Mortgage rates for 30-year fixed mortgages declined this week, with the current rate borrowers quoted on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace at 4.84%, down from 4.87% at this time last week. The 30-year fixed mortgage rates hovered at or below 4.80 percent for most of the past weekend and neared 4.75 percent on Monday.

Additionally, 15-year fixed borrowers were quoted on average, 4.27% and for 5/1 ARMs, 3.70%.

What are the rates right now? Check Zillow Mortgage Marketplace for up-to-the-minute mortgage rates for your state or the nation.

Ooh, this has to hurt: Actress Scarlett Johansson purchased this Hollywood Hills home in 2007, paying $7 million and now she has listed it for sale for $4,950,000 — a price reduction of $2,050,000 (see percentage of Hollywood Hills homes sold for a loss).

This gated Spanish Villa was built in 1931 and just underwent a complete restoration, including some green upgrades such as solar power. A gourmet period-style kitchen includes “Big Chill” appliances (retro, baby). Rooms flow in and out to terraces, patios and cascading gardens.

Johansson has starred in films such as “Lost in Translation,” and “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” and is reportedly spending more time in New York where she is making her Broadway debut to rave reviews in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge.”

> See more photos of Johansson’s home

> See more Hollywood Hills real estate

> See Hollywood Hills home values

(Photo courtesy CNN)

For actors and actresses of the big screen, it’s nail-biting time as nominees for the 82nd annual Academy Awards® were just announced and winners will be selected on Sunday, March 7, in Los Angeles’ Kodak Theatre.

As a salute to Hollywood’s best, here is some celebrity real estate we’ve posted that includes past winners of Academy Awards®:

Nicolas Cage (Best Actor, “Leaving Las Vegas,” 1995)
Mr. Cage has been faced with some financial troubles in the past couple of years, losing three homes to foreclosure — two in New Orleans and one in Las Vegas. Both homes are now for sale. (Read more about Nicolas Cage’s Las Vegas home, and his two New Orleans homes).

1140 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70116 -- For sale: $2,900,000 (below)
See more photos of 1140 Royal St, New Orleans, LA 70116
> See more Garden District homes for sale
> See more New Orleans homes for sale
> See New Orleans home values

2523 Prytania St, New Orleans, LA 70130 — For sale $3,450,000 (below):
> See more photos of 2523 Prytania St, New Orleans, LA 70130

5100 Spanish Heights Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89148 (below)
> See more Las Vegas homes for sale
> See Las Vegas home values

*****

Sean Penn (Best Actor, “Milk” 2009)
While Penn locked up an Academy® for his transformative performance as gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk in 2009, he had less luck keeping his house and married life together with Robin Wright as they head to divorce. (Read more about Sean Penn and Robin Wright’s Marin County home).

Sean Penn and Robin Wright’s house
7 Laurel Grove Ave, Kentfield, CA 94904 (below):
> See more Ross, CA homes for sale
> See Ross, CA home values

*****

Cher (Best Actress “Moonstruck” 1987)
While Cher’s gorgeous Hawaii home just sold at auction, she still has her Malibu home on the market for $41 million. Here’s a look at Cher’s two homes we featured on Zillow Blog:
72-122 Laueki St, HI — Recently sold $8.72 million (below):
> See more Hawaii homes for sale
> See Hawaii home values

25142 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA 90265 — For sale $41 million (below):
> See more Malibu homes for sale
> See Malibu home values

*****

Halle Berry (Best Actress “Monster’s Ball” 2001)
This inviting, Old World Mediterranean-style home hit the market last December for $5 million. (Read more about Halle Berry’s home for sale).
1372 Benedict Canyon Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 - For sale $5 million (below):
> See more homes for sale in Beverly Hills
> See Beverly Hills home values

*****

Angelina Jolie (Best Supporting Actress “Girl, Interrupted” 1999)

While Angelina has an extensive film resume, she has made most of her headlines as a promoter of humanitarian causes and also as actor Brad Pitt’s domestic partner, hence the name “Brangelina.” Brad and Angelina own many homes, but here are some we’ve reported on and their locations:

