From Stiller to Statham

The Hollywood Reporter reported today that British-born he-man actor Jason Statham has purchased actor/comedian Ben Stiller's two-mansion compound in the low-key but high-brow Outpost Estates neighborhood in Los Angeles.

Your Mama have no idea if this is truth or fiction–nor do any of the few informants we've queried–but we do know that The Hollywood Reporter has a very good track record with these celebrity real estate scoops. We also know that the virile action movie star–currently on the hot and heavy with panty and bra catwalker Rosie Huntington-Whitely–has been on quite a real estate tear the last couple of years.

First he bought a condo at the Broadway Hollywood building that he bought in July 2007 for $1,543,000 and–as per prop records–sold in late May 2011 for $1,200,000, a teeth-grinding $343,000 loss not counting carrying costs and real estate fees. In June 2009 the architecture appreciating Mister Statham splashed out a very a-list $10,950,000 for a contemporary wood and glass ocean front home in the guard-gated and celebrity-stocked Malibu Colony. Oddly enough, he sold his condo at the Broadway Hollywood to a couple who also own a home in the Malibu Colony. Most recently Mister Statham sold his modernist house above the Sunset Strip to talent agent Joel Lubin for $2,700,000 after just a few weeks on the open market with an asking price of $2,749,000.

For what it's worth, Mister Stiller's 10 bedroom and 11 crapper compound that still appears on the open market as active and available with an asking price of $11,495,000 but that doesn't, my dears, mean a damn thing butter beans. Wily real estate agents in Tinseltown who do deals with high-profile peeps have been known on occasion to attempt to fool all us real estate gossips and looky-loos by not changing the status of a property on the online listing(s) until every last transaction paper is signed, sealed, and delivered.

photo: Everett Fenton Gidley for Sotheby's International Real Estate