LA Land has moved to a bigger, brighter, newer home. You can now find it in our Money & Company blog.
You will still be able to find all the real estate news, foreclosures, and Hot Property pieces, but now in our uber-business blog.
Before you click the link, make sure to bookmark the new url: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/real_estate/
File photo by Boris Yaro / Los Angeles Times
Aleppo pine -- Pinus halepensis
Tough and rugged as a movie outlaw, the Aleppo pine's asymmetrical shape, leaning habit, sparse foliage, haphazard branching pattern, and grayish branches and needles contribute to a picturesque image. But it isn't a pretty pine tree.
Native to coastal areas around the Mediterranean basin, the tree historically was more abundant on the west side (Spain, Morocco, Algeria) than around the Middle East, even though its name derives from the Syrian city of Aleppo. It thrives on thin soil and steep slopes, and prefers deserts and seacoasts, where it develops into twisted and bent shapes.
The tree produces copious, pungent sap, called resin, that has been used for millennia to embalm Egyptian pharaohs and transform Greek wines into retsina. Resin of all pine trees also has a long history of use for medicinal purposes, skin treatments and herbal steam baths. The sacred tree of the solar god Attis, temple-close Aleppo pines were decorated for the winter solstice festival as a kind of pre-Christian Christmas trees.
In the late 1800s, the tree was widely planted by early settlers of the Western U.S. It makes a good shade tree in the desert, but in the Southland we use it as an ornamental, often plant it in lawns and so overwater and overfeed it that it sometimes drops a water-soaked branch.
Moderate to fast-growing even in poor environments, the Aleppo pine grows 30 to 60 feet tall and 20 to 40 feet wide. It is an irregularly shaped, open-crown evergreen tree with ascending branches that will live for 150 years. The trunk is lined with silvery gray, orange-dotted, vertical flakes, but the bark is more deeply furrowed near the ground.
The needles are 2.5 to 4 inches long, grayish-green tinted and come in bunches of two, rarely three; they face upward in the varieties sold here. When they fall to the ground, the needles make a highly combustible litter. Flowers are inconspicuous; female flowers develop into narrow 2- to 3-inch-long green cones, which ripen to a red-brown color over a 24-month period. The tree is drought tolerant, takes any soil and wants full sun. Roots can be invasive.
The tree has few pests; the main one is a tiny spiderlike mite of the genus Oligonychus, which causes Aleppo pine blight, a nonlethal affliction in which needles turn brown and die in fall or winter, to be replaced by new ones in spring. Since the Aleppo pine grows where few other trees would, it is an important timber tree in Northern Africa and the Middle East, even if the wood isn’t particularly valuable.
-- Pieter Severynen
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: Pieter Severynen
First-time buyers made up a bigger share of the housing market in 2009 than any other year on record, according to a study released this afternoon.
The number of first-time home buyers rose to 47% of all home sales from 41% of transactions in last year’s study, and was the highest on record dating back to 1981, according to the Washington-based National Assn. of Realtors.
Home sales have been fueled in recent months by cheap foreclosure properties. Both investors and first-time buyers have jumped into the market to snap up these heavily discounted digs.
For first-time buyers, one major incentive fueling the spree has been a tax credit extended last week by the Obama administration and expanded to include move-up buyers. The Realtors group lobbied heavily for the legislation. Paul Bishop, vice president of research for the Realtors group, said in a statement that several factors have been at play, including the tax incentives.
Many independent economists, however, contend that the credits are being given to people who would have bought anyway.
Of those first-time buyers, 55% purchased their home with a loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration.
That news comes on a day on which an independent audit of the FHA’s finances shows that its cash reserves have shrunk to a level below its legal limit, meaning that this pillar of the recent housing market upswing might need a taxpayer-funded bailout.
From the Washington Post:
-- Alejandro LazoThe audit examined the excess cash the agency must set aside to deal with unexpected losses in its flagship home-buying program, which has played a key role in supporting the housing market.
As of Sept. 30, those reserves had an estimated value of $3.6 billion, a sharp drop from the $12.9 billion available a year earlier, the audit found. The current total represents 0.53 percent of all outstanding single-family-home loans insured by the FHA, well below the 2 percent portion set by law. This is the first time reserves have fallen under that threshold since 1994.
