Blog Posts by Jennifer Karmon

Click either photo to go to an extensive slideshow.The castle is a former armory. Click either photo to go to a slideshow.Oh, you're going to love this.

It seems that a couple of house flippers bought a New York castle back in 2005, thinking they could make a quick buck. (Actually, the plan was to live there for two years, make a million dollars and buy a brownstone.) It had worked for them before, the New York Times reports: Susan and Manfred Phemister "had been flipping real estate in zip-zip fashion since the mid-1990s, and had made a killing each time."

So in 2005, they picked up a 36,000-square-foot castle in Amsterdam, N.Y., for $800,000. (Click here or on either photo to go to a slideshow.)

Two years and $400,000 in renovations later, they put it on the market for $2 million.

And they haven't unloaded it yet.

It's now listed at $895,000. (Click here to go to the listing on Yahoo! Homes. You can also check out the Sotheby's real estate listing at UpstateCastle.com.)

The Phemister family includes three children, ages 12, 11 and 9, who have friends over to play dodge ball ... in the 10,000-square-foot gym.

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Click the image to go to a slideshow of the Odeon Tower in Monaco.Just when we think maybe, finally we've seen it all, an extravagant new residence comes along that floors us all over again.

This time we're talking about the Odeon Tower in Monaco, a 49-story double skyscraper under construction in the most expensive real estate market on the planet. (Click here or on the image at right to see a slideshow on Yahoo! Homes.)

The Odeon is expected to have 70 luxury apartments, two "sky duplexes" of about 13,000 square feet -- and crowning it all, a five-floor, 35,500-square-foot "sky penthouse" with its own private swimming pool, according to press materials provided to Yahoo! Homes. (Related on Yahoo! Homes: A New York penthouse with a slide connecting two floors.)

The project won't even be finished before next year, but speculation is already rife over how much the penthouse will cost. $250 million? $280 million? $329 million? $387 million? The numbers seem impossible, even unreal. Yet a London estate agency did tell CNBC that sales are averaging about

Read More »from Odeon Tower penthouse in Monaco could cost a quarter-BILLION dollars

Has the "master bedroom" ruled the roost for long enough?

Evidently so, according to Washington Business Journal writer Michael Neibauer. His informal survey of 10 major D.C.-area home builders found that six of them are instead using phrases like "owner's suite" or -- and this one just slays me -- "mastre bedroom" in their floor plans.

"Why? In large part for exactly the reason you would think: 'Master' has connotation problems, in gender (it skews toward male) and race (the slave master)," Neibauer writes.

He found evidence of a trend among listing agents too. The vice president and managing broker of Long & Foster Real Estate Inc., Lorraine Arora, told him that her office is split on the issue. Younger agents "want to be more politically correct," she said, whereas older agents generally stick with "master."

I asked the National Association of Realtors about this apparent shift. Spokesperson Sara Wiskerchen told me: "While this hasn’t become a widespread trend, we have heard that

Read More »from Is ‘master bedroom’ sexist or racist? Is ‘owner’s suite’ more modern?

Good Samaritans are opening their doors after the Boston bombings.In a breathtaking display of generosity and trust, thousands of Bostonians are offering to take in marathon runners and visitors after today's explosions. Some are even students, although at least two at MIT had to withdraw their offers. "I was just told by the housemaster that we are not allowed to offer spaces for security reasons," one wrote.

By our count, 4,000-plus Boston-area households had offered their homes between about 5:30 and 8:30 p.m. ET, using an online Google form widely publicized on Twitter and Facebook. Our count doesn't include individuals who have made offers directly on Twitter under #BostonHelp and other hashtags.

As moving as these offers are, we urge good Samaritans to be careful about what information you submit through the Google form. The form feeds into a publicly accessible spreadsheet and exposes all of the personal information you provide. In some cases we've seen, people have offered not only their names, phone numbers, email addresses and

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Christopher Wallace, aka the Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, grew up in 226 St. James Place, Apartment 3L, in Brooklyn, N.Y. Click any photo to go to a slideshow.The limestone building has eight units.The rapper grew up in the bedroom at the end of the hall opposite the kitchen.Notorious B.I.G. fans will recognize the lyrics from his breakout hit, "Juicy":

... my whole crew is loungin'
Celebratin' every day, no more public housin'
Thinkin' back on my one-room shack ...
We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us
No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us

We're guessing this isn't quite what fans were imagining while they listened. (Click here or on any photo to go to a slideshow with even more pictures. Or you can click here to go to the property listing.)

The apartment where Christopher Wallace grew up, before he became known as Biggie Smalls or the Notorious B.I.G., has three bedrooms plus an office/den area in 972 square feet, and it was just listed at $725,000.

It's in what the listing calls a "lovely limestone eight-unit building," in the gentrifying area of Brooklyn that's now known as Clinton Hill, on the border with Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-Stuy).

The neighborhood has prospered enormously since his childhood -- but his mother, Voletta Wallace,

Read More »from Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘one-room shack’ in Brooklyn listed at $725K

[Editor's note: This guest post by Sophia Bera originally appeared on LearnVest, a site dedicated to helping people take control of their finances. Bera, a certified financial planner, wrote it for LearnVest's series of provocative personal perspectives on money.]

(Photo credit: Thinkstock)

I've been told my whole life that I'm so young. I skipped third grade, and I'm an only child, so I'm used to doing things before my time. When I bought a house at the age of 21, everyone was shocked–but I'd been planning it for a few years.

Even from a young age, I've tried to be thoughtful about money.

Before I had any idea what a certified financial planner was, I read "Smart Women Finish Rich" by David Bach. I was a theater major in college, and I was determined not to become a starving artist. So I started my Roth IRA at the age of 18,

Read More »from How she bought a house at 21, and why she regrets it

(Photo credit: Thinkstock)

[Editor's note: This guest post by Emily Badger was originally posted on the Atlantic Cities website, one of our favorite sources for brainy, entertaining takes on the global cities and neighborhoods we all live in.]

Demographers often describe the baby boom generation as if it were an indigestible mammal – maybe a pig, or a rabbit, or a really big rat – slowly moving through the python that is America’s population. As this generation has aged, the baby boom bulge has remade society in its image, first as a massive class of toddlers, later as rabble-rousers in the 1960s, then as solidly middle-class heads of household and, soon, as the largest class of retirees the country has ever seen.

Along the way, this generation has also left a physical imprint on the American landscape

Read More »from The great senior sell-off could cause the next housing crisis

Not content with dominating the television landscape in the home category, HGTV has been busily establishing a cottage industry (heh -- pun alert) in retail home products over the last year and a half. Its latest partnership just launched at midnight Tuesday ET: HGTV Home Outdoor Living, exclusively at HSN. You can browse the HGTV Home storefront on HGTV's website as well as on HSN.com.

HGTV says this is the beginning of a multiyear partnership, "with HGTV becoming the face for HSN's outdoor living category." Informational videos will be served up alongside products, and architect/designer John Gidding -- star of HGTV's "Curb Appeal" -- will appear on HSN to provide "tips and expert advice."

Other HGTV partnerships over the past 18 months -- which have racked up more than $100 million in retail sales altogether -- include a line of paint, wallpaper and supplies from Sherwin-Williams as well as flooring from Shaw.

Read More »from With HSN partnership, HGTV retail empire keeps growing