Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Carmit Bachar Buys an Ugly House in Van Nuys

LOCATION: Califa Street, Van Nuys, CA
PRICE: $639,000 (list)
SIZE: 1,750 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms
DESCRIPTION: This property has been completely remodeled from top to bottom. Features all new roofs, electrical, plumbing, windows, driveways, and landscape. Home offers all new granite kitchen with custom cabinets and Pergo flooring thru-out. A true master bedroom with private bath, separate tube & shower and walk-in closet. Additional guest room behind garage offers private bathroom & kitchenette.

YOUR MAMAS UPDATE: Turns out Your Mama got it wrong and Miss Carmit Bachar did NOT buy this house, but rather she bought THIS HOUSE.

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Celebrity real estate can't always be pretty children, so strap on your seat belts because Your Mama is going to take you on a wild ride through the tawdry and ugly little San Fernando Valley house that Pussycat Doll front woman Carmit Bachar has purchased. Or at least Your Mama was told by someone who would know that she's buying this house. Anyhoo, before we get to any specifics, we would like to sincerely tip our hat to the ladee for earning enough money as a professional dancer to buy herself a damn house. Yes, children, we know it's an ugly and not very well renovated ranch house in less than glamorous Van Nuys. But it's still a damn house, and how many professional dancers do you know who own their own house?

Trust Your Mama when we tell you that it's not easy being a professional dancer. And in a place like Los Angeles, it's doubly difficult because, let's be honest, most dancers in Los Angeles wind up naked strippers or, if their lucky, nearly nekkid video gurls who harbor dreams of living the Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman story. But alas, most just end up tired ol' strippers trying to make enough money to have their saggy chee-chees worked on by a surgeon who won't mangle and mutilate them so badly they can't shake their money maker for lonely and married men any more. Sad, but true.

Certainly Miss Bachar, has done her fair share of burlesque dancing–the Pussycats were a burlesque group long before they were an internationally known singing and dancing gurl group–and the Los Angeles native with a disturbingly unnatural shade of red hair has also worked her thing in a number of music videos for big name celebs like Gwen Stefani, Macy Gray, The Black Eyed Peas, and the queen diva herself, Madam Beyoncé, just to name a few. Miss Machar was also the Livin' La Vida Loca gurl in Ricky Martin's world tour back when he was shaking his bubble bon bon in a too tight pair of pantalones.

Now of course, Miss Bachar is strutting her stuff as a lead member of the Pussycat Dolls. According to most reports, being a member of the Pussycats means being paid a salary rather than a percentage of the profits, and judging from the depressingly average house Miss Bachar is buying in Van Nuys, the Pussycats are not being paid the big bucks by their bosses at Interscope Records.

Children, we are sorry to say, but this house is pretty much Your Mama's definition of real estate that induces deep depression. Where do we begin? The Van Nuys location? The flesh colored exterior? The Pergo (read: fake wood) floors? The kitchen that looks cheap and like the cabinets doors are going to fall off in 6 months or less? The "landscaped" backyard that looks like a neglected and vacant lot in a not so nice part of town? No offense to Miss Bachar, who we're sure is a lovely gal, but Your Mama would rather live in a rented one bedroom apartment than come home to this flipped out interior design disaster.

Because we always try to say something nice about the properties we discuss, Your Mama will concede that the front porch is a nice feature, and it's always a bonus to have a guest house out back for stashing less than honored guests. Gawd, that was difficult.

The 1,750 square foot property was listed at $639,000. Listing information indicates that there are actually 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in the main house and another detached bedroom, bath and kitchenette back behind the detached garage. We can only hope Miss Bachar's agent drove hard to get the singer/dancer a better price. And we can only hope that Miss Bachar has enough cash to spare to work this place over and turn it into a house worthy of a budding international superstar or whatever the Pussycats are meant to be.

Now, Your Mama as got to go look at some pretty and over the top decadent celebrity houses now to bring us out of the depth of real estate despair.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting... She used to lease a penthouse at The Granville Towers on Crescent Heights in Weho for around $5,500/ month. Don't know how you go from that to Van Nuys...

Anonymous said...

the house is not ugly but the price $639,000
jesus .. but thats the norm out in CA Real Estate Stalker how about showing us some homes in Newport Beach area? not everything has to be in NYC or Beverly Hills

Anonymous said...

yes, newport!

newport coast!

et al

Anonymous said...