Still sorting out your weekend plans? Maybe it’s time to snap up that discounted downtown loft.
Beverly Hills-based auction company Kennedy Wilson is closing out 55 units in the Market Lofts building with a session Saturday. The auction is part of a trend playing out across the region as fancy edifices put up during the boom years are now sitting vacant.
From The Times’ May 18 story on the subject:
Across Southern California, projects conceived during the housing boom, but completed after the bust, are sitting largely vacant. Developers are desperate to unload these units, but they face some particular challenges. Banks often won't provide mortgages to buyers in buildings that are less than 50% occupied, reducing the pool of eligible purchasers. Converting the projects to rentals means even steeper losses because the cash flow often won't cover a developer's construction costs.
The one- and two-bedroom lofts on sale this weekend are on West 9th Street and South Flower Street and are built in typical Brooklyn style with exposed, 9-foot ceilings. The lofts are constructed above a series of retail shops including Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Cold Stone Creamery and Quiznos Subs and a Ralphs grocery store.
Other amenities include a furnished lobby with three elevators, a landscaped deck, a swimming pool, a spa, a 20-seat screening room and a fitness center. Starting bids will run from $140,000 to $295,000 for properties previously priced from $438,500 to $888,761.
Check out the full details here. Those who want to register can still do so.
If downtown isn't your style, then 14 luxury townhomes are also on the block this Sunday at Hansen Villas in Pacoima. The auction will be at the Airtel Plaza Hotel in Van Nuys. More information is here.
And speaking of condominiums, the Evo condominium building threw itself a party Thursday night for residents on its sixth-floor pool terrace. The developers were celebrating their 200th condo sold. The 24-story tower is at West 12th Street and Grand Avenue downtown.
-- Alejandro Lazo
Photo: The Market Lofts in downtown L.A. Credit: Kennedy Wilson
A rising number of Californians are finding themselves in financial limbo, having defaulted on their mortgages but still living in their homes, a new report has found.
The report by Foreclosureradar.com (registration required) found that while the number of properties scheduled for foreclosure sale increased last month, lenders continue to postpone the sales rather than foreclose.
After three months of declines, the number of houses taken back by banks in October rose by 22.2% from September and 20.95% from October 2008. Despite that jump, the number of foreclosures remains 42.6% below a peak reached in July 2008, from which time the inventory of scheduled foreclosures has grown 131.36%, according to the report.
“While we continue to see a steady stream of properties entering foreclosure, relatively few are completing the process and being sold at auction,” Sean O’Toole, chief executive of ForeclosureRadar.com, said in a statement. “The bigger picture is that more and more homeowners are finding themselves upside down in foreclosure limbo, some hoping for a loan modification or short sale, while others are just waiting for a knock on the door.”
Of all postponements, 87% of them were made at the request or with the agreement of lenders, compared with 10% postponed due to bankruptcy. The majority of loans foreclosed upon in October 2009 were originally made between January 2005 and December 2007, according to the report.
In other news, the death of prominent attorney and developer Doug Ring may have resulted from an overdose of pills. Ring was found dead Thursday in his Brentwood home. Read more about it in our sister blog, L.A. Now.-- Alejandro Lazo
The number of foreclosures dropped in October for the third consecutive month, a sign that efforts by banks to take back troubled properties may be easing, according to a report out this morning by RealtyTrac.
The number of foreclosures -- default notices, scheduled foreclosure auctions and bank repossessions -- was down 3% in October from September, though that number is still 19% higher than in October 2008.
One out of every 385 housing units in the U.S. received a foreclosure filing in October, according to the report. The dip in the number of filings was a positive sign. But James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of Irvine-based RealtyTrac, said in a statement that the moribund economy and the potential pitfalls facing the housing market could imperil any housing rebound.
“Three consecutive monthly declines is unprecedented for our report, and on first blush an indication that the foreclosure tide may be turning,” he said. “However, the fundamental forces driving foreclosure activity in this housing downturn — high-risk mortgages, negative equity, and unemployment — continue to loom over any nascent recovery.”