Brangelina’s Hollywood Hills compound:

Each of these homes owned by Brad and Angelina are adjacent to each other in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles:

5756 Valley Oak Dr, Los Angeles 90068
5769 Briarcliff Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90068 (photo below)
5742 Valley Oak Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90068
5750 Valley Oak Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068
5752 Valley Oak Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068
> See more Hollywood Hills homes for sale
> See Hollywood Hills home values

Brangelina’s Malibu home:
32316 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, CA 90265 (below):
> See more Malibu real estate
> See Malibu home values

And don’t forgot the “The Brangelina Home” in Edmond, OK, a home built to honor the union of Brad and Angelina:

Dallas, TX RainCamp

What is RainCamp?  It is a full-day seminar for real estate professionals packed with ideas easily implemented in your strategies for social media, networking, blogging or overall business plan.  Zillow is proud to partner with ActiveRain to bring this event around the country to teach professionals about growing their online business in today’s modern-day real estate market.

If you are in Dallas on Tuesday, Feb 16, you should definitely register to attend the Dallas RainCamp. I recently attended the New York RainCamp, which was a packed house of more than 500 people who buzzed throughout the day about how much they were learning.

If you aren’t in the area, you can still follow what’s happening by following #raincamp on Twitter.  Wait for a RainCamp to come near you!

> Learn more about RainCamp

> Register for Dallas RainCamp

> Read RainCamp testimonials

From Yakima, WA, in the Buying Foreclosures section of Home Buying Advice, within Zillow Advice, misssassy1146 asks:

“How do I short sale my house?”

Having been through a short sale myself, my opinions are very biased. That being said, I’ll share my personal experience, which I found to be very similar to the many short sale blog posts I encountered as I searched for help myself.

How to start the process of short selling your house:

1.)  List your home for sale with an agent. Do not do a short sale by owner, as there is no money to be saved. Start gathering paperwork you’ll need for the short sale.  Call the bank and ask them for a short sale packet. They’ll send you/tell you what you need to submit with the offer (see #4).
2.)  Make sure the agent you choose has experience doing short sales. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but at least two preferably.  The basic concept is the same, but each bank has its own rules.

3.)  How should you price it? This is up for discussion. One would think an owner should show a valiant effort in selling their  home for a price that would cover the loan balance.  You can do this my starting at that price, and lowering the price every week to show you made an effort. This is what I did.  In hindsight, the bank never asked for, or looked at the MLS history, so I think this was not really necessary. We could have posted it at what the current market said it was worth. In the home description make sure to say, “Short Sale, bring all offers!”  This tells buyers know they just have to submit an offer and see what happens.

4.) You get an offer, now what? You or your agent needs to send the offer along with any requested paperwork from the bank in one package. I say you or your agent because a short sale is an emotional transaction. Some people might want more control, while some want someone else to take over. Regarding the short sale package, do not send this in piece meal. Keep fax confirmation sheets, emails if electronic, or mail via certified mail. The person who sends this should call as soon as possible to verify the bank has received it. Every time you or your agent call, write down who you spoke with, when you spoke with them, exactly what they said, and what they are/were wearing.  Keep a log every time the bank is called. They should be called every week for an update. This seems extreme, but in my own experience they apparently “lost the paperwork”, or told me I was missing an item at least three times. This is important to be on top of, because if your “file” is missing one item, or one T is not crossed, your process starts all over.  It was 5 months before my bank even told me if the offer was accepted or not.

5.) The bank says my offer is accepted… Now what? Read the fine print of what they offer you. If you have a first and second mortgage, watch for, ” We reserve the right to demand the amount of the second mortgage in full.”

There are many options for help with a short sale. For example, you can hire a lawyer for the price of title insurance to follow up with the bank for you. You can trust your agent to handle it, or you can make all the calls yourself.

Do you have an experience with a short sale? Please contribute to this post or the short sale thread!

It looks like Bernie Madoff’s penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s Upper East Side has gone into contract for an undisclosed price, according to Curbed (via the Wall Street Journal). While the apartment at 133 E 64th St, New York, NY, 10065 still shows a $8.9 million price tag, it was originally listed at $9.9 million last fall.

