The Year in Celebrity Real Estate

Though celebrities are liable to make headlines on a daily basis for their relationships, their antics, and their comments, 2018 was a year in which many of Hollywood’s A-list stars created buzz with their growing and shrinking real estate portfolios. Here, AD takes a look back at some of the year’s biggest sales, biggest losses, and everything in between.

The Biggest Sales

Several celebs broke records this year with home sales. Bruce Willis, never one for subtlety, unloaded his 8,400-square-foot Idaho ranch for $5.5 million, after seven years on the market, making it the single biggest residential sale ever in the Hailey, Idaho, area. Eli Manning similarly broke real estate records when he sold his $3.55 million Hoboken, New Jersey, condo in April, the most expensive residential sale in that city to date.

The Biggest Profits

Big sales are one thing, but some celebs raked in some serious dough with sales of their multimillion dollar homes. David and Victoria Beckham quietly sold their six-bedroom, 10-bathroom Beverly Hills mansion for $33 million in October, and they netted a substantial profit, considering the $18.2 million they put down for it back in 2007. Whoopi Goldberg also spun a handsome gain, with her Pacific Palisades home going for $8.8 million (she purchased it for $2.5 million back in 1993). Even disgraced news anchor Matt Lauer managed to somehow have a good year in real estate, selling off his Upper East Side apartment for more than his asking price of $7.35 million. Olympic athlete Lindsey Vonn also undoubtedly struck gold, reeling in a $100,000 profit after selling her Los Angeles home for a cool $3.65 million—all while competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

The Biggest Losses

Not everyone was lucky in the real estate game this year, however. Supermodel Adriana Lima offloaded her condo in New York's Midtown in November—for nearly half the original asking price ($3.3 million, compared with $5.5 million). Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel are also anticipating a loss on the SoHo Mews penthouse that he purchased for $6.5 million back in 2010; they originally listed it for $8 million, but the asking price has since dropped to $6.35 million. Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady similarly had to drop the asking price on their sky-high Madison Square Park apartment, from $17.25 million to $13.95 million, after failing to land a buyer for over two years. Even billionaire Warren Buffett had an unlucky streak with his real estate portfolio this year, lowering the asking price for his Laguna Beach, California, mansion by a whopping $3.1 million. (Something tells us he won't miss it.) But it was perhaps Lil Kim who had the biggest loss of all this year: the $2.3 million Alpine, New Jersey, mansion she purchased back in 2002 was up on the auction block at a starting bid of just $100.

The Craziest Things in Celebrity Homes

If you have the means to buy something, the sky’s the limit. This year, a few famous faces shelled out big bucks not for homes so much, but rather for what they decided to put in them—oftentimes items that might give the average homeowner a bit of financial anxiety. Jerry Seinfeld, for instance, gave his extensive car collection a run for its money when he coughed up an eye-popping $17,000 for an Elektra Belle Epoque coffee maker for use at his Hamptons home. Ina Garten spent a whopping $15,000 for a custom Lacanche stove, which, to be fair, makes the perfect pistachio meringues. Adrian Grenier was slightly less selfish with his purchase of a $10,200 Japanese self-cleaning toilet for his mother. Meanwhile, hitmakers DJ Khaled and Zedd went all out on furnishing their homes with, respectively, a sneaker closet and a Skittles machine. Oh, and let's not forget Kirstie Alley's lemur cages.

The Most Popular Cities

Though Los Angeles and New York City will always be hubs for celebrity buying and selling, other cities cropped up as popular hot spots this year, including Miami (DJ Khaled dropped major money in the music-saturated city) and the Snedens Landing neighborhood of Palisades, New York, which now houses residents such as Scarlett Johansson, Diane Sawyer, Björk, and Bill Murray. In Los Angeles, Los Feliz continued to be a popular neighborhood, with the likes of Mandy Moore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vanessa Hudgens, and more claiming bits of the hip hood.

The Most Unlikely Celeb Home Swaps

It should come as no surprise that celebrities will end up buying other celebrities’ homes over time, and this year proved to be no different, with houses trading hands in some rather surprising pairings. Ralph Lauren reportedly snapped up the late playwright Edward Albee’s former Montauk home; Gary Oldman sold off his Los Feliz abode to Vanessa Hudgens and Austin Butler; Kelly Osbourne purchased Rooney Mara’s dreamy Los Angeles home (which she in turn had bought from Alexander Skarsgard back in 2015); and Michael Kors actually sold off the West Village condo he bought from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart back in 2005.

The Most Incredible Historic Gems

A substantial number of historic homes hit the market this year, some for the first time in decades. The former Upper West Side penthouse of William Randolph Hearst was back up for sale, for $18 million, in November, and his former Beverly House, which had served as his home with actress Marion Davies, was put on the market for a whopping $135 million in October. A Malibu home once belonging to Debbie Reynolds was listed for $15.95 million, nearly 40 years after it was last sold, while Eleanor Roosevelt’s final Upper East Side home hit the market at $20 million. Other famous homes that were up for sale this year included Michael Jackson’s onetime New York City home; Kate Moss and Johnny Depp’s former love nest; Elvis Presley’s impressive gold-finished mobile home; and Elizabeth Taylor’s 1950s Beverly Hills home, which hit the market for the first time in 21 years.

The Newest Celebrity Landlords

Many of Hollywood’s finest couldn’t bear to part with their carefully curated homes, and so they opted to rent them out instead, leading to an influx of celebrity landlords this year. Teri Hatcher put her Studio City home on the rental market for $25,000 a month while she began shooting a YouTube series, Van Therapy, in her car. Real Housewives star Luann de Lesseps looked to rent out her expansive Hamptons home for a whopping $150,000 a month, while Jessica Alba tried to make some extra cash by offering her extra Beverly Hills home for $11,000 a month. Roman Coppola opened up his Hollywood Villa to the tune of $10,000 a month in November; later that month, Brooke Shields put her Pacific Palisades mansion on the market for $25,000 a month. Ziggy Marley got in on the real estate rental game as well, offering his Beverly Hills home for a casual $16,000 a month.

Related: Serena and Venus Williams List Former Shared Palm Beach Gardens Mansion for $2.695 Million