Nevada, California and Florida posted the highest foreclosure rates out of all the states. California had the second-highest rate, after Nevada, with one in every 156 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing in October.
A total of 85,420 California properties received a foreclosure filing during the month, a decrease of 1% from the previous month but still nearly 50% above the total reported in October 2008, according to the report.
California's default notices and scheduled foreclosure auctions were up 120% and 73% respectively from October 2008, when California foreclosure activity was in the midst of a three-month lull after a state law required lenders to give troubled homeowners extra notification before beginning foreclosure.
With financing still tight and so many cheap foreclosure properties on the market, it is no wonder that few people are buying new homes these days. A report by the California Building Industry Assn. confirmed that new-home sales continued to drop in September.
The report shows that sales in new-home communities of 10 units or more were 11% below September 2008, with only 2,310 new homes and condominiums sold, compared to 2,580 in September 2008.
In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale region 300 new homes were sold in September, a 9% increase from the 273 sold in the same month one year prior.
-- Alejandro Lazo
Mortgage interest rates are at their lowest levels in five weeks, and not surprisingly more people are seeking home loans, two surveys from big industry players show.
But in an ominous sign for the housing market, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. said in a report today that the increase was driven by people refinancing homes, not buying them. Indeed, a seasonally adjusted index of home purchase applications was at its lowest level since 2000, the mortgage group said.
The closely watched Freddie Mac report on rates came out this morning, showing 30-year fixed home loans at an average of 4.91% this week for borrowers paying 0.7% in upfront points and fees to lenders.
That was down from 4.98% a week earlier with the same points, and the lowest average rate in five weeks for the survey by the government-controlled loan buyer.
The average rate for 15-year fixed loans fell from 4.40% to 4.36% with 0.6% of the loan amount paid in lender upfront charges, Freddie Mac said. Details were to be posted later today at Freddie's news site.
The surveys assume borrowers have good credit, can make a 20% down payment and take on no more than $417,000 in debt – the threshold above which loans are categorized as “jumbo” and the rate goes up.
But what does it mean that with rates so low home sale applications are declining, especially since the government's $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers has been extended?
It's hard to find any news to celebrate about home sales in the Mortgage Bankers Assn. figures. The mortgage bankers' survey said 30-year fixed rates averaged 4.90% last week for borrowers who paid just over a point upfront.
It said overall applications for mortgages rose by 3.2% from the previous week, but it was the breakdown by the trade group that was interesting: Refinances were up 11.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis, but purchase loans fell 11.7%. Refinances made up 71.5% of all mortgage applications during the week, the highest since May, when the average rate for a conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dipped to a record 4.69% in the Mortgage Bankers Assn. survey.
-- E. Scott Reckard
There is some more news on the local foreclosure front this morning, with Mathew Padilla at the Orange County Register reporting that outstanding foreclosure auction notices in Orange County rose to a record high of 8,895 at the end of September, “the highest in this housing downturn and probably the highest ever.”
Jim the Realtor at bubbleinfo.com took his own look at the Encinitas and South Carlsbad areas this week, and found 261 single-family homes on the auction and "real estate owned" lists.
Speaking of Realtors getting all tech-savvy on us, the National Assn. of Realtors has announced that it is creating its own online service to compete with services such as Zillow and Redfin.
And on the mortgage front, the Federal Housing Administration has released some new guidelines to make mortgages for condominiums more accessible. In other recent FHA news, the agency last week said it would delay a much-anticipated audit of its finances. For a refresher on some of the FHA’s woes, check out Times staff writer Jim Puzzanghera's story here.
Meanwhile, it appears as if the FHA’s funds are dwindling, as the Washington Post reported this week.
-- Alejandro Lazo
Not far from downtown Los Angeles, Comstock Homes is opening what it claims to be the largest solar-powered home community from a single builder.
The Villages at Heritage Springs will take up 54 acres in Santa Fe Springs, and will include 384 residences once it is complete. For now, 18 single-family homes and 19 townhouses are for sale.
Comstock Homes, the residential division of commercial real estate developer Comstock, Crosser & Associates, builds only in California.
The solar roof tiles on the Santa Fe homes, provided by San Jose-based SunPower Corp., could help lower homeowners’ power bills by up to 60%. The properties also feature dual pane windows, high-efficiency heating and air conditioning, tankless water heaters and energy-efficient lighting.