Of Madoff’s three real estate holdings that were seized by U.S. Marshalls for resale with proceeds going to victims of Madoff’s spectacular Ponzi scheme,  Madoff’s Montauk beach house sold first for $9.4 million. Now that the Manhattan penthouse appears to be locked up by an unknown buyer, the only Madoff property left is the Palm Beach home for $7,250,000, which appears to have been reduced twice now — from $8.5 million to $7.9 million and now to $7.25 million.

> See Upper East Side homes for sale

> See Upper East Side home values

Four years ago today, Zillow.com was born as a beta site. When we launched, we had 75 employees who spent many previous months building a living, breathing database that launched 40 million Zestimate® home values.

It was a revolutionary moment that kind of turned real estate on its head. A value on your home online for all to see?  While we fully state that a Zestimate is just a starting point, it was a big move to make real estate data available about all homes — yours and your neighbors’ — open and online for everyone to see. People were eager to get their hands on it and we were happy to provide it.

But, that was just the beginning.  Zillow now offers a wide variety of real estate products:

• Search millions of homes for sale, homes for rent and Make Me Move® homes
• Post a home for sale or post a home for rent
• Shop anonymously online for a customized mortgage quote using Zillow’s revolutionary borrower-focused Zillow Mortgage Marketplace
• Ask questions and share answers on any real estate topic through Zillow Advice
• Find real estate info and data on-the-go through the #1 real estate app for the iPhone — Zillow iPhone App
• Browse home improvement ideas with Dueling Digs
• Find a local agent, lender or real estate professional using the Zillow Directory
• Search local data for hundreds of cities and thousands of neighborhoods

And no birthday post is complete without some cool stats that don’t make our usual lineup of Zillow stats.

Zillow by the Numbers:

96,013,458 - Number of U.S. homes with data on Zillow today

70,176,310 — Number of individual homes viewed at least once on Zillow since launch (that’s 75% of all homes in the country — wow!)

21,117,128 — Number of homes on Zillow viewed through the Zillow iPhone App (from April 28, 2009 through Feb. 6, 2010).

17,860,700 — Homes on Zillow with edited home facts, by owners or agents

11,527,882 — Custom loan quotes since Zillow Mortgage Marketplace launched

3,969,424 – Total homes for sale today (including Make Me Move homes)

1,333,758 – Agents with a profile on Zillow

923,935 — Number of Zillow iPhone App downloads.

681,572 — Consumer loan requests since Zillow Mortgage Marketplace launched (April, 2008)

30 — Zillow babies born to current employees, spouses or former employees (…and 11 more are coming!)

4.034 –- Number of terabytes it takes to process Zillow’s 70+ million Zestimates and Zillow Home Value Indices, which are updated every single night!

1 — Number of times CEO Rich Barton talked to someone in space from work.

A Big Thanks to YOU

Lastly, we couldn’t have gotten to where we are without you — homeowners, home buyers, home sellers, property managers, renters, real estate agents, brokers, lenders, borrowers, appraisers, stagers, and many other real estate professionals who use Zillow. Without you, we wouldn’t have the 8+ million unique users we attract a month. So, a big thanks to you for using Zillow for your real estate needs. THANK YOU!

JERSEY SHORE HOUSE FOR RENT! For all you Guido and Guidette wannabes who want to gym/tan/laundry in the actual space where the “Jersey Shore” cast of characters hung out, you can because the Jersey Shore house is for rent! The rental prices are for single nights only and they have a definite spike for seasonality. For example, the house is renting for $3,500/per night until May 1, then it jumps to $6,500 per night from May 1-July 15. See more photos of Jersey Shore house. (Yes, Zillow offers rentals!)

Original post:

In case you’re caught up in the tan-sanity of MTV’s latest reality series “Jersey Shore,” you’re probably wondering what’s “The Situation” on the Jersey Shore house where Snooki, Pauly, Vinny and the rest of the crew spend their days and late, late nights. The brown-shingled party house is located at 1209 Ocean Terrace, Seaside Heights, NJ 08751 and it’s just behind a row of shops on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, NJ - including the T-shirt shop where they all work (click on the photo above and drag to the left to see the boardwalk).

