Tuesday, 30 April 2013
It appears the Laurita's purchased their 1.75 acre semi-rural suburban spread in November 2001 for $1,720,000. We don't know a thing about the Franklin Lakes real estate market so we don't have a clue what's its street value is but public records show that in 2011 the Bergen County Tax Man assessed the property at $2,199,200 and levied a tax bill of $33,647.76. In The previous two years the house had been assessed at at much higher $2,6450,000.
According to TMZ, Mister and Missus Laurita missed one of their nearly $11,000 monthly payments on an approximately $1.6 million dollar mortgage back in spring 2012. The terms of their mortgage, so the story goes, allows the lender to demand full repayment of the loan if even a single installment is missed. We don't have any idea, of course, these Laurita people were living beyond their means, if they just found themselves in an unexpected financial tight spot and without the funds for just one mortgage payment or if they missed multiple payments. All are believable scenarios. So are other explanations like paperwork snafu, Post Office error or some sort of family emergency.
Property records show Mister and Missus Laurita's architecturally vague mini-mansion was built in the early Aughts, measures 5,674 square feet, and is both across and down the street a from one of the half dozen or so small bodies of water after which Franklin Lakes was named.
At least once Missus Laurita invited the Bravo cameras through her wood-worky residence for a tour that revealed the Housewife—who pretty much is a housewife—organizes the books in her wood-paneled library by subject matter, as in most bookstores. Your Mama organizes our always expanding collection of paperbacks by color, natch, but we appreciate Missus Laurita's organizational efforts immensely. Anyhoo...
She goes on to drag the camera into one of her children's bedrooms where she shows off the rather extensive collection of tiny shoes that belong to a toddler boy child. Next she Carol Merrills her way through her and her husbands separate, custom-fitted walk-in closet/dressing rooms before she heads down to the well-stocked walk-in wine cellar.
All this mortgage and foreclosure nonsense ought to be cleared up, if it hasn't been already because, seriously, what's eleven thousand dollars to people who spend thousands of dollars on dozens of pairs of shoes for their toddler? Fer chrissakes, even Your Mama got $11,000 in the damn bank.
We're sure Missus and Mister Laurita—and all the many other "housewives" who faced financial peril and ruin in the public eye—would love for all this ugliness to go down without the tabs and snarky property gossips butting in with their ill-informed two cents. However, hunties, let Your Mama off all you "housewives" a bit of unsolicited tough love: You can not sell your cook books and hawk your handbags, promote your bottled water clients and peddle your insurance policies on the meatless backs of your reality genre fame and then expect the hoi polloi not to be curious about the gory details of your lives. Did you hear that? It's a reality show. They told y'all when you signed your contracts it was a reality show, right? We understand why they first season ladies in Orange County were taken by surprise by the celebrity monster but every one of you women after those first five shoulda known. You shoulda known.
The proverbial fame cat is next to impossible to get back in the bag except by, well, public obscurity. And that is certainly an option if y'all want to exercise it and then pursue your multi-pronged commercial endeavors on their own merits without the invaluable exposure you get for being a cast member who can plug their products mercilessly on one of the most successful reality television franchises to ever be conceived. Okay? Anyways...
*We know this bit of semi-celebrity real estate news went down a couple weeks ago but somehow we missed it. We figured maybe some of the children did too. Plus, earlier today Missus Laurita took to the Twitter to thank her local law enforcement people for their rapid response to a call about an attempted break in of her house. Apparently she watched a man walk across her yard and over her deck to the very door at which she was standing. That sounds goddamn scary, for real! The would-be intruder was caught on surveillance cameras and Your Mama expects he'll be apprehended shortly if he hasn't already. Nothing like a little criminal melodrama mixed in with an alleged financial pickle. Good grief. Anyways...
aerial photo: Bing
