• Fewer homes enter foreclosure process in February (Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  Some experts say the 2% drop from January stems from banks' efforts to keep owners in their homes.
  
  The number of homes caught up in some stage of the foreclosure process in February fell 2% from the previous month to 308,524, a real estate firm will report Thursday.

  
  

  
  
• Interest in buying state offices in California is building (Mon, 8 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  The 24 buildings being offered, including two in L.A., are drawing global investors. The sale is also being criticized for the loss of long-term capital assets in favor of short-term gains.
  
  Efforts to sell 24 state office buildings have drawn lots of interest from potential buyers -- as well as the ire of some former public officials who labored to get them built years ago in the belief that public ownership of the buildings would bring long-term financial benefits to taxpayers.

  
  

  
  
• KB Home backdating case has high stakes for prosecutors (Mon, 8 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  They seek to punish ex-CEO Bruce Karatz, but also to improve the record of a massive stock-options crackdown that so far has yielded few convictions.
  
  Two months after the federal government's criminal cases against Broadcom Corp.'s top executives collapsed, the U.S. attorney's office is taking aim at another stock-options backdating target: former KB Home chief Bruce Karatz.

  
  

  
  
• Braving a dismal apartment market (Sun, 7 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  Depressed apartment market attracts adventurous investors
  
  It's a cold winter for apartment investors in Los Angeles County: Rents are down, prices have fallen and vacancies are way up.

  
  

  
  
• A haunting beauty in Montecito (Sun, 7 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  A gracious old Montecito home, familiar to viewers who regularly watched the opening credits of the late '60s television comedy series "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir," has come on the market.

  
  

  
  
• Home of the Week update (Sun, 7 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  Newly built in Cheviot Hills

  
  

  
  
• Saving money on your home (Sun, 7 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  Simple strategies for paying off your mortgage sooner and reducing expenses.
  
  There are dozens of ways to make your housing investment pay off faster and at a greater return. In some cases, a small extra outlay may be required, sometimes every month, but the added expense is often pocket change when compared to the available savings.

  
  

  
  
• Time for another smash (Sat, 6 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  Sampras lists Lake Sherwood home for $25 million.
  
  Tennis great Pete Sampras and his wife, actress Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, have listed their newly built compound in Lake Sherwood for $25 million.

  
  

  
  
• Classes and events around the Southland (Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:41:02 -0800)
  MARCH 23

  
  

  
  
• The high cost of quake insurance will rock your bank account (Fri, 5 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800)
  Yves Didier has been a strong believer in earthquake insurance since the 1994 Northridge quake, when his apartment building was severely damaged and some of his neighbors lost their lives.

  
  

  
  

_{©2010, latimes.com}

• Streetscapes | North of West 96th Street: Upper Broadway as a Young Boulevard (Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:29:20 GMT)
  Broadway north of 96th Street was once a vibrant but shabby area and before that it was farmland.
  
  
  
• Property Values: What You Get for ... $175,000 (Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:41:26 GMT)
  A cabin in Heber City, Utah, a Gothic revival in Seneca Falls, N.Y., and a condo in Milwaukee.
  
  
  
• On Location: Bringing a Taste of New York to Johannesburg (Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:35:56 GMT)
  Adam Levy lives in a 10-story building that he converted into seven spacious floor-through apartments, including his own duplex penthouse that he finally completed last fall.
  
  
  
• International Real Estate: House Hunting in ... England (Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:16:27 GMT)
  Surrey, a county to the southwest of London, suffered a real estate setback in 2008, after years of steady price increases.
  
  
  
• Square Feet: Landlords Show Tepid Response to Hourly Electricity Rates (Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:40:33 GMT)
  Only about 100 of 790 buildings that are eligible for hourly prices have opted for the Con Ed service.
  
  
  
• Square Feet: New Airport, Northwest Florida Beaches International, to Open (Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:40:23 GMT)
  Backers said Northwest Florida Beaches International would bring new businesses and residents to the Florida Panhandle; critics said it would also bring environmental problems.
  
  
  
• The Renter Roadblock (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:30:57 GMT)
  Renters were a godsend when the market went into hibernation. But now that buyers are stirring, some owners wish their tenants would just go away.
  
  
  
• The Hunt: Hunters Revel in the Sounds of Silence (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:14:31 GMT)
  A bedroom door: That’s what Meghan Galewski and James Gonzalez wanted most.
  