Newport is BORING!!!

Author said...

OK, Mama. I love the blog, but let's try not to embarrass struggling artists. There are millions of artists out there, and only a small handful make the mega bucks. I would prefer you just didn't cover some non-super homes...go crazy on the rest.

Anonymous said...

Newport? Picture the same house listed for $1.95M but with an black E550 in the drive instead of a faded blue'99 Camry. The only thing worth seeing behind the orange curtain is Laguna Beach! Now, let me go drink my lunch in peace, and I'll come back later with something just plain wrong to say about the Vagina... I mean PUSSY cat dolls (UGH, that word).

Anonymous said...

hippie canyon

DITTO! So funny, so true, down to the black E550. Lame, lame, lame.

Anonymous said...

Oh come on...the house isn't THAT bad! Not everyone can afford a 3 mill house and a nice gay decorator. I've seen much worse. I don't know much about California, but in my town that would be a nice little starter house that you could by for $150,000.

Anonymous said...

PERGO.

'nuf said.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone actually know if she bought this house to LIVE in? Could be for a family member or to use as a rental.

Anonymous said...

Oh my various gods! I just saw the comment about PERGO. WTF are people thinking? Anyway, I'll get back to the Van Nuys Estate in a second. Now lets get to Carmit Bachar. First, lets clear up that name: I googled the hell out of it and as near as I can tell its an obsure Sanskrit word that most professors believe to be from one of the mountain region communities. Anyway, blah-f*ckin'-blah, it means Whore who serves all (think Ann Coulter). So, naturally the first thing I think of is, OMVG - she's bought this place to use as a dance studio or maybe a nice sized trick shack in the Valley... like the one I've been wanting, only with real wood floors and on the right side of the hill. So I gulped my lunch down, 3 olives & all and headed over the hill (OH SHUT UP!) I'm tellin you... it was like that scene from the Beep video that the PCDs have on youtube, where you feel kind of queezy at the end of watching it. Okay, that could've been lunch but the sight of that tacky-ass porch just kind'a hit me the wrong way (not unlike the way St.Nick tried to do the other night. I should've bit down on it!).

Anonymous said...

Pergo floors? Indeed. No thanks. Seems overpriced, but that's CA for you.

Anonymous said...

FUGLY

Anonymous said...

She used to lease a penthouse at The Granville Towers on Crescent Heights in Weho for around $5,500/ month. Don't know how you go from that to Van Nuys

Assuming she intends to own it for a while I think it makes good sense to pour that monthly contribution into a mortgage payment instead of a lease.

With all due respect to Your Mama, maybe there should be a threshold for which houses can be critiqued... like anything over 1 million is fair game. I don't think the condition of a house purchased for $639,000 is necessarily a reflection of her taste, more likely it's a reflection of her financial resources.

Anonymous said...

Would you want to live in "Crazy Town" at the moment? With the Britneys/Paris'/etc? Or have a cheaper smaller house out of the pap's RADA?

There are a couple of things that are really lovely about this place - the tree in the garden, the bathroom, the size of the rooms, even the Mackintoshesque lines on the windows... Fortunately paint & floor coverings are cheap to re-do....

However, Celebrity Real Estate is all about the unobtainable.... and this isn't.

Hopefully she'll be very happy in her new little home... and get rid of that Kelly Hoppen Taupey/beige ASAP!!!

Anonymous said...

Is the plural of Paris Pari?...

Anonymous said...

BLAH>

This house would go for $150K in one of the nicer neighborhoods in central Ohio.

WHAT is with the kitchen cabinets sticking out of the cut-out? All you can see is the back of the cabinet. If they're going to stick out of the pass-through like that, you're supposed to have pass-through cabinets or finish the back with some kind of feature like a shelf or something to hide them. WTF??? That is just horrible! No attention to a basic detail, or just too damn lazy to do it right.

Anonymous said...

please skip the newport stuff. we saw that 75 million dollar house mcmonigle has yet to sell. actually its not newport? or is it? or Corona Del Mar?carmit is a Saphardic girl, and its an interesting move on her side buying a home that will clearly be worth 20% less soon enough. Maybe its a recomendation by another "smart" business manager...I am sorry about any spelling errors.. I am jetlagged and in Israel.