DeGeneres Dances Off With $4 Million Profit On California Home

by Broderick Perkins
© 2007 DeadlineNews.Com

Deadline Newsroom - Who says you can't make a profit on real estate in the current market?

Emmy Award-winning TV-talk show host Ellen DeGeneres likely performed her famous sneaker dance after recently selling her Southern California estate with a $4 million profit.

She purchased the home little more than a year ago -- stealing the wedding site of another celeb, Sandra Bullock, who has had her own home issues.

The comedian and actress had to settle on a $20 million offer rather than her $24 million asking price. But DeGeneres boogied off with a 27 percent profit on the Santa Barbara County property, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Fifteen months ago, she purchased the Montecito, CA property for nearly $16 million. The home is near Oprah Winfrey's 40-acre estate.

DeGeneres sold the home with the help of a comedic video home tour she hosted and aired on her daytime TV show and Web site. She also upgraded the interior and grounds during her ownership.

The property was listed by Suzanne Perkins with Sotheby's International Realty in Santa Barbara.

The four-acre compound built in 1926 includes a four-bedroom, two-story Spanish Colonial main home with a three-car garage and 5,000-bottle wine cellar. There's also a guest home, fruit trees, swimming pool, tennis court and 5,000 bottle wine cellar on the grounds.

The town of Montecito, where DeGeneres house is located, is in Santa Barbara County's posh South Coast region where single-family home sales were down 33 percent in October from a year earlier. But prices in the region rose 22 percent during the same period, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Brisk sales in California's high-end housing markets like Santa Barbara as well as Silicon Valley, San Francisco and other Southern California hot spots is what has kept the statewide median price from falling until recently.

California's single-family median price plunged 9.9 percent over the past year ending in October.

That's the largest year-to-year price decline since the California Association of Realtors has been keeping records. Sales are down more than 40 percent.

More California Market News That Really Hits Home!

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© 2007 DeadlineNews.Com

Broderick Perkins, an award-winning consumer journalist of 30 years, is publisher and executive editor of San Jose, CA-based DeadlineNews.Com, a real estate news and consulting service, and the new Deadline Newsroom, DeadlineNews.Com's new backshop. In both cases, it's where all the news really hits home.

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