UPDATE: Babajian and Grasso

A little Sunday reading for the kids.

Your Mama has received many requests for information about indicted celebrity real estate agents Joseph Babajian and Kyle Grasso. While whispers and rumors continue to sweep along Sunset Boulevard, little real information has been revealed about the fates of the former top producers...until last week. In case the children missed it, the Los Angeles Times printed a thorough update about the current and fascinating state of affairs.

Your Mama is glued to this story like white on rice. We've got hugely successful brokers who made millions from big name clients like David and Victoria Beckham, Ryan Seacrest and Oscar de la Hoya, and allegedly risked it all for a few hundred thousand more. We've got the venerable investment bank Lehman Brothers writing down millions in bad real estate loans because they were duped by just about everyone. We've got straw buyers, obscenely over-valued properties and forged paper work. We've got the F.B.I. investigating, bigamists on the run, and showboating attorney Thomas Mesereau representing Mister Babajian, whose Trousdale Estates house remains on the market for $6,985,000.

Look for this mess to be turned into a Sunday night movie on USA or Lifetime.

According to the LA Times, Mssrs. Babajian and Grasso are scheduled to be tried in July unless some sort of plea agreement is reached, which seems unlikely given that both men pleaded not guilty and their attorneys are quoted in the LA Times saying their clients are innocent, expect to be acquitted and will be vindicated. We'll see.

Our pal over at Real Sedated predicts the embattled Prudential agents will be fined, forever stripped of their real estate licenses and set free. Your Mama wonders, if they might also be made to spend a little time up in Lompoc where they can read, do macramé and network with other well to do white collar criminals. After all, a jury of their peers is unlikely to see them as sympathetic figures. Real estate agents are seldom well thought of by the general public and those accused of bank fraud and money laundering face an steep uphill battle in a room full of folks struggling to pay their mortgages.

Stay tuned.

Burt Reynolds Downsizing in Florida

SELLER: Burt Reynolds
LOCATION: SE Federal Highway, Hobe Sound, FL
PRICE: $10,500,000
SIZE: 12,500 (approx.), 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: Extremely desirable, hard to find private three acre estate. Neighboring State Park, & directly located on Intrac. overlooking Jupiter Isl., large yacht dockage, private two bedroom guest house, billiard & cinema rooms.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Okay children, today we are discussing the home of a senior citizen, so Your Mama will try and be as kind and respectful as our nerve medication will allow. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 71 year old Academy Award nominated and Emmy winning ack-tur Burt Reynolds has drastically reduced the price of his waterfront estate in Hobe Sound, Florida.

Mister Reynolds' estate, only about 15 miles north of Palm Beach was first put on the market in 2005 with a listing price of $15,000,000, which was stoopidly raised to $15,900,000 about a year ago before being chopped to $12,900,000 last summer and then slashed again to it's current asking price of $10,500,000.

According to Mister Reynolds' PR flak, who was interviewed by the gal who writes the always informative Private Properties column at The Journal, stated that the 1970s sex symbol was downsizing from the 12,500 square foot mansion because he no longer has use "for something so huge." The spokesman went on to say that Mister Reynolds intends to purchase something smaller in the area and at any rate, the WSJ article indicates, Mister Reynolds' primary residence is in Beverly Hills.

Back in 1980, when Mister Burt Reynolds was still a mustachioed piece of silver screen beefcake who sassily popped gum and posed nekkid as a hirsute jaybird in the glossy pages of Cosmopolitan, he scooped up this Hobe Sound hacienda for a mere $700,000. You read that correctly children, $700,000.

Presumably this is just one of several poorly decorated homes that Mister Reynolds shared with the seemingly ageless Miz Anderson. Your Mama happens to have a soft spot in our cold heart for Miz Anderson, who unfortunately hasn't changed her lacquered hair-do since her salad days on WKRP in Cincinnati. Burt's ex participated in a few real estate transactions of her own recently when she unloaded her disturbing mausoleum of 1980s era trad decor in Mulholland Estates and reportedly purchased a 4,300 square foot freshly built Montecito-style mini-manse in Sherman Oaks.

According to property records and listing information, Mister Reynolds' three acre spread butts up against a State Park, and the 12,500 (approx.) square foot Mediterranean style house features 5 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a billiard room, a cinema room and a 2 bedroom guest house.

Your Mama's stomach is weak today, so we're just going to sum up our two cents in as few words as possible and then we're going move on and let the children slice and dice the place. The setting is lovely (if you dig this part of Florida, which Your Mama does not) and the enormously long driveway, water side swimming pool, helipad, and dock space large enough for a big ol' yacht are all nice features in a high priced Florida getaway.

But Jeezis, Mary and Joseph the interior spaces are a hot mess and Your Mama would Cannonball Run outta that house as quickly as our little legs could carry us before our eyeballs burned up in their sockets from looking too closely at the decorating disaster that is Mister Reynolds residence. Please note the migraine inducing pink and paneled game room with the stuffed bear and also that snowball like dining room chandelier which probably hasn't been touched since Loni lived there and very well might still have a tuft of her shellacked hair clinging to it. Ugh!

Oh Burt. Your Mama is just so disappointed. We really hoped you would have gone the extra mile and used some of your deep pockets and big bank accounts to hire a nice gay decorator to update and do over your house with the restraint and style benefiting an aging film and television icon like yourself. Perhaps in your next and more modest digs you'll see fit to have someone help you edit your lifetime worth of memorabilia and shape it into a killer and coherent collection that succinctly reflects your long, long career rather than looking like piles of clutter and junk you're too lazy to take to the dump.

UPDATE: Simon Fuller

Your Mama hears from Junebug that the Simon Fuller house we discussed yesterday is actually quietly on the market. Junebug hears through the gossip grapevine that the house is being shopped at $8,500,000.

Junebug also reveals that Mister Fuller purchased the Tanager Way house as an interim property while his Bev Hills property was being renovated. That renovation is complete (or nearly complete), and Mister Fuller can finally move in to his Ridgedale Drive manse that's just a few doors down from Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman's compound which remains on the market with a fat asking price of $31,900,000.