Check out Bob’s weekly column from tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune about rocker David Draiman of the band Disturbed selling his house in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood for $695,000. Also featured: Tim McIlrath of the band Rise Against buying a house in Arlington Heights, Ill.

Check out Bob’s weekly column from last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune about former Chicago Blackhawks winger Martin Lapointe listing his house in Hinsdale, Ill. for $1,799,000. Also featured: former Chicago Bears offensive tackle John St. Clair, who rented out his house in Vernon Hills, Ill. after listing it for $465,000; and Bears defensive tackle Israel Idonije, who has his house in Vernon Hills on the market for $499,900.

Today’s long-overdue installment of our occasional “Where in the world is…?” feature involves Australian-born actor Jesse Spencer, who — unlike some of his “House, M.D.” co-stars, has done an outstanding job over the years of avoiding every single celebrity real estate gossip around (including the legendary Ruth Ryon, in her final years at the Los Angeles Times). Today, that anonymity ends, as we’ll spend a few moments talking about Spencer’s heretofore-undiscussed house in Los Angeles’ Sherman Oaks area, which Spencer purchased in 2005 through a trust (the Glorietta Trust) for $940,000.

Spencer, shown here with his ex-girlfriend and fellow “House” co-star Jennifer Morrison, became engaged to Morrison in 2006. And — had he married her — might well have wound up moving into her house in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. However, the couple broke things off in 2007.

Built in 1968, Spencer’s house has three bedrooms and two baths, in 1,904 square feet, according to public records. It sits on a 0.47-acre (20,547-square-foot) lot, according to public records. The house is in a really nice area, just north of Mulholland Drive and just west of the celeb-filled Mulholland Estates subdivision.

Earlier this year, Spencer transferred the house’s ownership from his trust’s name into his own name. Typically, that kind of action is done either when a celebrity changes money managers or when a celeb is selling a house. Given that the latter is not happening, it’s quite possible that Spencer changed money managers.

Rocker Matthew Followill, who is the lead guitarist in the band the Kings of Leon, has paid $800,000 to buy a two-bedroom condominium unit in West Hollywood, Calif.

Blockshopper.com broke the story a few weeks back of Followill’s purchase, which we’re just now getting around to reporting on.

Built in 1986, Followill’s 1,470-square-foot unit has two and a half baths and is in a 10-unit complex. Features in the unit include bathrooms with accent pieces from Barbara Berry, Waterworks and Kohler, and a kitchen with custom-made maple cabinetry with thick granite countertops and Bosch and Kitchen Aid stainless steel appliances, according to listing information. Outdoor features include a private rooftop deck with a view and a 600-square-foot, two-level romantic and peaceful cabana garden patio, according to listing information.

The unit had been listed for $829,000. The seller is not a celebrity.

Check out Bob’s weekly column from last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune about Chicago Bulls center Brad Miller paying $1,090,000 for a house in Highland Park, Ill. Also featured: “Apprentice” Bill Rancic, who paid $1,185,000 for a condominium unit on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile and sold a town house on Chicago’s Gold Coast that he had rehabbed for $3,595,000.

With the threat of foreclosure aimed straight at her, singer Deborah Gibson has dodged a bullet by unloading her 1,733-square-foot house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills for $900,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on the sad ending to a tale that could have ended far more sadly, had Gibson been unable to find a buyer the house, which is at 1522 Forest Knoll Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Records show that Gibson on June 30 sold the two-bedroom house, which she had had on the market for $995,000. The deal was recorded on July 29. The buyer is something called the Spirit Trust, and we honestly don’t know if a celebrity is behind that trust or not (readers?); there’s no money manager listed on the deed as the trustee for the Spirit Trust.

As we had noted in our post on February 26 about Gibson’s listing for the house, the onetime teen star (who in the 1980s was known as “Debbie Gibson”) clearly overpaid for the house when she purchased it in 2005 for $1,275,000. She also clearly hadn’t counted on the celebrity real estate blogosphere uncovering her listing, as we note in our February 26, given her agent’s decision to temporarily cancel all showings after the news of Gibson’s listing became public.

Built in 1940, the house has two baths (one of which weirdly sports a urinal that Gibson didn’t bother to remove), a formal dining room, a den, slate/tile baths, and a chef’s kitchen with stainless steel appliances, according to public records and listing information. The house sits on a 0.16-acre (7,175-square-foot or 7,010-square-foot, depending on the source) lot, according to public records and listing information.

Gibson first listed the house as part of a short sale on February 11. For the uninitiated, that means that her lender will have to accept a price below the amount that Gibson owns on her loan, because of financial hardship on her part (and a willingness by her lender to take what it can get). After our friends at the Real Estalker and Perez Hilton got involved in writing about this sad story, Gibson’s PR rep outright lied in telling Us magazine that there had been no foreclosure action, and that Gibson was merely moving in with her boyfriend, Rutledge Taylor. The trouble with that ridiculous explanation was that there were no fewer than two notices of default filed against the property at 1522 Forest Knoll just within the preceding seven months.

