UPDATE: Ellen Degeneres

Foreclosures may be up and the mortgage mess might be wreaking havoc on middle-class homeowners, but the rich and famous still have plenty of money to buy, sell and flip high end houses. The Wall Street Journal's Private Properties column reported this week that perpetual and peripatetic house hopper Ellen Degeneres and her ladee lover Portia Di Rossi have a deal on their meticulously manicured 4-acre Montecito estate. The children will recall that the gurls bought the property just 14 months ago for a reported $15,750,000, made a few improvements and whipped around and put the George Washington Smith designed Mediterranean style estate back on the market for a staggering $24,000,000. No word on what amount the new owners will be paying for the property, but we can all safely assume that it will be enough to put millions into Ellen's beige Birkin bag.

The paper also reports what Your Mama revealed back in late October that Miz Degeneres and Di Rossi have purchased Will and Grace co-creator Max Mutchnick's recently over-hauled 8,800 (approx.) square foot Bev Hills house. Your Mama has also heard that Mister Mutchnick spent many millions doing over the long and low house that once belonged to professional behatcha Joan Collins. We understand that a new swimming pool was installed with a series of rooms underneath. Yes children, underneath the swimming pool.

This is not the first house the Miz Degeneres has purchased from Mister Mutchnick. According to property records and one of Your Mama's finest sources, Miz Degeneres purchased a house on Woodstock Road from Mister Mutchnick back in April of 2003. The house has since been sold to freakishly successful funny man Will Ferrell.

Although the sale price has not been disclosed, revealed or reported, Your Mama hears from inside sources that the gurls paid $26-30,000,000 for Cabrillo Drive property. We have no way of confirming the purchase price children, so realize that number is just gossip and hearsay at this point, and not hand-on-the-bible truth. According to the WSJ, the purchase price, whatever it was, included much of the furnishings and artwork.

Although property records do not indicate a sale, Your Mama also hears from more than one Beverly Hills blabbermouth that the real estate rich lesbians also bought the house across the street from their new digs, which is owned by celebrity real estate agent Jade Mills.

We have to wonder how long these two will stay living in this house up on Cabrillo Drive. For their own stability, we hope a very long time. For our sake, we hope that pack it up in less than a year because we just love discussing there constant moving.