Widow of Legendary TV Producer to Sell Priciest House in Nation to Daughter of Formula One Tycoon

By JULIET CHUNG And CANDACE JACKSON

The long-running drama over the sale of the highest-priced home in the U.S. appears to be heading to its finale.

Candy Spelling’s 57,000-square foot Los Angeles home, which had a $150 million asking price, is in contract to be sold to 22-year-old heiress Petra Ecclestone, daughter of billionaire Formula One racing boss Bernard Ecclestone. WSJ’s Juliet Chung and Candace Jackson report.

The 57,000-square foot Los Angeles mansion built by the late TV producer Aaron Spelling is slated for sale to a 22-year-old heiress to a Formula One racing fortune. The home on five acres of property in Holmby Hills has a bowling alley, beauty salon, several gift-wrapping rooms and parking for 100 cars.

“The Manor,” as the property is known, had a list price of $150 million that didn’t budge during the real-estate downturn that sent prices in Los Angeles down by more than a third. The sales price was not disclosed.

The buyer, Petra Ecclestone, will be splitting her time between London and Los Angeles after her planned August wedding to entrepreneur James Stunt, according to a spokeswoman. Ms. Ecclestone’s father is the British billionaire and Formula One racing boss Bernie Ecclestone.

The seller, Candy Spelling, Mr. Spelling’s widow, declined to comment. Mr. Spelling produced such TV shows as “Mod Squad,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Dynasty,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Beverly Hills, 90210,” and “Melrose Place.”

Spelling Mansion Sells

Ms. Spelling and her husband bought the property in the early 1980s and tore down the existing house to build the French chateau-style home in 1991. The home has a double staircase inspired by “Gone With the Wind.” It was considered the largest home in Los Angeles by far when it was built.

There’s also a flower-cutting room, a china room, a “Prince Charles suite,” named after its one-time royal guest, and a library in which Ms. Spelling bound her husband’s scripts. The estate has been shown since 2008 and was officially listed in March 2009.

If completed, the sale would underscore the importance of foreign buyers in the U.S. real-estate market. Earlier this year, Russian investor Yuri Milner bought a Silicon Valley home for $100 million, the highest-known price paid for a single-family home in the U.S.

Russian composer Igor Krutoy and his wife, Olga, recently bought a condominium at New York’s Plaza for $48 million.

Overall, though, the real-estate market in the U.S. is struggling, with prices sinking to 2002 levels in the first quarter, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller National Index released earlier this month.

Getty ImagesPetra Ecclestone during the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix in May.

Petra Ecclestone also has a six-story house in London’s Chelsea neighborhood purchased for £56 million ($90.9 million), according to press reports. In 2004, her father sold a mansion in Kensington Palace Gardens to steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal for £57 million, according to reports.

Ms. Spelling has said she wanted to downsize. She closed in December 2010 on a 15,555-square-foot condominium in nearby Century City for $35 million.

She had earlier agreed to pay $47 million for the two-story penthouse in Related Cos. Art Deco-inspired tower, “The Century,” but Related dropped prices amid the weak market. The new price also reflected a smaller square footage and other changes.

Rick Hilton and David Kramer of Hilton & Hyland, a Christie’s International Real Estate affiliate, represent Ms. Ecclestone. Mr. Hilton and Jeff Hyland of the same firm share the listing with Sally Forster Jones of Coldwell Banker.

Write to Juliet Chung at juliet.chung@wsj.com and Candace Jackson at candace.jackson@wsj.com

This article is from Highest Price Home in US is selling… Asking? 150 Million! | Miami Real Estate Today

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2505 FLAMINGO DR, Miami Beach, FL 33140 (MLS # A1514645)

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Contemporary 4 bedrooms 3 baths + guesthouse 1 bedroom 1 bath. Magnificent view & natural light. 6,000 square foots + 1,000 covered patio. Master with 3 walkin closets. One bedroom has a loft and private door entrance. High impact glass windows 2007. Perfect home for family living & grand entertaining. Pool cabana bath with sauna. 2 car garage with AC. Best priced waterfront home in Miami Beach. Wonderful view facing widest part of the canal, walking distance to 25th Street & Collins Ave & the beach.

Property Type(s): Single Family

Last Updated	2/9/2012	Tract	FLAMINGO TERRACE EXTN
Year Built	1976	Community	n/a
Garage Spaces	2.0	County	Miami-Dade County
Total Parking	3	Walk Score ®	80

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Listed with Keller Williams Realty SW

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This article is from Miami Beach Alton Road Foreclosure Just Hit Market | Miami Real Estate Today

By ARIAN CAMPO-FLORES

Jason Henry for The Wall StreetThe Brickell Irish Pub in downtown Miami. 

MIAMI—When the real estate market collapsed five years ago, this city’s downtown soon became an emblem of the worst excesses of the building boom. Glittering new towers sat mostly vacant.

