Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Afternoon Tidbit: Oprah Winfrey

Real estate reporter (and former celebrity property gossip) Bob Goldsborough at The Chicago Tribune revealed today in his Elite Street column that daytime chat show hostess and media mogul Oprah Winfrey has put one of her Chicago condominiums up for sale with a $2,800,000 price tag.

Not only did Miz Winfrey pay $5,600,000 for the full-floor, lake-view spread in Chicago's upscale Streeterville 'hood in 2006, she never even moved in, put it out for lease last year at fifteen grand a month and now she's willing to take a multi-million dollar loss just to get rid of the damn thing.

The new and current price means that even if someone comes along and pays the billionairess the full $2,800,000 asking price, she's still facing a $2,800,000 loss not counting carrying costs, taxes, maintenance charges and real estate fees. Not that she can't afford such a loss, but still a multi-million dollar loss is a mulit-million dollar loss even if it is just couch-cushion change for a billionaire like Miz Winfrey.

Your Mama has dissed and discussed the 13-room sprawler that spreads out over 4,607 square feet on the sixth floor of a beauteous Beaux Arts building. Iffin yer innerested in our thoughts about the apartment you can go here (with photographs and floor plan) and/or here and/or here.

Miz Winfrey has long-owned a multi-unit combination duplex atop Water Tower Place in Chicago but since her television network (OWN) is headquartered in Los Angeles she accordingly spends more and more of her time farther west at The Promised Land, her 40-acre estate in Montecito (CA) and her farm in Hawaii.

Your Mama imagines if the lady can indeed make this network of hers work for the long haul she'll snatch up a private and pricey bolt hole in Los Angeles where she can stay when she doesn't feel like shacking up in a 5-star hotel or commuting back and forth to The Promised Land via chauffeured car or helicopter. We shall see, kittens, we shall see.

listing photo:

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

When Mama posted the Montecito property next door to O this week, I commented that if Rosie had not lost her so much $$$$ she would have acquired it as a 52M guest house. One of the children said the OWN"s loses were to shareholders. Guess what? Who do you think is the largest shareholder?? Wikipedia says $300 million dollar loss already and another 100M projected for OWN. Hopefully O didnt buy Facebook stock too.

StPaulSnowman said...

I wouldn't worry about the Big O and money. She and Rosie will always have enough for burgers and a shake. I suspect the ego hit bothers her more than any financial loss.

Anonymous said...

3:28, She only has about $2 billion left, how will she survive...

You really are desperate to believe that Oprah has no money aren't you?

Shopgirl said...

Seriously this is like a rounding error for a woman of her means. Didn't she still manage to make $165 million last year alone? I guess since she is in California full time now, she does not need this guest house any longer.

nursedeb said...

this place just has so much wrong with it. needs remodeled, narrow, narrow rooms...just ick.
she probably feels "cut and run"
when her show first began, I watched it....each year, I watched it less.
and haven't watched her network at all.

Anonymous said...

6:39 No troll..I could care less how Big O spends her money. She is a hypocrite who preaches do as I say, not as I do. The universe has a way of dealing with such folks, so she is no consequence to me.

trump said...

I'm hearing that Oprah's network is not doing very well, so we may be seeing some property being sold a little down the road from her. Richard

Anonymous said...

She's so totally down to earth! The homes that "I'm Every Woman!" built...ya know, 'cause every woman has a massive real estate portfolio.

Jesse said...

Amish Stories,

Oprah is estimated to be worth about $3 billion. Discovery kicked most of the money in for OWN, which is why she's a partner with them and just didn't go about it on her own (no pun intended).

She would have to screw up a lot of investments in order to have to sell any of her homes. Once you're in the billionaire club times three, it takes massive failures to lose your money. It's almost impossible to spend that much, even if you have the lifestyle she does.

Her huge jet (now her second) alone probably costs more than all of her secondary properties put together.

midTN said...

***

"Oh my GOHHHHHHD...... is da Oprah goin' broke"?

***

Anonymous said...

Actually, it's not a full floor. There are sort of 1.5 apts per floor in this building - there's a simplex (the Oprah spread) and across the hall a duplex on each floor.

Lilithcat said...

The apartment is now under contract: http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/luxury/ct-mre-0603-elite-street-20120601,0,3484761.story