A-Rod buys Meryl Streep's house for almost a third less than asking price
Maybe you remember this.
A few months ago, Yahoo Homes reported that Meryl Streep's Hollywood Hills house was on the market for $6.75 million -- a head-turning (or should that be head-scratching?) 50 percent markup over the $4.5 million she paid for it just one year earlier.
We compared the 2014 listing photos against 2013's and could detect no meaningful renovations during that year: "The privacy hedges look taller and shaggier, and grasses along the entry steps have been supplanted with succulents; a couple of soft furnishings have been swapped out (a bedspread here, a rug there); and the staging overall is considerably barer. Oh, and 'Gone With the Wind' is playing on the TVs instead of James Bond." The home had undergone a major overhaul in 2005 and another renovation in 2010, but nothing apparent since.
In other words, it seemed like a pretty nervy ask.
Today, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed that the midcentury gem has sold to New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez.
And guess what? It didn't go for $6.75 million. Or even $5 million.
Rodriguez paid $4.8 million. That's quite a bargain compared with the list price: a discount of about $2 million.
