the sale of his house and a buyer wants to avoid overpaying by that very same nickel. How can one person really represent both those interests at the same time? Dual agency isn't allowed in many states, and in states where real estate licensing laws permit it, the practice must be disclosed to both buyer and seller, said the National Association of Realtors. If you live in a state where the practice is allowed, the only way to avoid it is to work with an exclusive buyer's agent -- someone who doesn't take listings or work for an agency that also represents sellers. You can find one here. And if you're stuck in a dual agency situation, show your agent these guidelines that he is expected to follow.

4. "In my office, all the agents are like a family." A family of snakes who eat their young, perhaps. Sure, they may all share the water cooler, but agents are in competition with one another, even the ones who share the same office space. They compete for listings and for the loyalties of buyers. There are plenty of stories about the town's barracuda agent (and every town has one) who sabotages a co-worker's deal to get their own client in the house. How does it affect the real estate consumer? You want your agent to be discreet. The reasons why you are selling or the size of your budget is information that can't be shared with the guy whose desk his abuts. Ask around town for references. The top agents are the top agents for a reason.

5. "I didn't see anything in the title report of concern." Not actually a lie if they haven't looked at it, is it? Getting a clear title is of paramount importance to the buyer. As a buyer, you need to have a title that is free of encumbrances, something that proves the seller has the absolute right to sell you the house. Technically, it's not the real estate agent's job to alert you to potential problems, but the good ones will flag them if they see them. Those are the agents you want on your side. It's worth having the title report looked at by an attorney. You can also take some comfort if the title insurer issues you a policy; they actually do read those title reports.

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]]>Kendra BarnettTue, 10 May 2011 07:24:00 EST