Townhomes in the gated community range in size from 1,390 to 1,910 square feet and cost between $385,000 and $457,000. Single-family homes are 1,763 to 2,166 square feet and priced from $485,000 to $576,000.
-- Tiffany Hsu
Photo: Edelman for the New Solar Homes Partnership
Is there a home-buying tax credit in your future?
Columnist Kathy M. Kristof details the changes that will allow millions of additional people to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home purchasers, under legislation signed Friday by President Obama. The new law raises the income restrictions for first-timers, creates a $6,500 credit for longtime homeowners and launches more-accommodating rules for members of the military.
The fine print, particularly for current homeowners, can be more than a little confusing.
If you have owned and lived in a home for at least five consecutive years of the last eight years, you could qualify for a $6,500 tax credit, if you buy a new home between now and April 30.
The "five-of-eight" requirement means that this credit could accommodate people who lost their homes in the last year or two to foreclosure or even sold a house and didn't immediately replace it, said John. W. Roth, senior tax analyst with CCH Inc., a Riverwoods, Ill., publisher of tax information.
Would you have to sell your residence for it to qualify for the $6,500 credit, if you wanted to buy a new one? Not necessarily, Roth said. The home you purchase must become your principal residence, so you would have to move there. But nothing in the law says you cannot keep your existing residence as a second home or rental, he said.
If you do choose to sell your existing residence, you need to pay close attention to how much you earn on that sale, Stretch said. That's because taxable profits from the sale of your residence will be added to your other earnings to determine whether your adjusted gross income exceeds the allowable thresholds.
To read more, click here.
-- Nancy Rivera Brooks
What Los Angeles County houses are people looking at online these days? Realtor.com ranks these as the Top 5 most-searched-for listings in the county last week within 20% of the median list price of $424,500.
1. 11202 Danbury St., Arcadia 91006
Listed at $348,000, the 1949 single-story has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,457 square feet.
2. 14917 Roxton Ave., Gardena 90249
Listed at $449,000, the 1951 two-story has four bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,616 square feet.
3. 1112 Arkley Drive, Walnut 91789
Listed at $395,000, the 1966 traditional has bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,867 square feet.
4. 1018 N. Buena Vista St., Burbank 91505
Listed at $343,000, the 1926 Spanish-style home has four bedrooms and three bathrooms in 1,920 square feet.
5. 21103 Violeta Ave., Lakewood 90715
Priced in a range from $369,900 to $417,000, the single-story 1962 house has three bedrooms and two bathrooms in 1,415 square feet.
Interesting to see when and for how much these homes previously sold. Home No. 1, for example, sold on 10/21/2004 for $450,000, according to PropertyShark.com, and before that on 6/28/2002 for $320,000.
-- Lauren Beale
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: The Gardena home was the second-most-searched-for property last week at Realtor.com among L.A. County homes within 20% of the median list price of $424,500. Credit: Jackie Solorzano
Prices of existing homes fell in 80% of the nation’s metro markets in the third quarter as distressed sales -- foreclosures and short sales -- accounted for nearly a third of all deals, a national group said this morning.
The national median sale price for an existing single-family home was $177,900, an 11.2% drop from the same period a year earlier, according to the National Assn. of Realtors in Washington. Distressed sales continued to weigh on prices despite a popular tax credit fueling the volume of deals.
Last week President Obama signed an extension of the $8,000 credit for first-time buyers and added a $6,500 extension of the tax break for those homeowners looking to trade up.
During the third quarter, 123 of 153 metropolitan areas reported lower median sale prices for existing single-family homes in comparison with the third quarter of 2008, while 30 areas had price gains.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist of the Realtors group, said shrinking inventories of homes had helped to moderate price declines this year, but many economists worry that another wave of foreclosures could hit the market and again push prices down.
Median prices ranged from $61,400 in the Saginaw-Saginaw Township North area of Michigan to $566,000 in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area of California. No. 2 was San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont at $538,100, followed by the Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine area at $498,800.
[Update] The median home price in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metro area fell 11.5% to $345,600 in the third quarter.
