September 7, 2009
Singer Deborah Gibson gets out from under her house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills, unloading it for $900K and thereby avoiding losing it to foreclosure
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.
Filed under Celebrity Homes, Music Icons by Bob Goldsborough



















Comments on Singer Deborah Gibson gets out from under her house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills, unloading it for $900K and thereby avoiding losing it to foreclosure »
That is a picture of Deborah Gibson — Broadway star and actress, not Deborah Gibson, lead singer of Blondie and owner of this house.
Debbie Gibson home in LA avoids foreclosure; Plastic surgeons rejoice | Celebrity Foreclosures @ 10:01 am
[...] Big Time Listings reports that the 1980s-era pop tart unloaded her 1,733-square-foot lemon in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills — located at 1522 Forest Knoll Drive — for $900,000 in a short sale transaction. That’s $375,000 less than what she paid for the quaint two-bedroom house back in 2005. [...]
Singer Deborah Gibson gets out from under her house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills, unloading it for $900K and thereby avoiding losing it to foreclosure « QuantumTom @ 11:18 am
[...] Singer Deborah Gibson gets out from under her house in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Hills, unloading it …. [...]
You sure don’t get much house for almost $1 million.
Is that a urinal in the bathroom? Not something you see very often in residential buildings.