All it took was a mere mention of the house that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie leased in my post yesterday, and I received a half-dozen emails from my readers who wanted to know MORE!

Doesn’t anybody care about important things anymore?

No?  Alright, fine.  Here’s the dirt on Brangelina‘s mansion…

You know a house must be expensive when it comes with it’s own NAME!

“Sassafras,” a house that sounds more like a horse or a restaurant in Yorkville that isn’t very fire-retardant, has been leased by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for an estimated sum of between $250,000 – $350,000.

Sassafras is just your modest, every day, 48-acre waterfront estate in upscale Lloyd Neck, New York.

The main house is a whopping 22,000 square feet with eight bedrooms, but just in case your guests need entire rooms for their shoes & glasses, there is also a six-bedroom guest house and an eleven-bedroom staff house.

The house has both indoor & outdoor pools, two helipads (Why two?  Please present me with a scenario whereby two helicopters must land on the roof of a house simultaneously, and God-forbid, the one helipad can’t service them both…), three greenhouses, a private dock, two private beaches, tennis courts, lush front and back lawns, and apparently…..a barber shop?!?!

The couple plans to inhabit Sassafras while Angelina Jolie films her upcoming movie Edwin A. Salt in neighboring Long Island.

It has yet to be determined if Edwin A. Salt knows any of Michael Clayton, Donnie Brasco, Antoine Fisher, or Billy Elliot.

I can’t help but wonder if the people who gave the movie such a stupid title also named the house itself…

Ironically, the last residence for Angelina & Brad (along with their ridiculously-named children, Maddox, Zahara, Shiloh, Pax, Vivienne, & Knox) was a 30,000 square foot villa on Wannsee lake in Berlin, Germany for $40,000 per month.

Geez….only $40,000 per month?  Don’t they have any $350,000 per month houses to lease over there in sausage-land?

Can’t a celeb find a decent $200,000 sublet somewhere?

But my favorite part about this story is the pure greed on the part of current owner of Sassafras.

In March of 2006, Sassafras was listed on the open market for an incredulous $60,000,000 USD.

Apparently, the price was deemed to be “fair” to an extent, based on the acreage and the waterfront alone.  At the time, the seller received and subsequently turned down a $50,000,000 offer without the slightest hesitation.

That was then.

This is now.

What has happened in the North American economy in the last three years; more specifically, the last six months?

I think it’s fair to say that no matter how unique and valuable this property is and will continue to be, not even Sassafras is immune to the recent housing slump in the United States.

Don’t you think the owner wished he had taken that $50,000,000 offer back in 2006?

It would be naive to assume that just because somebody has a lot of money, that the person is also intelligent.  However, if Brangelina are really paying up to $350,000 per month for the house, the owner stands to recoup over $4 Million of his lost equity in the next year from the two starlets as they continue to save the world, one starving child at a time.

Of course, with the $195,000 per year in property taxes, and the opportunity cost of having the property sit vacant for two years while it depreciates in value, an argument could still be made that the owner will always regret not having sold the house no matter how many Scientologists or members of Green Peace occupy the property at astronomical prices.

Yeah….that looks like it’s suitable for six children.

Afterall, most of these children were rescued from third-world countries where they were living in trees, so they should feel right at home in a 22,000 square foot house on an estate that is spread over the equivalent of sixty-three football fields.

If you’re having trouble deciphering my tone of voice, don’t worry because I am as well.  Is it bitterness?  Sarcasm?  Anger?  Resentment?

I don’t know.

How do you feel when you hear about two people spending $350,000 per month on RENT?

I guess most of us just laugh it off as something ridiculous; something crazy that you’d read in the newspaper or see in a movie, and sometimes we almost act as if these actions aren’t real.

But they are.  Somebody truly is spending the average cost of a Toronto house on their monthly rent.

It almost makes me want to illegally download Lara Croft: Tomb Raider again and again just for fun…