See Who's In Foreclosure - Celebrity Foreclosures and Evictions

Celebrity Foreclosures and Evictions

By Amy and Nancy Harrington, GetBack.com

Sometimes even the rich and famous find themselves kicked to the street. Check out this list of celebrities who've faced eviction and foreclosure due to bankruptcies, unpaid taxes, and missed mortgages.

Let Aretha Franklin's story be a cautionary tale to all of you who let your advisors manage your funds (and don't keep a watchful eye on them yourselves). According to the Queen of Soul, she almost lost her Detroit home in 2008 because of a clerical error her attorney made years earlier. It seems the hoopla was brought about over $445 in unpaid taxes and late fees from 2005. By 2007, unpaid taxes had reached a total of $19,192. Aretha had no intention of losing her home, but she did not take PETA up on their offer either. The animal rights group had said they would pay Franklin's tab if she promised to stop wearing fur. Stephen BaldwinStephen Baldwin should be careful when he says, "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here." The actor and sometimes-reality TV star recently faced foreclosure on his Nyack, New York, home when he defaulted $824,488.36 on his mortgage. His financial troubles didn't end there. On July 21, 2009, Baldwin and his wife filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy with an overall debt of an estimated $2.3 million.

Fantasia Barrino didn't have it easy growing up. But the high school dropout, who became a mother at age 16, fought hard and became the winner of "American Idol" Season Three. Still, success doesn't guarantee an easy path, and somewhere between her 2004 "A.I." win, the release of her debut single, "I Believe," her turn on Broadway in "The Color Purple," and the Grammy-nominated album "Fantasia," Barrino found herself in trouble again. As her best-selling memoir and TV movie warned, "Life Is Not a Fairy Tale." In 2008, the singer was at risk of losing her 6,500-square-foot, $1.3 million home in Charlotte, North Carolina. But Fantasia's fairy godmother must have been looking after her: a settlement was reached, and Barrino's home never went to auction.

In 2008, baseball All-Star Jose Canseco admitted that he had foreclosed on his $2.5 million, 7,300-square foot home in Encino, California. According to Jose, "It didn't make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else." Maybe that's why he decided to crash in that "Surreal Life" house for a couple of weeks.

Boxing champ Evander Holyfield almost lost his Fayette County, Georgia, home not once but twice. That's an especially big blow when you live on a street named after you (in this case, that's Evander Holyfield Highway). But, luckily, the Real Deal was able to sidestep foreclosure auctions against his $10 million mortgage and has kept his modest 109-room, 54,000-square-foot home. After all, could any man live without his three kitchens, a bowling alley, and 235-acre spread? Maybe he should try downsizing and avoid going through this whole mess a third time.

Not sure who had the job of telling Victoria Gotti, daughter of mob boss Sam Gotti, that she might lose her Long Island mansion (the backdrop for her former reality series, "Growing Up Gotti") to foreclosure, but we're glad it wasn't us. Still, she couldn't have been caught off-guard. She allegedly hadn't paid her mortgage in more than two years and owed $650,000 on the home. Gotti blames her ex-husband, Carmine Agnello, for getting her into the financial mess.

From "The Real Housewives of Orange County"It's hard to feel sorry for someone when you hear they are in foreclosure on one of their FOUR homes. So when news broke that Jeana Keough from "The Real Housewives of Orange County" had a notice of default for roughly $37,000 filed on her Coto de Caza estate, we weren't really all that upset for her. Turns out that she was in the process of getting loan modifications on all four of her homes (three are rental properties) and quickly got things squared away. But the now single mother who lives with her son, Colton, says she's going to sell the $5 million house anyway. As she herself said in a letter to the Orange County Register, "8,500 feet with a guest house on a 1.2 acre lot with six garages is more than Colton and I need." Life can be so hard.

In 2008, it was announced that everyone's favorite sidekick, Ed McMahon, was about to be kicked out of his Beverly Hills home. Ed was in arrears $644,000 on his $4.8 million mortgage. Enter Donald Trump. The real estate mogul offered to buy Ed's home and rent it back to him. Known as a cutthroat businessman, Trump said he wasn't out to make a dollar on this one. He was simply lending a hand to a celeb in need. Turned out that Ed didn't need help after all; he sold the home to an anonymous buyer not long after.

Early in 2008, Michael Jackson faced eviction from his former sanctuary, Neverland Ranch. The suit filed against Jackson stated that he owed $24,525,906.61 and that if Neverland went to auction, not only would the house be put on the block but so would all of its contents, including lighting fixtures, furniture, and "all merry go round type devices." Colony Capital investment firm swooped in, and bailed Michael out. But still, we're really amazed that Jermaine Jackson was fighting so hard to make sure his brother was buried at Neverland Ranch -- it doesn't really sound like a very peaceful resting place after all.

Best Cities for a Housing Recovery

by Matthew Woolsey

Increased transactions and relatively low foreclosure resales spell good news for these markets.
The stock market is up 50% from its lows in March, and consumer spending increased in May, June and July. But when will housing turn around?

Even the wisest can't answer that, and experts caution against putting too much hope in rising home prices given the country's unemployment situation and high rate of mortgage defaults. But key measures indicate that some metros are more on their way to recovery than others.

Take Miami. Sales are up 27% over last year and only 3.5% of those are the result of foreclosure resales. In Lincoln, Neb., where sales are 15% higher this year than last, only 3.6% of them involved bank-owned properties Both top our list of markets on their way to health.

Behind the Numbers

In compiling our list, Forbes looked at 161 of the country's largest metropolitan statistical areas (or metros)--geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics--where sales activity had picked up over the last year, but where foreclosure sales, as a percentage of overall sales were the lowest. Our data came from Zillow.com, an online housing data firm based in Seattle, Wash. Our list doesn't profess to call the turnaround, but rather point out which cities are in the lead on the road to recovery.

To be sure, the national real estate picture remains grim. In Las Vegas and Madera, Calif., for example, respective sales are up 40% and 64% from a year ago. But 67% and 71% of those respective sales are from foreclosure resales.