LOS ANGELES -- Filmmaker Judd Apatow and his wife, actress-comedian Leslie Mann, have paid $14.5 million for the Santa Monica penthouse of skincare entrepreneur Howard Murad.

The 8,000-square-foot abode sits on the top floor of a building with its own slice of Hollywood history. The 13-story development, designed by architect A. Quincy Jones, ...Read more

Q: I inherited two lots in Florida from my mother who recently died. Her estate was probated in South Carolina, and she left everything to me. The Florida tax bills still show the property is in her estate. How do I transfer the lots to my name? -- Barbara

A: To answer your question I need to review the concept of jurisdiction. A court's ...Read more

Amazon continues its experiments with new physical retail formats and technologies, this time with a shrunken version of its no-checkout convenience stores.

The company on Wednesday opened a 450-square-foot Amazon Go store -- about a quarter the size of existing Go stores -- on the sixth floor of the Macy's department-store building in downtown...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- USC freshman Mahmood Alfayoumi, 18, had heard about "Sneaker Row" in downtown Los Angeles, but even this seasoned fan of athletic footwear wasn't prepared for what he found.

At a recently opened Jordan-Nike-Footaction collaboration, Alfayoumi ogled hard-to-find sneaks, browsed the onsite customization center and ran on a VR Mars ...Read more

When shareholders of Camden, NJ-based American Water Works asked fellow investors to support a measure on corporate political spending accountability this year, Vanguard voted 'no.' So it went for similar resolutions put forth at annual meetings for Range Resources -- one of the first companies to drill for natural gas in Pennsylvania's ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Actress Kirstie Alley, who finished as a runner-up on the latest season of the reality show "Celebrity Big Brother," is ready to leave another house behind. She's put her longtime home in the L.A. neighborhood of Los Feliz on the market for $11.97 million.

The Italianate villa-style home was built for restaurateur and hotelier ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The founder of a fast-growing mortgage lender is launching a tech startup in San Diego, hoping to help millennials and other tech-savvy buyers find houses within their budgets.

The company, called Greendoor, is building a suite of online tools to help buyers search for houses based on the monthly payment -- one that includes all ...Read more

A retiree of 64 has $1 million in her 401(k) common stock fund and expects a long lifespan. Her conundrum is deciding how much she can draw from the fund every month without worrying about running out while she is still alive. Existing options for coping with the conundrum are poor.

The 4 percent Rule

Investment advisers dealing with this ...Read more

A retiree of 64 has $1 million in her 401(k) common stock fund and expects a long lifespan. Her conundrum is deciding how much she can draw from the fund every month without worrying about running out while she is still alive. Existing options for coping with the conundrum are poor.

The 4 percent Rule

Investment advisers dealing with this ...Read more

Watch out, the Social Security scam is looking like the new IRS scam.

Crooks increasingly are impersonating an official from the Social Security Administration, making harassing calls similar to the annoying Internal Revenue Service calls.

The AARP Fraud Watch Network now has had more complaints to its helpline in the past few months from ...Read more

The first snow dusted Colorado Springs in late October.

Tony Hicks -- San Jose resident for 37 years, Colorado Springs landlord for 4 months -- didn't take it as a sign he made the wrong move.

"It's so much better here. It is nicer, cleaner," said Hicks, a 58-year-old retired engineer and landlord. He sold his three San Jose rental homes this ...Read more

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Over the last decade, out-of-state rental companies have bought thousands of houses across Charlotte, raising rents in a city already struggling with a shortage of affordable housing.

For Angela Campbell the news still came as a shock earlier this year: Her landlord, Tricon American Homes, would not renew her lease even ...Read more

Q: We want to separate our taxes and insurance from our mortgage payment, but our mortgage servicer says no. It did not collect enough to pay our taxes, and now there is a shortage. We want to prevent this in the future. Is the servicing company right? -- Tania

A: Your mortgage lender requires you to escrow your property taxes and homeowner ...Read more

The housing market is one of the key sectors in the economy. When housing booms, many segments of the economy are pulled along. But this sector is now slowing.

Are we in for a new housing market meltdown? Probably not, but that doesn't mean the future of the housing market is bright. Factors are in place that imply housing has entered a new ...Read more

In years past, nearly one-third of all annual donations were made in the month of December, as people made their charitable gifts before the deadline for tax deductions.

Yet this year, if you're more focused on getting back in the form of a tax break come April, you may want to think twice about how many year-end checks you write to charity.

...Read more

Multiple studies have tagged millennials as risk-averse, so why are they shunning life insurance?

Just 10 percent of the under-40 generation has enough insurance to cover all of their dependents' needs in the event of an early death, according to a new study.

"Too many members of this generation are starting a family or buying a home without ...Read more

The creator of low-cost indexing warns his invention may have grown too powerful.

Vanguard founder John Bogle penned an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal (paywall if you click) offering potential guardrails against the ever-growing power of institutional index fund managers -- including his own firm Vanguard, plus State Street, and ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Grammy-winning singer Usher has bid a final goodbye to his L.A. home, selling the Spanish villa above the Sunset Strip for $3.3 million.

He bought the 1920s home three years ago for about $3.368 million, real estate records show.

Tucked behind walls and gates, the house has more than 4,200 square feet of living space, a two-...Read more