Many small businesses are finding ways to minimize the downside risk of getting into real estate.

An $85 million L.A. mansion with a 500-worker renovation team. A $70 million London home with a bowling alley. The Ecclestone sisters are swiftly amassing a global property portfolio. The new generation of wealthy buyers.

Celine Dion lists a private Canadian island for $29.3 million; Ryan Seacrest is in escrow to buy Ellen DeGeneres's home for $37 million; a midtown Manhattan duplex lists for $12 million.

Even if pushed, you don't have to share the details of your bank account or personal life.

If last year was about big, manly architectural statements at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, this year is about exploring the softer, more sensual side of gardening, with smells and sounds featuring heavily in show spaces.

This seven-bedroom house in Queenstown, New Zealand, with lake and mountain views has been used as a bed and breakfast for the past decade.

A Queen Anne Victorian, one of San Francisco's 'Painted Ladies' overlooking Alamo Square Park, is on the market for $2.295 million.

This 14,000-square-foot house on the St. Johns River is coming up for auction on May 24 with no minimum bid. The owners used to own the Jacksonville Jaguars football team, thus the painting of three jaguars that hangs over the fireplace in the living room and which comes with the house.

This six-bedroom home on the European shore of the Bosphorus was built in 1999 in a fashionable district close to the center of Istanbul.

Set within the Balinese hinterland is this four-bedroom house built from old telegraph poles. The two-acre property includes a two-story guesthouse and an infinity pool.

This 18th-century estate in New York's Westchester County includes a centuries-old milestone used to direct stagecoach drivers and once had its own baseball team.

This recently completed five-bedroom house is located in quiet countryside about an hour from central London.

The Bloomberg administration is nearing a deal with the Related Cos. and a real-estate firm controlled by owners of the New York Mets to build a retail and residential development on a gritty swath of Queens near Citi Field.

The percentage of homeowners delinquent on their mortgages in the first quarter fell to the lowest level since the end of 2008, but the share of loans in foreclosure remains high.

A dynamic art collection and a soothing verdant backdrop led to the marriage of Asian influences in this 5,375-square-foot Southern California home.

In their bid to keep shoppers from deserting to the Internet, more malls are adding sprawling play spaces.

Nicoletta Mantovani, the second wife of the late Italian operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti, has been getting a crash course in New York City real estate of late.

After five months of positive readings, the Architecture Billings Index slipped back into negative territory during April, an indication that demand for design services declined.

European commercial real-estate markets are struggling with a sharp increase in mortgages falling into trouble, just as more European countries slip back into recession.

Brookfield Asset Management plans to bundle together its wide array of commercial-property holdings into a new publicly traded subsidiary, with an eye toward further growth.