Busted Bubble
Eddie Murphy’s mansion shows that everything that goes up eventually comes down
By Joanna Beresford 11/05/2009
“Whatever is subject to arising is subject to cessation,” the Buddha Shakyamuni frequently reminded his students more than 2,000 years ago. In other words, what goes up must come down — including unemployment rates, mortgage costs, heartache, balloons, fever, the cost of solar panels, wildfires and summer heat.
Eddie Murphy should be familiar with this cosmic truth. Five years ago he put his Englewood, NJ, home on the market, priced at $30 million. At that time, the Murphy residence was the most expensive home on the market in the Garden State. Last week, after completing an overhaul to house and grounds, the Murphy home (called Bubble Hill) reentered the market at a remarkable 50 percent reduction: you can now buy the place for $15 million.
“It’s probably worth seven. I’ll give $4.9 mil, all cash,” so says my friend, Dan Dubelman, who grew up in Murphy’s New Jersey neighborhood, just a short drive across the George Washington Bridge from New York City. We used to glimpse the Murphster driving by, when I visited the Dubelman home during college vacations. Eddie looked neither left nor right as he passed us on those occasions, though we jumped up and down on the curb, waving and shouting like shipwreck victims on a deserted isle. (Yes, we were in college — and no, we didn’t think it was undignified to prostrate ourselves before the spinning hubcaps of the superstar funnyman.) He ignored us. He was much less friendly than I imagine Jesus would have been, trotting by on a donkey.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has unveiled a program this week to support state and local housing agencies in providing assistance to homebuyers and renters throughout the country. Whether this initiative will bolster Eddie’s efforts to sell his five-acre estate — featuring bowling alley, recording studio, home theater and gated entry — is doubtful.
The administration’s program will purportedly encourage lower mortgage rates and expand present resources for low- and middle-income buyers and renters. The as-yet-unnamed program includes a bond-purchasing plan to support new lending and a “temporary” credit and liquidity application that should improve access to credit on existing bonds. It sounds a little like gibberish to me, but according to an Associated Press source, “The government said the new effort was designed to provide hundreds of thousands of affordable mortgages for working families and enable the development and rehabilitation of tens of thousands of affordable rental properties.”
Does that mean you’ll be able to drop a down payment on Bubble Hill and move in next week? Probably not. You may not be able to afford your dream home in South Pasadena or La Cañada yet, either. But it does mean that someone is watching, wanting and willing to make a difference in a topsy-turvy financial and real estate environment.
“The initiative is critical to helping working families maintain access to affordable rental housing and home ownership in tough economic times,” says Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. “Through this initiative the government aims to help jumpstart … new lending to borrowers who might not otherwise be served and to better support the financing costs of their current programs — key components in stabilizing the housing market overall.”
These are the median prices for homes in the San Gabriel Valley this week, according to Zillow.com: Pasadena - $521,000; San Marino - $1,307,600; South Pasadena - $775,000; Altadena - $502,000. The median monthly rental for a 2-bedroom apartment or condo in Pasadena: $2,200.
The Obama administration’s new program may prove to be relevant to local buyers and renters, but not if you exist above the median.
By the way, my New Jersey friend with the Eddie Murphy connection lives in LA now. He leads a rock ’n roll band, and though he may not sound exactly sociable in the excerpts above, he also consults with individuals and small businesses, particularly artists, on marketing and networking through social media. He’s smart, entrepreneurial, and has performed in Pasadena many times. And he wouldn’t live in Eddie Murphy’s house if you airlifted him there in a private jet.
Contact Joanna Dehn Beresford at truewrite@yahoo.com.
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