This must be celebrity mortgage victim day. Donald Trump has agreed to buy Ed McMahon's house -- which was threatened with foreclosure -- and lease it back to him, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Mega-developer and TV personality Donald Trump has agreed to buy Ed McMahon's Beverly Hills house for an undisclosed amount and allow McMahon to continue living in it. Details of the deal are still being ironed out.

"I don't know the man, but I grew up watching him on TV," Trump said in an exclusive interview with The Times.

McMahon, 85, was facing foreclosure within two weeks on his Beverly Hills home of 18 years. The aging television icon, who was Johnny Carson's sidekick for three decades, defaulted on $4.8 million in mortgage loans with Countrywide Financial Corp. He said in interviews that he was unable to work because of a neck injury that occurred about 18 months ago.

Trump said he stepped in because helping McMahon "would be an honor." His plan is to buy the home from the lender and lease it back to McMahon.

"When I was at the Wharton School of Business," Trump said, "I'd watch him every night. How could this happen?"

Posted by Jay Hancock at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Remember Laura Richardson, the (Democratic) congresswoman from California who defaulted on her mortgage and had her Sacramento home foreclosed on and auctioned? She got it back, but now the city of Sacramento has declared it a public nuisance. From the Los Angeles Times:

First Rep. Laura Richardson was having problems making house payments, defaulting six times over eight years.

Then after a bank foreclosed on her Sacramento house and sold it at auction in May, the Long Beach Democrat made such a stink that Washington Mutual, in an unusual move, grabbed it back and returned it to her.

This week, in the latest chapter in the housing saga, the Code Enforcement Department in Sacramento declared her home a "public nuisance."

The city has threatened to fine her as much as $5,000 a month if she doesn't fix it up.

Neighbors in the upper-middle-class neighborhood complain that the sprinklers are never turned on and the grass and plants are dead or dying. The gate is broken, and windows are covered with brown paper.

"I would call it an eyesore," said Peter Thomsen, a retired bank executive who lives nearby.

The city action was prompted by police action.

Police were twice called to investigate reports of a suspicious person in or around the house, perhaps a homeless man squatting there. Officers called the Code Enforcement Department, which boarded up a broken door.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 3:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Celebrity housing victims. Former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince, who helped fuel the housing boom with billions in cheap and easy mortgages, now seems to be paying the price in the aftermath. From Bloomberg, via Big Picture:

Former Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Charles O. ``Chuck'' Prince III lost his job because of the housing slump. Now he's having a hard time selling his home.

Prince's five-bedroom Tudor-style house in Greenwich, Connecticut, has been on the market for six months. He has cut the price by $300,000 to $5.85 million, according to the property listing.

The housing recession has hit the bedroom communities that Wall Street favors most. The median home price fell 8.1 percent in Greenwich in the first quarter from a year earlier. Declines were as much as 25 percent in 14 of 19 wealthy Manhattan suburbs in Connecticut, New Jersey and Westchester County, New York, since the start of the year, according to a Bloomberg survey of brokers and multiple listing services.

...Prince, 58, who according to public records paid less than $4.48 million in 2003 for the Greenwich house with barrel-vaulted ceilings, south-facing terraces, a swimming pool and 2.3 acres of land. It was the same year he succeeded his mentor Sanford Weill at Citigroup.

Posted by Jay Hancock at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

McMahon is $644,000 behind on his mortgage payments on a house that's on the market for $6.25 million. If we add Ed to Jose Canseco and that California congresswomen, previously chronicled in this space, we have an official new blog category: Celebrity Mortgage Victims. From the AP story:

"If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens," McMahon said Thursday night on CNN's "Larry King Live." ''You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that. And, you know, things happen."

Asked why a millionaire couldn't make house payments, Pamela McMahon said the couple had less money than people may think and suggested they could have done a better job managing their finances.

"We didn't keep our eye on the ball. We made mistakes," she said. "It's embarrassing to say the least, and it's sad, because you know, Ed's worked his whole entire life."

Posted by Jay Hancock at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)