They're Rich, Famous & They're Renting

Celebrities who can afford to buy a home are leasing their digs instead, sometimes from other stars. Diane Keaton likes Meg Ryan's place.

They're rich, they're famous and they're renting

Celebrities who can afford to buy a home are leasing their digs, sometimes from each other. Diane Keaton likes Meg Ryan's place.

 

More people are becoming renters these days, some by necessity and some by choice.

Among those are celebrities who surely have the money to buy a home, if they chose.

• Big rent hikes around the corner

One famous renter is Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who recently moved from one rental home in Palo Alto., Calif., to another.

• Find a rental home in your town

Lauren Riefflin wrote in the Zillow blog about a number of celebrities who are renting properties (some from each other) or who have been forced to become landlords because they can't sell their multimillion-dollar homes.

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• Rentals with Hollywood connections

Here are some of the celebrity renters who Zillow featured:

• Diane Keaton is well-known for her work buying, renovating and flipping houses, many of which she sells to fellow entertainers. She sold two renovated homes last year, including a 1927 Spanish Colonial Revival home in Beverly Hills, Calif., to "Glee" co-creator Ryan Murphy for $10 million. Keaton is now renting a Spanish-style estate from Meg Ryan. We don't know what she's paying, but Ryan had put her Bel Air home on the market, first for sale for $14.2 million and then for rent for $40,000 a month.
• Meg Ryan is also renting, paying about $25,000 a month for a three-bedroom condo in New York City's SoHo area. Zillow has floor plans and photos of a similar unit in the building, designed by architect Jean Nouvel. The building has all the amenities, including a 24-hour concierge and an indoor lap pool.
• Queen Latifah is another celeb renting from a celeb who can't sell her place in this market. She's paying $10,000 a month for Jane Fonda's 4,700-square-foot modern loft in Atlanta, with city views. Fonda had offered the home for sale for $4.5 million and subsequently cut the price to $1.95 million but still found no takers. Fonda has lots of photos of the loft on her website. It was originally four units in the Copenhill Lofts building downtown. Other units in the building are for sale for $119,000 for a one-bedroom and $400,000 for a two-bedroom.
• Jane Fonda, in turn, is renting a modest, 1,237-square-foot unit that was listed for rent for $5,000 a month, according to the Real Estalker. Her apartment is in the Sierra Towers building in West Hollywood, Calif., where Joan Collins, Cher and Elton John also have units. The apartments have expansive views and floor-to-ceiling windows. You can see photos of a unit for sale in the building for $2.395 million. 

It just goes to show that, no matter how much money you have, there are times when renting makes sense.

News Source: msn