Those towers are filling up much sooner than some analysts predicted. The new arrivals, mostly renters, are spurring the establishment of restaurants, bars and shops. Streets that once grew desolate at the end of the workday now buzz with residents walking around and dining at outdoor tables.

“A few years ago, you couldn’t be here at night without dogs and guns,” said William Richey, a 68-year-old lawyer who lives in the Central Business District, while dining one recent evening at Trë, a new bistro. “Now it’s full of life.”

Downtown Miami Rebounds

Jason Henry for The Wall Street JournalThe Epic, a new residential and hotel tower, sits in the heart of downtown Miami.

A February report by the Miami Downtown Development Authority found that 85% of new condo units, those built since 2003, were occupied, up from 74% in 2010 and 62% in 2009. The residential population of downtown—which, broadly defined, stretches from the emerging Wynwood arts neighborhood in the north to the gritty CBD to the flashier Brickell financial district in the south—now numbers about 70,000, compared with 40,000 a decade ago. Another 10,000 people are expected to move in by 2014, according to the Development Authority.

Ambitious new projects are on the way. In April, Hong Kong-based Swire Properties unveiled plans for Brickell CitiCentre, a five-million-square-foot development with a hotel, residences, office towers and retail outlets. Construction is expected to begin next year. Last week, Genting Malaysia Berhad, of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, announced a deal to buy 14 acres of waterfront property where the Miami Herald building currently sits. The company plans to build a complex with restaurants, entertainment venues and, if the Florida legislature authorizes it, casino gambling.

“I never expected it would be as vibrant as it is today,” said Andres del Corral, a 30-year-old commercial real estate broker who moved to the area three years ago.

Whether Miami’s momentum will continue, leading to the 24-hour city that downtown boosters dream of, is unclear. Miami-Dade County’s 13.2% unemployment rate, the second-highest in a state hard hit overall by the economic downturn, remains a drag on the local economy, and the region continues to reel from the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

“The [downtown] market on the surface appears to be doing really well,” said Glenn H. Gregory, senior vice president at commercial brokerage firm Jones Lang LaSalle. “The question is whether that will be sustainable.”

Nationwide, the housing sector continues to suffer. On Tuesday, the S&P/Case-Shiller index showed that home prices in the U.S. fell 4.2% in the first quarter; the Miami metro area was among 12 where prices fell to their lowest levels in the current housing cycle. Parts of Miami-Dade County generally continue to post some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country.

Many buyers are investors who plan to unload their properties eventually, said Peter Zalewski, principal at real estate consultancy Condo Vultures LLC. Mr. Zalewski’s question is: “Will they dump at the same time?” That would depress prices, potentially reversing the area’s revival.

Condo sales here began to surge after property owners slashed prices about two years ago, sometimes by 50% or more. That lured hordes of international buyers, including Brazilians and Venezuelans, who often pay entirely in cash. Fewer than 4,000 out of the 22,000 new units built since 2003 remain unsold, according to Condo Vultures.

At the Icon Brickell, a luxurious three-tower complex that for many came to epitomize the height of the speculative frenzy, more than 80% of the units have been sold, according to Fortune International, which markets the units. Sales are averaging 47 units a month.

In the past year, prices for new condos downtown have begun ticking up, from $298 a square foot in 2009 to $304 in 2010, according to Condo Vultures.

Residents say downtown is more animated than ever. When Geri Fischman moved to the area from South Beach three years ago, the nightlife options were scant. Now Ms. Fischman, 28, has a slew of them within walking distance, including db Bistro Moderne, the new Miami outpost of famed chef Daniel Boulud. Coming soon across the street from her place: a Whole Foods supermarket and a luxury movie theater. “I can’t remember the last time I went to South Beach,” she said.

As young professionals and families move in, the area’s vibe has changed. Bayfront Park in the Central Business District now has free yoga classes three times a week. Parents pushing strollers are a common sight.

The newcomers have encouraged new businesses to open—a net of 38 in 2010, according to the Downtown Development Authority. Another 27 are currently planned for this year.

Many existing establishments have changed their mix of merchandise to appeal to a younger, more affluent demographic. At La Epoca, a department store in the CBD, clothing racks that once featured Levi’s denims now have Diesel jeans and Hugo Boss shirts. “Sales keep growing each year,” said owner Tony Alonso.

Downtown still has a way to go, especially the CBD, which remains crammed with grubby storefronts. “It’s a bit of a mud hole,” said Tony Goldman, a longtime developer who helped transform South Beach and is now considering investing downtown.

Development Authority officials are working on a master plan for the district. They recently helped organize a gathering of business leaders in the CBD to hear a presentation by Mr. Goldman, who outlined his vision for a pedestrian-friendly neighborhood centered on its historic buildings.

“It could be this fabulous oasis,” Mr. Goldman said in an interview. “I think it’s never been more ripe.”

