Friday, October 9, 2009

UPDATE: Nic Cage

Poor, poor Nic Cage. The one time a-list actor who made upwards of $15,000,000 per film has been through the real estate ringer since he last got lucky and unloaded a Newport Beach, CA waterfront mansion in January of 2008 for an astronomical $35,000,000. He paid, it might please the children to know, $25,000,000.

Shortly thereafter, the economy–particularly the real estate markets–went to hell in a hand basket faster than Your Mama can down a tumbler of gin & tonic. Pretty soon the financially beleaguered and hair challenged Oscar winning actor had more than a half dozen lavish and expensive to maintain properties on the market including but not limited to a private island in the Bahamas, a Las Vegas mansion, a Bavarian schloss, a couple of historic mansions in New Orleans, a pied a terre in New York City's Olympic Tower, and an estate in Rhode Island with a 24,664 square foot sprawler. He's managed to unload the schloss and an historic townhouse in Bath–that's the U.K. puppies–but it's his legendary mansion in Bel Air, CA–first floated as a pocket listing in 2007 with an equilibrium upsetting $35,000,000–that has surely given him some of his worst real estate headaches and hassles.

The Bel Air property–nicely situated on Copa de Oro Road and formerly owned by Tom Jones and Dean Martin–failed to sell as a pocket listing and eventually, in late 2007, was put on the open market with that almost laughably large $35,000,000 price tag. The property languished, it was taken off the market, put back on the market, the price was reduced and eventually an asking price of $17,500,000 was slapped on the white elephant. But alas, that much reduced price didn't pull any buyers either, at least not any buyer's willing to pay seventeen million smackers.

In early September (2009), in a surprising and seemingly desperate move, the property was put up for a sealed bid scheduled for late September with a minimum bid of just $9,950,000. Shortly after the sealed bid deadline passed, the 7 bedroom and 9 pooper property popped back up on the open market with a familiar asking price of $17,500,000. Although the celebrity real estate watchers moaned and groaned and were very vocal about how it was self-defeating to slap a seventeen million dollar asking price on the house after indicating via the minimum auction bid that he was willing to negotiate at a much lower price we're told by someone who would know that the sealed bid process stirred up lots of interest which is why the property is now marked "looking for backup" on listing information indicating Mister Cage has accepted an offer and the buyer is doing their due diligence. What's going to be interesting is to see at what price the property actually sells. If anyone cares–and they really shouldn't because we don't know a apple from a pair of reading glasses–Your Mama would say somewhere between twelve and 13.5 million clams, a far cry from the thirty-five million he wanted but still far more than $6,469,000 property records show he paid for the 11,817 square foot white elephant in 1998.

Maybe, just maybe selling this house will help him square up with East West Bank who issued Mister Cage a two million dollar line of credit that according to court documents he has failed to pay. Oh dear. Will poor Mister Cage's epic real estate and financial saga ever end?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am I correct in thinking he also has "problems" with the IRS, or is that some other celebrity(ies)? BTW Mama, I worry about your drinking, not the gin so much but all the quinine. I think you can get quinine poisoning, can't you?

Anonymous said...

That is ridiculous.
The house should have sold to someone between $10-15 million no problem.
It is easily worth that.

Anonymous said...

I hope that his lesson in the RE market will drive the high end back down to 1998 prices in NY, SF, LA, Chicago

Now a high rate of high end estates and homes are going into forclosure, with no investor pools in sight who will bail them out ?

StPaulSnowman said...

As scruffy as he appears, he still has pretty great taste in houses........not so with interior decoration. I have been browsing the "hideously expensive real estate" websites and was amazed at the number of famous historic homes for sale, particularly in Newport, Rhode Island. Thank God for the Preservation Society of Newport. At least their properties will not fall prey to greedy condo developers and can still be enjoyed by all. I have to believe that the cost of maintaining these massive homes is bothering even the really wealthy.

Anonymous said...

Cry me a river.

He still made almost double on it.

Anonymous said...

3:11

Sold to you!

Now put up or shut up.

Anonymous said...

Olympic Tower apt is in contract.

Anonymous said...

I think you mean formerly owned by Tom Jones and Dean Martin :)

Anonymous said...

i just noticed last night that norm zada's house in beverly park is PENDING?!?!? mama you missed a big one, wtf is going on with this place ?

Jimmy said...

Geez, Mama, you've missed the INSIDE of the place.
http://www.radaronline.com/photos/image/13883#image-load

If that doesn't mess your mind, nothing will.

Anonymous said...

Mama needs to remove approval things... this blog has died since it was put into affect. Hopefully the naughty people went away... but I find it depressing... there usta be such whit in many comments and they jsut seem lacking lately

Anonymous said...

To the first poster: If you click on Mama's "financially beleaguered" link, you'll see the money woes spelled out. The IRS is after him for $6.2 mill in back taxes. Then a bank is after him for another $2 mil. He's been scrambling to unloads how many tens of millions in real estate over the past year? He knew he was under the financial gun. Still begs the question: How on earth did he think he could afford so many high-end properties? And I'm including property taxes and maintenance. He does have good taste but no common sense.

Mr T said...

He's heavily leveraged on his real estate deals. I'm not sure how he thought he could afford all these homes either? Even big movie stars cant afford a huge mansion on every coast, country and island.

Anonymous said...

I can't imagine owing the IRS six million dollars. The interest alone is staggering. It would be difficult for me to sleep at night.

Best of luck to Mr. Cage with his real estate sales. Many economists say the recession is over; some say inflation shouldn't be a problem. If the world decides to value oil in currencies other than the dollar, the *(@% could really hit the fan in the US. We'll see.

Addison said...

I thought Nic Cage was origianlly unloading all of his property because of a realization that the trend of uberpriced properties is waning rapidly, and that his portfolio is going to decrease by 50% over the next five years.

But then I read an article that showed that the need to liquidate is more pressing. He owes 6.5 million in back taxes to the governement.

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/Movies/2009/10/10/IRS-says-Cage-owes-635M-in-back-taxes/UPI-10511255207885/

Anonymous said...

What is it with all these people who post links to the same information that Mama provides links for in the posts? Are some of you people not reading the posts?

StPaulSnowman said...

The above posts beautifully illustrate the sad result of comment monitoring and the increased demands upon Mama's time and attention. In the past you could just scroll through the drivel and cussing and see what others said and thought almost "in real time" Now, depending upon Mama's social life and gintake, you may wait twelve hours for comments to show up. I am sure this has resulted in the dramatic decrease in the number of comments overall. I would visit for Mama's posts alone but the old comment spontaneity was a great bonus.

Ed said...

You know, I have to tell you Snowman (and others), you complaints about the monitoring of comments are so ridiculous.

I for one will take a delay in comments not to have to suffer through the drivel of cussing, name calling and inanity that had infected the comments section to the point that it became too cumbersome and tiresome to "scroll past" them to find the comment nuggets.

Before you starting whining there were just as many people complaining about how the vulgarity was ruining the comments section and vowed never to return. Can't please everyone can you?

StPaulSnowman said...

No Ed, you certainly cannot please everyone. I did not feel that I was whining. I was only offering one opinion about the results of comment monitoring.

Anonymous said...

If Nic Cage gets $12-13M on this place he should be happy. It is a huge home, although with a terribly small kitchen and not much of a yard. The front yard might be as big as the back yard and I don't think anyone is going to be hanging out next to the motor court in the front yard!

Anonymous said...

I have actually been in this house. For a meeting with the follicly challenged one himself. AND IT WAS FUCKING SPOOKY. Nobody needs that many suits of armor. I swear there was one in ever room. NOBODY.