And in case you were interested in sales volume, the Realtors group also reported today that total existing-home sales, including single-family and condo, increased 11.4% in the third quarter to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.3 million units from 4.76 million units in the second quarter, and are now 5.9% above the 5.01 million-unit pace in the third quarter of 2008.
-- Alejandro Lazo
Photo: Rows of houses in Las Vegas. Credit: Bloomberg
Jason Winer, an executive producer and director of the ABC comedy “Modern Family,” has listed his three-level Hollywood-area town house for $599,000.
Part of a courtyard complex built in 1926 by Paramount to house its writers, the two-bedroom, 1 1/2-bathroom bungalow has 1,330 square feet of loft-like living space, a private patio and a detached garage.
The property previously sold in 2006 for $560,000, public records show.
--Lauren Beale
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: The open-plan living room has high ceilings. Elisa Gil-Osorio of Sotheby’s International Realty’s Sunset office is the listing agent. Credit: Jeffrey Ong
Coast Beefwood -- Casuarina stricta
From a little distance the coast beefwood looks like a feathery pine tree. Cone-like fruits on female trees heighten that impression. But close up, the long green "needles" turn out to be small, segmented twiglets, whose one-quarter-inch-long pieces may be pulled apart at the joints, just like the familiar horsetail plant. The common name for this Australian native comes from the red sap and reddish hardwood; the tree is also known as drooping she-oak.
Casuarinas are tough, fast-growing trees that take seacoast, poor soil and windy conditions, but some species such as the river she-oak, C. cunninghamiana, and especially the horsetail tree, C. equisetifolia, become aggressively invasive where introduced in moister climates and kill off surrounding vegetation with their abundant litter. Symbiotic bacteria in their root nodules fix nitrogen for the trees to use.
The coast beefwood is an evergreen tree that reaches 20 to 35 feet tall and may become as wide. As a street tree it may be pruned into whatever shape fits the space. The bark is gray, rough and furrowed, but not deeply so. A whorl of inconspicuous little triangular leaves, looking like tiny teeth, surrounds each joint, but the green twiglets have taken over the leaves’ photosynthesis function. The number of leaf teeth can be used to distinguish the species: about 11 for the coast beefwood and seven for the horsetail tree. Male and female flowers grow on different trees. Male flowers are dangling catkin-like spikes. They produce such abundant brown pollen while in bloom that the whole tree looks rusty at that time. In contrast, the female trees stay green looking; they produce dark woody cone-like fruits about an inch in size. The tree is drought resistant and takes most any soil but wants full sun.
--Peter Severynen
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: Peter Severynen
Football great Joe Montana and his wife, Jennifer, have listed their 500-acre estate, with acreage in Sonoma County’s wine country, for $49 million.
[Note, an earlier version of this post referred to the estate as only being in Sonoma County. It has acreage in Sonoma and Napa counties.]
The Calistoga property includes a 9,700-square-foot Tuscan-inspired main house, an equestrian center, two year-round creeks, a pond, a regulation-sized basketball court, a skeet shooting range, a caretaker’s residence, a guesthouse, a swimming pool with a spa, a gym, a bocce court and a producing olive farm.
The main house has a loggia open to the outdoors, a sitting room in an upstairs tower and a climate-controlled wine cellar and tasting room. There are three bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms.
Designed for indoor-outdoor living, the home has an outdoor courtyard with hand-painted frescoes, antique statues and fountains. An outdoor viewing tower has 360-degree views of Mt. Saint Helena and Knights Valley.
-- Lauren Beale
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: Coldwell Banker Previews International and Pacific Union / Christie’s Great Estates have the listing at www.villamontanaestate.com. Credit: Jim Bartsch
The Malibu septic-tank-versus-sewers issue has finally been settled after years of debate, according to "Septic tanks on their way out in Malibu" at latimes.com. The timeline:
New septic systems will not be permitted in Malibu, and owners of existing systems will have to halt wastewater discharges within a decade.
What it'll cost homeowners:
Residents in affected areas would be required to pay about $500 a month to cover the cost of hooking into a central sewage system, according to the city's projections. And businesses would face payments of up to $20,000 a month.