We haven’t a clue where Gibson is off to, but we’d guess that it’s going to be tough for Gibson to get another mortgage anytime soon. For all we know, maybe she already has moved in with Taylor. We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything to the contrary.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has sold his one-bedroom co-op unit on Manhattan’s Upper West Side for $565,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on Krugman’s sale of his unit, which is in the building at 304 W. 89th Street in Manhattan. We previously had written on August 14 about Krugman’s recent $1,700,000 purchase of a three-bedroom co-op unit in a prewar building on Riverside Drive on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. And in that August 14 post, we also had noted that Krugman’s unit on 89th Street was under contract after having been listed for $599,000. (He had bought the unit in 2005 for $539,999.)

Now, we can break the news that Krugman’s ninth-floor, 89th Street co-op no longer is in the Nobel laureate’s real-estate portfolio. Renovated from top to bottom, the top-floor unit on West 89th Street has one bath and a recently renovated, windowed kitchen with an open layout, stainless steel counters and stainless steel appliances, including a dishwasher, a Thermador oven and a Jenn-Air side-by-side refrigerator, according to listing information. Alas, however, there is no in-unit washer and dryer.

Krugman’s sale deed was recorded on August 28.

A few weeks back, the New York Observer’s Max Abelson noted that Krugman “wouldn’t be making any money” on the sale of his old unit. Indeed, with a final sale price public, it’s now pretty clear that Krugman and his wife saw annual appreciation of a little over 1 percent a year in the unit. It’s hard to believe how much things have changed in New York City; several years ago, it would have been heresy to suggest that a unit would appreciate at that rate. (And yet, by the standards of the American real estate market today, Krugman came out OK; there are plenty of other parts of the country where the seller of a home purchased in 2005 would kill for a 4.6 percent return when selling that same home in 2009.)

Check out the attached photos, which are the first ones made public of the unit that Krugman just sold.

A 1,400-square-foot house on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Calif. that actor Steven Weber owned until selling it in 2007 has come back on the market, this time for $4,295,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on the return to the market of the house at 32052 Pacific Coast Highway, which Weber had owned through his Trumpton Trust from April 2006, when he purchased it for $2,849,000, until May 2007, when he sold it for a massive profit of $3,820,000. We exclusively wrote in August 2007 about Weber having sold the house for $3,820,000. (It clearly was never Weber’s principal residence; he’s lived up in Los Angeles’ Brentwood neighborhood for years.) The current owners are not celebrities.

Now, at long last, we have some pictures of the house and 0.42-acre property; back when Weber had sold it, the property did not appear to have ever been on the market, so pictures of it have eluded us until now.

Built in 1965, the property’s main, one-story house has three bedrooms, two baths and walls of glass, according to public records and listing information. Also on the property are two more bedrooms and two more baths, spread across two other buildings: a separate space that the listing agent helpfully suggests could be a “guest home/gym/production office or music studio,” and “another maids or guest suite.” The house and property sit south of the Pacific Coast Highway but not quite on the Pacific Ocean, since two lots lie between the home and the ocean. The property does have deeded beach access, however.

Check out an online listing sheet for the house – complete with photos — here.

Actress Julie Bowen has sold her 3,570-square-foot house in Los Angeles’ Studio City area for $2,100,000.

In a Big Time Listings exclusive, we can report on Bowen’s sale of the four-bedroom house, which is at 3541 Berry Street in Studio City. Her Shire Trust, which was represented by money manager Bruce Lagnese, sold the house on June 12, with the transaction being recorded on June 24. The buyers are not celebrities.

We had written about Bowen’s listing of the house – for an asking price of $2,695,000 — back on January 28.

Built in 1959, the house that Bowen sold has three and a half baths, a gourmet kitchen opening to a great room, high-beamed ceilings, walls of glass, stone floors, and a media/family room, according to listing information. Features on the 0.71-acre (30,719-square-foot) property include a pool, canyon views, and a two-story guesthouse with another three bedrooms and one and a half baths, according to public records and listing information.

Bowen had purchased the house in 2004 for $1,875,000. It’s just down the street from the longtime Eddie Van Halen/Valerie Bertinelli family compound, which we have written about in the past.

Bowen sold the house because she paid $2,750,000 in late 2007 to purchase another, 3,475-square-foot house on nearly an acre in Studio City, according to public records.

Pop singer Natasha Bedingfield has paid $2,300,000 to purchase a four-bedroom, contemporary-style house in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz area.

This is a house that is long overdue for us to write about. The Los Angeles Times’ Lauren Beale broke the story of it way back on July 24, and then our friends over at the Real Estalker wrote about it a few days later. So why are we only getting to it now? The reason is that Beale broke the story online but then never put it into print until this past Sunday, and that reminded us that we needed to weigh in on it.

As far as celebrity purchases go, this is one of the odder ones. This house, situated on a private street in the gated Laughlin Park area of Los Feliz, originally was listed in 2008 for a whopping $4,495,000, and found no takers. The seller cut the asking price several times (including down to $3,795,000), eventually dropping $2 million off the listing price of the 4,792-square-foot house.

Built in 1953 and recently redone, the three-story house has a living room with walls of glass, a gourmet kitchen, a media room, five and a half baths, a gym and an office, according to public records and listing information. Outdoor features on the 0.32-acre (13,940-square-foot) property include a detached guesthouse/cabana, a resort-style swimming pool, a grassy yard, city and mountain views, a three-car garage and a motor court, according to public records and listing information.

Many others — including one glossy gossip magazine on newsstands now — have noted that there have been plenty of other celebs over the years in Laughlin Park, including Natalie Portman.