Hidden Hills

Osbourne family put Californian house up for sale

Celebrity couple Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have put their luxury home in California, USA, the Hidden Hills Estate, up for sale for £8 million.

Rocker Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon, a former X Factor judge, have listed their six-bedroom, 11,000-square-foot mansion in California's Hidden Hills community, four years after buying it for £7.7 million.

Situated on 2.25 acres of land, the house offers mountain views, a guest apartment, swimming pool, gymnasium and library.

The property, which has undergone extensive structural and decorative changes, was featured in last month’s issue of Architectural Digest. Sharon Osbourne told the magazine that she does not like to live in the same home for too many years. 

“I get itchy feet. We’ve never stayed in any place longer than seven years," Sharon said.

The couple also have their Malibu house on La Costa beach on the market for £5.9 million.

The 4,500 square-foot, five bedroom, five bathroom home features two balconies overlooking to the ocean.

The couple were at risk of losing the property earlier this year after running up a £1m tax bill. 

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City reworks affordable housing requirement at Hidden Hills

Because the economy is clobbering the new home market, the Napa City Council will ease the requirement that Hidden Hills subdivision in Browns Valley build eight low-cost units for first-time buyers.

Instead, the developer, O’Brien Homes of Foster City, will pay $440,000 that the city can use to help as many as 30 low-income families make down payments on houses located elsewhere in the city.

The housing market has been turned upside down since the city approved Hidden Hills in late 2006, Scott Cheeseman, an O’Brien representative, told the council Tuesday night.

Hidden Hills had planned to offer eight affordable units — four at $264,000, four at $317,000 — in a 72-unit subdivision where top-end homes would be selling for $1 million or more.

The original prices no longer work for either the market-rate houses or the eight affordable units, Cheeseman said.

O’Brien is now trying to sell the higher-end houses at prices 15 to 20 percent less than planned, he said. “We’re a lot lower than where we thought we’d be two years ago when we got this project approved,” he said.

Unfortunately, because of its deal with the city, O’Brien is locked into trying to sell the affordable houses for $264,000 and $317,000. The market won’t support these prices, in part because his units come with deed restrictions that limit how much they can appreciate in value, he said.

Cheeseman said there are some 80 houses for sale in Napa priced lower than these planned affordable units.

If O’Brien can’t sell the eight units for between $264,000 and $317,000, then the city is obligated to buy them at those prices. The city could potentially lose $604,000 when it tries to resell them, he said.

Napa retained a housing consultant, Jennifer LeSar, who agreed with O’Brien’s argument.

The city would be able to help more families if it accepted O’Brien’s $440,000 in-lieu fee and used it for down payment assistance, she said.

The council voted 3-2 to get O’Brien off the hook to build eight affordable houses of 1,100-square-feet each.

Given the realities of today’s housing market, in-lieu fees give the city “the biggest bang for the buck,” Mayor Jill Techel said.

“I’d rather go with what the housing market is dictating right now,” Councilwoman Juliana Inman said. “I’d rather not own those houses and be stuck with having to make it work.

The hidden, a novel

The Hidden Hills

Hidden hills

The Hidden hills

The hidden hills