Mish Mash Thursday

The bits and pieces stories win the morning:

1.
It seems that wildly rich rapper 50 Cent has his panties in a bunch and is suing mad over his Farmington, CT real estate white elephant that he bought in September of 2003 for $4,100,000 from the ex-wife of squeaky voiced boxer Mike Tyson.

According to recent reports, sometime prior to Mister Cent purchasing the 52-room monster manse he hired engineering firm BVH Integrated Services to give the sprawling 48,000+ square foot house the once over and provide an estimate of costs for repairs to the roof, decks and other things. BVH estimated the property needed about $500,000 in repairs, which is really just pin money to a man like Mister Cent who reportedly pocketed around $400,000,000 from a well timed investment in Glaceau, the beverage company in which he owned (or owns, we don't know) a 10% share.

However, in addition to about $3,000,000 in voluntary upgrades and renovations, Mister Cent claims the house required another $3,000,000 (or so) in repairs, repairs that he thinks should have been included in BVH's estimate. So, in 2006, three years after buying the property, Mister Cent was so pissed about having to spend so much moo-lah bringing the 19 bedroom beast up to par that he filed a lawsuit against BVH. The parties have been testifying this week and will continue to do so into next.

If the children will put on their thinking caps they will recall that Mister Cent hoisted his 17.6-acre estate onto the market in 2007 with a ridiculous asking price of $18,500,000 which was later whittled down to $12,000,000. Not surprisingly, there were no takers for this architecturally troubled hotel sized house with its 3,500 square foot disco, six kitchens, 37 terlits, Gucci themed billiard room, swimming pool with a Playboy style grotto and indoor shooting range.

Here's the real problem for Mister Cent as Your Mama sees it. No matter how the law suit turns out, he paid 4.1 million clams for the place and spent a reported six million more on repairs and renovations which means he's into the property for more than 10 million smackers. But puppies, who is going to pay ten million bucks for an over-sized mansion about which the BVH inspector testified is "not a high-quality, mansion-quality house. It was not built that way. It was relatively inexpensive construction." Oh. Ouch.

Mister Cent revealed on Tuesday that the property is no longer for sale and if Your Mama looked into our crystal ball we'd guess that Mister Cent will be staying put in his big house or selling the place off at loss once the suit is settled. But then again, what do we know and do we even care?

2.
Uh oh. Another Housewife is biting the real estate dust and this time it's Real Housewives of Orange County's resident real estate agent Jeana Keough who has reportedly had a Notice of Default filed on her casa in Coto de Caza, CA.

Apparently Miz Keough carries a hefty $1,300,000 mortgage on her primary residence and recently had two claims filed against the property, one for $37,538 in unpaid mortgage payments and another for $3,732 by the Coto de Caza homeowners association, presumably for unpaid community fees.

Miz Keough, who owns three additional properties in addition to her large home, is reportedly trying to do a loan modification and to qualify for a loan modification the mortgage and taxes must be in arrears. She went on to say, "The realty business is so bad." Yes, well, she's right. It is, partick down in that part of Orange County. However, while Your Mama never likes to see anyone tossed out on their reality tee-vee keister, it might have been a good idea for Miz Keough to save some damn money rather than buy her spoiled teenage children Audis and BMWs. Hindsight is 20/20 ain't it?

In other Housewife real estate news, the NY Post reported today that dee-vorcing Countess LuAnn de Lesseps has made her annual pilgrimage from the family's rented townhouse on Manhattan's East 62nd Street to her Bridgehampton beach house where she will reside for the summer. Where Miz Manners will go after Labor Day is unknown but at least she'll be on the boob-toob making her own money so she can afford her own apartment and not be living up under the same roof as her cheating spouse. Or, maybe, she and the unnaturally thin Bethenny Frankel can get a place together, share expenses, swap clothes and do a whole Sex In The City single gal roommate sort of thing.

3.
Back in July of 2008 Your Mama discussed the London house of former cat walker Elle Macpherson which she had listed for sale with an asking price of £9,500,000, a figure that at the time converted to a blistering $18,993,540 US.

After first shaving the asking price to £8,950,000, the Aussie born model turned bizzy bizness ladee again reduced the asking to £7,500,000, a figure that our bejeweled abacus indicates converts to $12,260,250 US at today's rates. That children, is a sere-ee-uhs mark down in real estate troubled London.

As an aside, the children might get a kick out of knowing that Miz Macpherson was once married to photographer Gilles Bensimon who is the same famous fashion photographer to whom New York City Housewife and (alleged) boyfriend beater Kelly Killoran Bensimon was married.

4.
London based former models aren't the only famous folks having to slash asking prices on their lavish and luxe properties. Oh no. Not by a long shot. The soon to be dee-vorced Oscar winning ack-tor Mel Gibson–who recently knocked up his new ladee friend out of wedlock which we're pretty sure is frowned upon by the Pope–has slashed the asking price of his Greenwich, CT estate from $39,500,000 to a still staggering $29,750,000.

The property includes 15 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, formal gardens, a swimming pool, stable, staff houses, a log cabin, tennis court and private pond. Unfortunately for Mister Gibson, he listed his meticulously maintained Tudor style pile just at the very time all the hedge fund money that propped up Greenwich's real estate market dried up.

5.
Back in Los Angeles, Your Mama hears a may-jer, multiple parcel property in Pacific Palisades is about to be put up for sale with an asking price in excess of $30,000,000. We'd bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly it will be shopped around off-market for a while before it arrives on the open market. We'd also bet those same long bodied bitches that the property details will be leaked to the Wall Street Journal before it's put on the open market for the rest of us plebes and real estate gossips to fawn over. This is how these things get done chickens.