Hot Property: David Hasselhoff's Encino home back on the market

Actor David Hasselhoff (“America’s Got Talent,” "Baywatch," "Knight Rider") has relisted his Encino home at $4,195,000.

He had put the 8,947-square-foot Southern Colonial on the market at $5.95 million in early January, according to the Multiple Listing Service, then withdrew it about a week later. What a difference seven months makes -- about 29.5% in price.

The five-bedroom, five-bathroom home sits on nearly 1.5 acres. The two-story home has a great room with soaring ceilings (three stories plus of open air), a formal dining room, a screening room and an office. There is a tennis court, a swimming pool with spa and two guesthouses.

The property was purchased in 1996, and published reports at the time put the sales price at $1.5 million.

Hasselhoff's 91316 ZIP Code has recorded 101 existing single-family home sales in the first six months of this year at a median price of $490,000, according to MDA DataQuick. That's only a 3.9% price drop from the first half of 2008. 

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Celebrity foreclosure: Jose Canseco loses Encino home

You can't make this stuff up: Former major league baseball player Jose Canseco,  pictured, "said on Thursday he had lost his California mansion to foreclosure -- one of the first celebrities to publicly admit being a statistic in the U.S. housing crisis," the Associated Press said.

In comments to the TV show "Inside Edition," Canseco says, "It didn't make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else."

More from the Associated Press: "Canseco, 43, one of the most flamboyant U.S. baseball players until his retirement from the major leagues in 2001, told the celebrity TV show 'Inside Edition' that it did not make financial sense to keep his 7,300-square-foot home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. 'Inside Edition' said it had foreclosure documents showing Canseco owed a bank more than $2.5 million on the house.

Sports headline: Jose walks.

More to come on this item. But don't hold back on your thoughts and comments. Something tells me this item is a setup in search of a punch line. Go for it.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Hat Tip: Seattle Snoop

Encino Story: Fraud in the Valley?

ENCINO -- Real estate fraud in the Valley? Veteran broker Rick Stern says it is a significant problem that will become more apparent -- and perhaps worse -- as banks and lenders try to answer a very unpleasant question: exactly how much are these foreclosed homes really worth?

"I think the mortgage fraud schemes that took place in the past few years are starting to surface more in the San Fernando Valley," he told me this morning. "A lot of people are in over their heads because of -- and I hate to say it -- rampant mortgage fraud. There's more of this going on in California than people know right now."

Stern says banks and lenders are now in the early stages of getting rid of foreclosed properties. Step one often involves hiring an experienced local broker, who provides a "BPO" -- a Broker Price Opinion, a real-world estimate of what the house is really worth in the current market. It's at this stage of the process when fraud sometimes becomes apparent -- if the bank realizes that, not only is the house is not worth anywhere near the amount that was loaned to buy the house 12 or 18 months ago, it probably was NEVER worth that much. That's mortgage fraud.

The second stage is putting the property on the market, usually through an "REO broker" -- a broker who specializes in selling foreclosed properties, which banks list on their asset sheets as "Real Estate, Owned," or, REO.

Stern, executive vice president at Pinnacle Estate Properties in Encino, worked extensively as an REO broker in the mid-90s, after the Northridge Earthquake damaged thousands of homes across the Valley. This time around, he sees opportunity in working with banks and homeowners to avoid foreclosure in the first place -- so-called "loss mitigation" -- essentially renegotiating mortgages so that homeowners can make the payments and stay put.

Where is the foreclosure problem going to hit hardest? In the Valley, Stern sees the most trouble coming in Canoga Park, Reseda and Granada Hills.

So how bad is the fallout going to be? "We're at a point where we don't know what's going to happen," he says. "The situation has to unwind. The question is, can all this bad paper work its way through the system, or does it create even more problems?"

You can Email Rick Stern at erealty@aol.com. Or you can meet him at the Starbucks on Ventura Boulevard in Encino -- buy him an apple fritter, I owe him one.