Wow. $500 a month? Some historical perspective:
In many ways, the septic tanks played a large role in Malibu becoming a city. It incorporated and formed its own government in 1991 to stave off Los Angeles County's efforts to install a sewer system in the area. Residents at the time feared sewers would unleash a wave of development that would turn Malibu into Miami Beach West.
In Malibu, septic tanks, leach pits and the ubiquitous stench known as the "Malibu smell" are familiar topics. After rainstorms, officials often post signs on Surfrider Beach urging swimmers and surfers to steer clear because of health dangers. Surfrider often gets failing grades on Heal the Bay's annual water-quality report cards.
Just in case you thought it was all a day at the beach in Malibu.
-- Lauren Beale
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: Surfrider Beach in Malibu. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
Here's something a little different on the home-building front: We took photos of a prefab home being put together this morning in Newport Beach.
We're not talking double-wide prefab, but rather a sustainably designed modular home by LivingHomes, a developer based in Santa Monica. The house is "poised to become Orange County's first LEED Platinum Certified Home, the nationally accepted third-party benchmark for the highest-performing green buildings," LivingHomes said in its news release.
-- Nancy Rivera Brooks
Photos: It doesn't look like much yet, but the module being hoisted into place will become part of a prefab green home in Newport Beach. Credit: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times
Public open houses being held at Westside properties priced as high as $21.9 million is the subject of my story today at latimes.com. Most of us can never afford a house costing more than a fraction of that price. If you are a diehard lookie-loo, at least now you can step inside one.
The real estate agents I talked to were split on whether this is a good idea or a bad one, but it's something to think about when you have family in town over the holidays and are looking for that only-in-L.A. experience.
--Lauren Beale
Thoughts? Comments?
Photo: Agent Florence Mattar has been holding public open houses at this $21.9-million home in the "bird streets" area of Hollywood Hills. It has six bedrooms and eight bathrooms in 9,691 square feet. This is the living room. Credit: Everett Fenton Gidley
The online brokerage Redfin announced a cool new tool for those interested in SoCal real estate prices. The Seattle-based online brokerage is now posting closed-sale prices and photographs for houses in a variety of big real estate markets as soon as the listing broker marks the property as sold.
The new version of the company’s website integrates data from the local databases that brokers use to take properties on and off the market, according to a release by the company this morning. The upgrade added 9.6 million photos for 1.4 million recent property sales with an average of more than 100 data fields on the property’s features.
Michael Smedberg, chief of of Redfin’s query and statistics team, says the upgrade will allow consumers to do their own comparative analyses of homes that were previously the purview of real estate agents.
“Comparative Market Analyses are one of the real estate industry’s ‘killer applications,’ ” Smedberg said in today's release, “but they're often shrouded in mystery; agents have direct access to data such as prices and photos for just-sold homes, but buyers rarely do. Without that direct access, consumers have had to rely on the expertise and availability of their agent, and this in turn made it hard to figure out on their own what to offer or ask for a listing.”
The company also announced that it has added trackbacks to its site, which will allow bloggers to automatically link to Web pages featuring properties.
Test run: It appears that Redfin’s site is groaning under the load of its new features. All morning the home page has had this message: “We're working hard to bring you a better Redfin. The site is unavailable for a brief time while we update our service. Please check back in a few minutes.”
Redfin Chief Executive Glenn Kelman just confirmed in an e-mail that the site keeps crashing for “the first time in a year or maybe two” and that we should hold off on our posting. Whoops. Too late.
-- Alejandro Lazo
Mortgage titan Fannie Mae said it will begin allowing homeowners facing foreclosure to rent back their homes for up to one year in a move aimed at keeping a stack of foreclosures on its books from hitting the market, which is just beginning to show signs of recovery.
The new program is meant for troubled borrowers who don't qualify for or haven't been able to get a loan work-out, such as a modification, according to Fannie's news release.
Under the Deed for Lease program, the borrower would transfer title to the property to the lender by completing a deed in lieu of foreclosure and then rent back the house at market rates -- which in many markets have fallen over the last year and probably would be cheaper than a mortgage payment on a loan made during the boom years.
-- Alejandro Lazo
Photo: Rows of homes in Las Vegas. Credit: Bloomberg
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