The show airs Thursday nights on MTV and has commanded its share of headlines due to a cast with strong personalities who like to ”gym/tan/laundry,” get into fights and call themselves “Guidos” and “Guidettes.” Ironically, while the house is located on the Jersey shore and the show is about the happenings at the Jersey shore, only one cast member — Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola of Hazlet, NJ — is actually from the Garden State.

Many Italian-American organizations and MTV advertisers have taken exception to their behavior and self-described monikers and call the group offensive and exploitative of a stereotype.

“I don’t see any redeeming value in the show,” DiMino told the NY Times. “They are an embarrassment to themselves and to their families.” — Andre DiMino, president of the largest Italian-American service organization in the U.S.

Philadelphia blog Phillyist says this is not the real Jersey shore – or at least the part of the Jersey shore that Philadelphians would dare venture into.

Meanwhile, the show is rocketing up the ratings scale for MTV, last Thursday capturing the No. 1 slot on cable for the 12-34-year-old demographic. (Twelve-year-olds are watching this?)

Want to see your share of tans, muscles and plenty of hormone-fueled drama?  Tune into Jersey Shore on Thursday at 10 p.m. on MTV.  We won’t tell…

(Photo courtesy NY Daily News)

> See Seaside Heights, NJ real estate

> See Seaside Heights, NJ home values

It’s that time of year again - Super Bowl XLIV is this Sunday - and while Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts are favored over Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints, we thought we’d take a look at how the two cities stack up on the real estate front.

The two teams will be squaring off at Sun Life Stadium in Miami, FL. If you are in Miami for the big game, or just love real estate hunting, check out homes for sale in Miami.

Now onto the real estate showdown:

Looks like Indianapolis has the upper hand with a higher median income and more modest housing prices.  The oddsmakers agree, installing the Colts as a 5-point favorite.

Who will you be rooting for this Sunday?

> See Indianapolis homes for sale
> See New Orleans homes for sale

Pennsylvania, the Keystone state, usually has among the lowest mortgage rates in the county, week in and week out.  As we looked at Pennsylvania as the subject of our weekly roundup of mortgage rates, we were impressed by its relative affordability — Pennsylvania has a Zillow Home Value Index of $152,300 compared to the U.S. Zillow Home Value Index of $190,000. Let’s take a look at some of the homes in the 6th-most populated state in the U.S.

(Note: These monthly mortgage payment figures are based on a 30-year fixed loan, using the current Pennsylvania mortgage rate, with a 20% down payment. Estimated taxes and insurance are not included. Also, this post was written late yesterday, so rates may have changed).

Monthly mortgage of $500-$1,000/month:

Imagine a monthly mortgage payment that resembles a low monthly rent — and this one is in Pittsburgh, PA and it even has a garden! This house, located at 2064 Hampstead Dr, Pittsburgh, PA 15235, could be the perfect fit.

> See more Pittsburgh, PA real estate
> See more Pittsburgh, PA home values

If you are into stone houses, this little place in Butler, PA is a great price and it’s on one acre of land.

> See more Butler, PA real estate
> See more Butler, PA home values

Monthly mortgage of $1,000-$2,000/month:

If you like water, this place is for you. This Dover, PA home has a pool, hot tub and pond.

> See more Dover, PA real estate
> See more Dover, PA home values

Great for chilly winters, this 4-bedroom home in Cranberry Twp, PA has both a fireplace and jacuzzi bath tub.

> See more Cranberry Twp, PA real estate
> See more Cranberry Twp, PA home values

Monthly mortgage of $2,000-$3,000/month:

This stately home has vaulted ceilings, large windows and a deck.

> See more Chester Springs real estate
> See Chester Springs home values

This 4-bedroom 2.5-bath home in Merion Station, PA has had extensive updates and remodels.

> See more Merion, PA real estate
> See more Merion, PA home values