Why Didn’t Annie Sell Her Fancy Houses?

Annie Leibovitz should probably just file for bankruptcy before her $US24 million loan to Art Capital comes due. But could she have repaid the loan already, if she’d just sold her damn houses? Bloomberg thinks so!

According to brokers, Leibovitz’s New York real estate is worth “as much as $US40 million,” which is more than she owes Art Capital by quite a lot. But, you know, “as much as” is kind of vague. Her Hudson Valley estate could be worth $US4 million, or $US6 million, or $US10 million. And those West Village townhouses she bought might go for $US24 million to $US30 million, which is hundreds more per square foot than other recently renovated West Village townhouses have been going for lately, but these are super-nice.

So “as much as $US40 million” could also be written as “as little as $US28 million,” which is still more than she owes Art Capital, but not a lot more. Plus then she’d be homeless!

But it’s obviously way too late now to sell off the real estate to pay off the loans. So one would imagine there were good reasons not to try doing this earlier.

We are not as smart as John Cook so we are just totally guessing here, but maybe Annie decided bankruptcy’s a better deal, or she’s still hoping a white knight will buy her out of this deal by labour Day.