  
  
• Living In | Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn: Living in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn (Sat, 06 Mar 2010 05:41:19 GMT)
  Vinegar Hill is nudged into a corner of the waterfront that seems, at least in part, forgotten by time.
  
  
  
• Habitats: Home and Album (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:58:57 GMT)
  Little more than a week after buying an apartment Arash Yomtobian’s employer, Lehman Brothers, announced plans to declare bankruptcy.
  
  
  
• Construction Unions to Rally for Building at Ground Zero (Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:00:43 GMT)
  Building is stalled as the Port Authority and the developer, Larry A. Silverstein, debated how much government should invest in private development.
  
  
  
• Short-Sale Program Will Pay Homeowners to Sell at a Loss (Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:16:16 GMT)
  The Obama administration will offer homeowners $1,500 to sell for less than the mortgage balance.
  
  
  
• Subsidized Moderate-Income Homes Defy Foreclosure Trend (Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:25:14 GMT)
  A city agency and nonprofit groups build or rehabilitate moderate-income housing, then scrutinize buyers’ credit. And they avoid the national foreclosure crisis.
  
  
  
• Posting: New Housing in Midtown, for a Song (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:14:26 GMT)
  On 43rd Street off Eighth Avenue is a new seven-story building that offers low-income housing and affordable rehearsal space, which are both in short supply.
  
  
  
• Streetscapes | 53 East 79th Street: Where Fusty Is Fabulous (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:40:12 GMT)
  Since 1937 the New York Society Library, which is the oldest cultural institution in New York, has been housed on East 79th Street.
  
  
  
• Mortgages: Help for First-Time Buyers (Sat, 06 Mar 2010 04:01:05 GMT)
  The State of New York Mortgage Agency, or Sonyma, is offering 30-year affordable-housing loans at 4.75 percent.
  
  
  
• In the Region | New Jersey: In New Jersey, the Telephone Challenge (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:39:45 GMT)
  The phone, once a real estate agent’s primary — well, only — mode of communication with a client, is making a comeback of sorts in these lean times.
  
  
  
• In the Region | Long Island: Rolling Waves and Rolling Homes (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:41:55 GMT)
  Plots in a low-key mobile-home park of 199 trailer-condos interspersed with a few stick-built shacks in Montauk Shores are available, but the structures cannot be replaced by houses.
  
  
  
• Square Feet | The 30-Minute Interview: Mark Jaccom (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:41:27 GMT)
  As of April 21, Mr. Jaccom, 54, will become the chief executive of the tristate hub of Colliers International, a full-service commercial real estate brokerage company.
  
  
  
• In the Region | Westchester: A Sense That Now Is the Time (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:29:41 GMT)
  A look at the strategies of buyers venturing into the market shows Westchester as no longer being in free fall but still poised precariously.
  
  
  
• On Location: In Madrid, the Apartment That Came With a House (Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:54:42 GMT)
  Felipe Rein Acebo-Gomez bought a 1,900-square-foot apartment that came with a three-story 1,300-square-foot casita.
  
  
  
• Big Deal: A Brush With a Beatle (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:33:37 GMT)
  The new owner of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Nutopian Embassy, “a conceptual country” with no boundaries and “no laws other than cosmic,” has put it on the market.
  
  
  
• Big Deal: Downsize Your Enthusiasm (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:59:02 GMT)
  Susie Essman has decided to sell the two-bedroom two-bath apartment at the Straus Park Condominium that she uses in New York City.
  
  
  
• Big Deal: Rural Retreat (Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:59:01 GMT)
  Matthew Malin and Andrew Goetz, the founders of MALIN + GOETZ, a unisex skin care company, have decided to buy a farmhouse in the upper Hudson Valley.
  
  
  

_{Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company}

• Pending home sales fall 7.6 percent in January ( Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:55:57 -0700 )
  Record snowstorms in the East only part of the reason for drop in index, analysts say
  
• Mortgage rates fall below 5 percent ( Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:32:26 -0700 )
  McLEAN, Va. — Mortgages rates have dipped below 5 percent again, four weeks before a government program that is helping keep rates low is scheduled to run out.
  
• Refi program for underwater homeowners gets another year ( Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:35:30 -0700 )
  WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is giving homeowners another year to refinance their loans under a little-used program designed to help borrowers whose homes have plummeted in value.