Home Prices

The wait for tables is getting longer at Buck's, a popular breakfast spot for the tech elite and a weather vane for the Silicon Valley economy. Here, like everywhere else, Facebook is the talk of the town. "Charles Schwab was in the restaurant the other day, and I asked him to hook me up with some Facebook shares," said Jamis MacNiven, owner of Buck's, in the wealthy suburban enclave of Woodside. "He told me even he can't get Facebook shares. " The new tech boom officially gets underway Friday when Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg rings Nasdaq's opening bell remotely from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, launching the largest initial public offering of stock in Silicon Valley history.

Their internationally recognized names sell music and movie tickets. They promote perfumes and presidents. But when it comes to selling their own houses, celebrities often find that their cachet doesn't pull in the cash. Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell haven't found a buyer for their Malibu beach house, which comes with a raft of celeb-friendly amenities including a covered outdoor living room, a spa-like bath retreat and a meditation room. So the couple have nipped $3.5 million from last year's price, listing the Balinese-influenced oceanfront spread at $11.2 million.

Their internationally recognized names sell music and movie tickets. They promote perfumes and presidents. But when it comes to selling their own houses, celebrities often find that their cachet doesn't pull in the cash. Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell haven't found a buyer for their Malibu beach house, which comes with a raft of celeb-friendly amenities including a covered outdoor living room, a spa-like bath retreat and a meditation room. So the couple have nipped $3.5 million from last year's price, listing the Balinese-influenced oceanfront spread at $11.2 million.

California's housing market showed strength in April as median prices rose and sales outperformed the same month last year. The Golden State's median home price popped 6% in April to $264,000, according to real estate information firm DataQuick of San Diego. The median is the point at which half the homes in the state sold for more and half for less. In Southern California and the Bay Area, the share of home sales that were foreclosures declined significantly, which economists see as key because sales of those homes tend to drag prices down.

The housing market's long, cold winter may finally be heading into a springtime thaw. New data show price declines easing in big cities, sales of new homes improving nationally and foreclosures in California dropping to levels not seen since before the start of the credit crunch nearly five years ago. The easing of foreclosures is seen as key by many economists, since the glut of these properties being sold at a discount has been...

As housing recoveries go, this one is in need of a cure. Homeownership ? and the buying and selling of residences ? is an economic keystone that carries overwhelming weight in Californians' personal sense of financial well-being. But the momentum of the state's housing rebound has faltered, with sales falling and prices softening despite bargain-basement interest rates. Foreclosures in California are still high. Sales of new homes are at historic lows. The construction sector is in the doldrums.

Southland home prices jumped 10% in February compared with the same month last year as foreclosure sales dropped significantly. San Diego and Orange counties made particularly strong gains. The increase in prices indicates that foreclosure sales are not dominating the market as much as they were a year ago. And it could signal that more traditional buyers -- those with equity in their homes looking to trade up -- are getting back into the game. But the number of homes sold throughout the region was nearly flat, up only 0.8%.

Home prices are tumbling to fresh lows, but new data show the rental market is on an upswing, an early indicator that housing may be headed into recovery. Rents are increasing because the foreclosure crisis has created a steady supply of renters in recent years, analysts said, and those people — with their tarnished credit records preventing them from quickly becoming homeowners again — need places to live. Adding to the housing squeeze is the nascent jobs recovery, which is fueling desire for rental housing as people find employment and strike out on their own. Many renters with the potential to buy a home are also sticking to the rental market given the home price slump and the difficulty these days in getting a mortgage.

In a battle of the beach cities, Hermosa Beach was the big winner last year where median home prices were concerned and Malibu the biggest loser. But first appearances can be deceiving. Los Angeles County luxury communities that showed the most price gains last year were largely just regaining previously lost ground. Hermosa Beach 90254 was the big gainer with prices up 15.8% to a median of $1.1 million among ZIP Codes with medians above $1 million and where at least 50 existing single-family homes sold, according to DataQuick statistics.

The latest read on home prices, released Tuesday morning, shows fresh declines in the vast majority of the nation's largest metropolitan areas. According to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 metropolitan areas, prices of previously owned single-family homes fell 1.6% in November from the same time last year. The closely watched index fell 1% from October to November. "With these numbers, more analysts will be calling for a double dip in home prices," said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor's.

Southern California's housing market showed signs of turning the corner in April as foreclosures made up the smallest share of sales in four years and the region's median home price increased for the first time since late 2010. Among other evidence of improvement, foreclosures dropped significantly in California and other Western states last month, a continuation of a trend that began last fall, according to data firm ForeclosureRadar. A separate report by the nation's mortgage bankers released Wednesday showed that national delinquencies and foreclosures hit a four-year low, driven largely by declines in states in the West.

Most builders think naming their subdivisions ranks up there in importance with high-quality construction. Now there's a bit of science that shows just how much a couple of key words can add to the typical developer's bottom line. Home buyers pay an average of 4.2% more when the development has the word "country" in the name, according to a study by two researchers at the University of Georgia. And if it has the term "country club" as part of its name, buyers will pay 5.2% on top of that.

Need more evidence that the housing market may be rightsizing? Zillow Inc. said home values in March made their largest monthly jump since 2006 and will stop falling in most major metropolitan areas by the end of this year. The average value of a single-family home in the U.S. is now $146,200 - a 0.5% slip in the first quarter from the fourth and a 3.1% drop in March from the same month last year. But compared with February, they're up 0.5% - a more than five-year high. And although they're down 24.6% from their $193,800 peak in May 2007, home values are now back to their late-2003 levels - and will likely hit bottom around the country by next year, the website reported.

The job market might still be trying to find its footing, but with pending home sales at a nearly two-year high, the housing market at least seems to be heading back on track. The measure, which represents signed contracts for home purchases in the U.S. and helps forecast finalized sales, rose 4.1% in March to 101.4 on a monthly index from the National Assn. of Realtors . That's the highest level since April 2010, when the index reached 111.3. March's number, coming off a 0.4% gain in February to 97.4, also lends credence to reports that first quarter closings in 2012 were the best in five years.

The housing market's long, cold winter may finally be heading into a springtime thaw. New data show price declines easing in big cities, sales of new homes improving nationally and foreclosures in California dropping to levels not seen since before the start of the credit crunch nearly five years ago. The easing of foreclosures is seen as key by many economists, since the glut of these properties being sold at a discount has been...

A barrage of key reports on housing showed price declines easing, sales of new homes improving from last year and foreclosures in California dropping to levels not seen since before the start of the credit crunch nearly five years ago. Taken together, the data paint a muddled but moderately positive picture of a market headed toward bottom, economists said Tuesday. “Fundamentals for the housing market are improving: affordability is very high given the drop in prices and extremely low interest rates, and the labor market is gradually healing,” economists for PNC Financial wrote in a note Tuesday morning.

A key measure of home prices in the nation's biggest cities fell in February, indicating that the housing market remained weak at the start of the year. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 American cities dropped 0.8% from January to February, and 3.5% from February 2011. Sixteen cities tracked by the index posted declines. Nine cities saw average home prices hit new lows. "Broadly-speaking, home prices continued to decline in the early months of the year,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Indices.

California's median home price posted its first year-over-year gain since the fall of 2010 as sales picked up with the end of the traditionally sluggish winter season. The Golden State's median home price in March rose 0.8% from the same month last year to hit $251,000. It was the first year-over-year increase since September 2010; that October, home values sank after the expiration of popular tax credits aimed at boosting the market. Last month's median price rose 5% from February, San Diego real estate firm DataQuick reported Thursday.