I think it’s safe to say you will never see a house that looks anything like today’s Listing of the Week.

Dubbed “The Slammer” by its owner, Penn Jillette, one-half of the Las Vegas comedy-magic duo Penn & Teller, it’s a unique, sprawling custom compound on 8.5 acres of desert 10 miles from the Vegas strip. Asking price is $2.1 million.

The compound began to take shape in 1994, when Jillette bought an 1,800-square-foot A-frame house and hired an old friend, architect Colin Summers, to design a custom dwelling. "It’s what Penn would be if he were a house," Summers says in a video tour of the compound. You can read more about the original project here and some of the later additions here.

Home mortgage rates are beginning to rise, and that’s causing great anxiety among some would-be homebuyers who can’t find a home to buy.

According to a new analysis from the real-estate portal Trulia, interest rates could rise to 10.5%  nationally before renting would become a cheaper option than buying.

The numbers vary by city, of course. An interest rate of 5.2% tips the scales in favor of renting in San Jose, Calif., while buying would make sense in Detroit until interest rates rose to a whopping 35.8%.

One of the ironies of short sales is that many owners could afford to keep their dwellings if they could buy them at the short-sale price.

But that’s not allowed, nor can they sell their home to friends or family members with an arrangement to rent the house or buy it back later.

That’s wrong, says Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who was instrumental in setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She has caused a stir with a piece she wrote arguing that the Federal Housing Finance Authority, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, should not only allow such inside deals but should encourage them rather than classifying them as fraud.

Just a few years ago, no one would have expected we would be debating again so soon whether we’re in a real-estate bubble.

But behind the talk about the bubble is a disagreement among experts about the strength of the recovery. While some are breaking out the champagne and declaring the housing crisis over, others are warning that the momentum may not continue.

How strong is the recovery?

Rising interest rates, relaxed loan underwriting and natural disasters are all risks facing real estate in the next year.

Plus, the future of housing depends very much on whether Generation Y maintains its love of urban living or follows its parents to the suburbs when it’s time to raise families.

Those issues are among the top 10 issues affecting real estate in 2013, according to Howard C. Gelbtuch, chairman of the Counselors of Real Estate, who spoke to a recent conference of the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

The number of Americans who think it’s a good time to sell a home rose sharply in May, to 40%. That’s up from 30% in April and 16% in May 2012.

The number who think it’s a good time to buy a home also rose, to a three-year high of 76%, according to Fannie Mae’s May 2013 National Housing Survey.

"Sentiment toward selling a home appears to be catching up with the strengthening housing market," Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, said in a news release. "The share of consumers who think it's a good time to sell a home spiked this month, the largest increase in the survey’s three-year history. This jump may foreshadow a gradual return to more normal levels of housing supply from their lows of recent months."

After almost two years, actor Jim Carrey has sold his Malibu home.

The selling price was $13.4 million, down from the $18 million listing price when the home first went on the market in July 2011. The actor paid $9.75 million for the modern house in 2002.

The beachfront home, built in 1957, has walls of windows overlooking the Pacific Ocean and decks with movable walls. But it’s small as far as homes of the rich and famous go, at 2,866 square feet with three bedrooms and four baths. You can see photos here.

When a building goes condo, the tenants usually are offered a unit in the new building – though many can’t afford it and have to find housing elsewhere.

But nine tenants of two neighboring New York City buildings got an amazing deal when a luxury apartment building replaced their dwelling spaces: new co-op apartments for $10 each.

The 51 other tenants of the new 12-story Jupiter 21 building in the East Village will pay $3,000 to $10,000 a month in rent.