Write to Arian Campo-Flores at Arian.Campo-Flores@wsj.com

This article is from Miami Renters Fuel a Boomlet | Miami Real Estate Today

Banks trying to foreclose on homeowners are hitting another roadblock, as some delinquent borrowers are successfully arguing that their mortgage companies can’t prove they own the loans and therefore don’t have the right to foreclose.

These “show me the paper” cases have been winding through the courts for several years. But in recent months, some judges have been siding with borrowers and stopping foreclosures after concluding that banks’ paperwork problems are more serious than previously thought and raise broader ethical questions.

This year, cases in California, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Massachusetts and others have raised questions about whether banks properly demonstrated ownership.

During the fall, banks temporarily suspended foreclosures to address so-called robo-signing problems, where employees were approving legal documents without properly reviewing them. They said that in weeks they could fix what they considered to be simple clerical errors. But borrowers are uncovering new types of document problems, further delaying banks’ efforts to get foreclosures back on track.

In some cases, borrowers are showing courts that banks failed to properly assign ownership of mortgages after they were pooled into mortgage-backed securities. In other cases, borrowers say that lenders backdated or fabricated documents to fix those errors.

“Flawed mortgage-banking processes have potentially infected millions of foreclosures, and the damages against these operations could be significant and take years to materialize,” said Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., in testimony to a Senate committee last month .

Last month, the Maine Supreme Court reversed the foreclosure of Dana and Robin Murphy of Auburn, Me., after concluding that the mortgage company, a unit of HSBC Holdings PLC, filed “inherently untrustworthy” documents. An HSBC spokesman declined to comment.

The case began in 2008 when HSBC filed to foreclose on the Murphys, who hadn’t made a mortgage payment in two years. A trial judge initially rejected HSBC’s foreclosure because the bank couldn’t show it owned the promissory note—in effect, the borrower’s IOU. The court later granted the foreclosure after HSBC submitted new paperwork.

However, the Murphys found discrepancies and alleged that the documents were backdated. The court voided the foreclosure and sent the case back to the lower court to determine potential penalties.

Attorneys for borrowers reject the view that they are using arcane legal rules to secure free houses for clients who aren’t paying their bills. Efforts to gloss over incomplete or falsified evidence “can’t be tolerated by a free society,” says Thomas Ice, an attorney in Royal Palm Beach, Fla., who has a similar case before the Florida Supreme Court. “This is a huge assault on our legal system” that risks “turning us into a banana republic.”

Laurence E. Platt, a banking-industry lawyer at K&L Gates in Washington, concedes that banks may have been sloppy. But he says “the real assault on the legal system” are efforts by judges and local officials to strip lenders of their rightful ownership and make foreclosures impossible.

In March, an Alabama court said J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. couldn’t foreclose on Phyllis Horace, a delinquent homeowner in Phenix City, Ala., because her loan hadn’t been properly assigned to its owners—a trust that represents investors—when it was securitized by Bear Stearns Cos. The mortgage assignment showed that the loan hadn’t been transferred to the trust from the subprime lender that originated it.

Specific deal agreements required Bear Stearns to assign the loan within three months of the securitization. Because it failed to do so, Alabama Circuit Court Judge Albert Johnson determined, the trust didn’t own the mortgage. “The court is surprised to the point of astonishment that the defendant trust did not comply with the terms,” of the securitization agreement, he wrote.

The ruling is one of the first in the nation to strip a mortgage trust of an asset it thought it owned. A similar case earlier this year was decided in the bank’s favor when it held that the borrower wasn’t a party to the securitization agreement.

Nick Wooten, the lawyer for Ms. Horace, says the case won’t necessarily influence other decisions unless it is upheld by a higher court. But he says it is “another brick in the wall of trial-court-level cases that clearly show the wheels fell off the bus in the securitization industry during the bubble.”

J.P. Morgan Chase hasn’t appealed the case. A bank spokesman declined to comment.

Curing incomplete mortgage assignments can be tricky because many lenders that originated subprime loans are still listed as the owner but have gone out of business.

Bill Dallas, former chief executive of subprime lender Ownit Mortgage Solutions Inc., receives between 200 and 300 pieces of mail every month at his former company’s California headquarters from companies looking to correct ownership flaws. “Am I surprised? Absolutely not,” says Mr. Dallas, who founded and ran the subprime lender until its collapse in late 2006. “I knew this assignment problem was going to be an issue.”

Loans with botched assignments or no assignment are “really problematic” because “the person that originated the loan is gone, the person that funded it is gone, and your servicers are confused,” he says.

Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com

This article is from Banks Hit Hurdle to Foreclosures | Miami Real Estate Today

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as well as

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This article is from Key Biscayne Best Buys | Miami Real Estate Today

And here is the number of properties on the market on Key Biscayne. Big difference year over year!

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