Housing Prices

The rich may indeed be like the rest of us. Prices of their homes are now falling too. Gated mansions and hillside estates have held their own through most of the real estate slump, but data released Monday showed big drops in the region's most exclusive neighborhoods. Median sale prices fell by 13% in Beverly Hills in April, compared with the same month last year.

U.S. house prices sank 3.1% in the first three months of 2008 from a year earlier, the second quarterly decline since June after 13 years of increases, according to a government report. Prices for previously owned single-family homes fell in 43 states, with values in California and Nevada tumbling more than 8%, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said. The number of mortgage originations is expected to drop 18% this year from 2007, according to the Mortgage Bankers Assn.

The market may be down, but sales of bank-owned properties are picking up, with multiple offers being made in many cases as lenders drop their prices to move foreclosed homes off the books. REO homes (bank shorthand for "real estate owned") that are in good condition and listed at $300,000 or less are drawing as many as 15 to 20 bids from home buyers and investors looking for bargains, area real estate agents report.

Like a lot of houses here, the Spanish-style five-bedroom Gary and Debra Magsam bought three years ago has a sparkling pool, a designer kitchen and a nearby golf course. Now it has one other feature common to the area: a foreclosure notice. Barring a last-minute reprieve, the Magsams' house will be auctioned June 27. They've begun to pack. "We've accepted the fact that it's going to have to take place," Gary, 48, said of their impending departure.

Rising gas prices may be the latest ailment afflicting the housing market, as figures released Monday showed Southern California home prices plunging 27% in May from a year ago and falling even more precipitously in distant suburbs. Outlying areas like the Antelope Valley and the Inland Empire have long appealed to people who were willing to accept a burdensome commute for the chance to own a better house. But buyers are increasingly factoring gasoline costs into their purchase decisions, said Dan Griffith, a Rancho Cucamonga-based real estate agent.

Economic forecast: Two graphs accompanying an article in Business on Wednesday about a Chapman University economic forecast incorrectly showed data for the second quarter of this year as being the actual data and said the figures were for quarter-over-quarter changes. The 0.7% decline in U.S. real gross domestic product represents a projected quarter-over-quarter change. The 28.5% drop in California resale housing prices also represents a projected change, but year over year, as do all the data points in that graph.

Housing data show the median price of a home in California plunged 31.5% in June, compared with the same month last year, as languishing properties began settling for less, a real estate tracking firm said. DataQuick Information Systems said the median price for new and resale homes and condos stood at $328,000 last month, down from $479,000 in June 2007. A total of 35,202 homes were sold statewide in June, down 8.1% from a year earlier and the lowest June number since DataQuick began tracking sales in 1988.

The top two floors of a Century City residential tower still under construction have been sold for a record $47 million to Candy Spelling, the widow of TV mogul Aaron Spelling. A $47-million price tag may seem like an enormous sum, but this is all about downshifting in the fast lane.

As homeowners lose their houses to foreclosure, builders worry about losing their shirts. Many small builders are struggling to stay in business, and larger, publicly traded development companies are reeling under huge losses as lenders tighten credit and housing sales stall. On Wednesday, Ryland Group Inc. of Calabasas reported a second-quarter loss of $241.6 million, seven times higher than the average estimate of a Bloomberg survey.

U.S. home prices fell by their worst rate of decline ever in May, according to data released Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of home prices in 20 cities declined 15.8% in May from the same month last year. The Los Angeles area saw a 24.5% price decline, a record year-over-year decrease. The region's home prices in May were down 27.5% from their September 2006 peak, according to the index. The greater L.A.