News About Properties

Boxing promoter Don King has relisted his more than three-acre oceanfront property in Manalapan, Fla., south of Palm Beach, for $20 million. The gated estate, which contains two homes, was originally offered in early 2009 for $27.5 million. Mr. King took it off the market last summer.

The larger of the two homes has nine bedrooms and nearly 18,000 square feet of living space. It’s built around a coquina stone courtyard with waterfalls and ponds. The smaller five-bedroom home has about 6,800 square feet, an outdoor cabana with a kitchen and an ice-cream parlor. There are two swimming pools and a replica of the Statue of Liberty in the yard. The property includes 300 feet of ocean and Intracoastal Waterway frontage.

Mr. King, 79, has represented clients like Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson. He purchased the larger house in 1999 for $7.8 million; he paid $6.5 million for the other house the same year. Mr. King’s wife, Henrietta, passed away in December at age 87.

via Real Estate News About Don King, Mel Gibson and the ‘Home Alone’ House | Private Properties.

Celebrity name-dropping, Twitter contests, skywriting planes and free grub are all strategies home sellers and real estate agents are using to entice buyers to the closing table in South Florida’s oversupplied and uncertain housing market.

The list of marketing gimmicks used to sell houses and condos has grown longer and more eccentric as the real estate market has struggled toward an awkward rebound, characterized by high sales volume and deeply discounted prices.

In terms of selling properties, the sellers’ strategies—which include catering to the ever-important international buyer—have helped push sales numbers to boom-time levels, although prices in parts of the market continue to sputter.

via South Florida home sales hit 6-year high in volume but not price.

The historic El Patio Hotel in downtown Venice has been sold for $2.195 million to longtime real estate investor and restaurateur David McRae.

The 16-room business at 229 W. Venice Ave. is the only remaining operational hotel in downtown Venice and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

It was built in 1927 and has been owned and operated by the Miles family since 1948.

via Venice’s historic El Patio Hotel is sold.

The Vasquezs are not unique; cash buys are becoming common. The number of homes bought with cash jumped to 32% in January compared to 26% a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.

In Southern California, about 30% of the sales in January were cash, according to DataQuick Information Systems. Same thing in Denver. In Phoenix and Las Vegas, cash sales topped 50% of all deals.

"I’m personally closing about 30 deals a month and at least 30% of them are all cash," said Ruth Pugh, a San Diego-area agent.

via More people are buying their homes with cash .

Things have been pretty bad in the mortgage business for the last three years. So, Phyllis Taylor found her paychecks getting slimmer.

Taylor, who works for a mortgage firm, could no longer afford her mortgage. She thought she might have to sell her house in Chesterfield and move to something cheaper.

Instead, she took out a "reverse mortgage" big enough to pay off her current home loan, along with some other debt. Her monthly payments disappeared.

"For me, it was a no brainer," said Taylor, who says she is "a little bit over 62" years old. "It eliminated a big headache."

via Reverse mortgages offer benefits, pitfalls.

Real estate: Candy Spelling gets $12-million price break on new penthouse

Candy Spelling’s long-pending purchase of a two-story penthouse condominium in Century City closed Wednesday at a reduced price that still made it one of the most expensive deals ever for a Los Angeles condo.The widow of TV mogul Aaron Spelling paid $35 million — or $2,250 per square foot — for the top two floors of the Century, a 41-story condo building completed in July on Avenue of the Stars.