New homes demolished?

Check this out from the economics blog Calculated Risk. (More to come when we know what's really going on.)

-- Sharon Bernstein

Hot Property: 'House of Sand and Fog' on the market

 

The ocean-view house staged as a San Francisco property in the 2003 movie "House of Sand and Fog" has come on the market at $1,999,000.
 
Actually in Malibu, the 1,239-square-foot house was built in 1955, sits on more than an acre and has two bedrooms and 1 1/2 bathrooms.

This is a probate sale, so I wouldn't worry about the film's tragic plot playing out in real life.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo credit: Rick Alexander / Skyview Pix

Cram-downs shot down

    The U.S. Senate has voted against giving bankruptcy judges the power to order lenders to reduce the principal amounts of troubled mortgages. Backers of the so-called "cram-down" legislation could muster only 45 votes -- far short of the 60 needed for passage.

     President Obama and others, including his top economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, had upheld cram-downs as one of the most effective tools for fixing the foreclosure crisis. Cram-down supporters had said distressed borrowers would be more likely to get favorable loan modifications from lenders if they had the right to pursue the matter in Bankruptcy Court, even if they never actually filed for bankruptcy. The mere possibility of a bankruptcy dispute would motivate lenders to be more accommodating, supporters had argued.

-- Peter Y. Hong

Hot Property: 'The View' producer reduces asking price for Brentwood home

 

Bill Geddie, executive producer of ABC’s Emmy-winning talk show "The View," has reduced the price on his Brentwood home to $3,595,000.

It had been listed in March at $3,995,000 and in January at $4,295,000. The Spanish-style house has four bedrooms, five bathrooms and 4,480 square feet of living space.

The home had been purchased in March 2007 for $4.1 million, according to PropertyShark.com.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: VHT Studios

Hot Property: Brentwood home has had a string of celebrity owners

 

A Brentwood Spanish-style hacienda built in a 1920 has come back on the market at $6.9 million.

It's something of a who's who in Hollywood, with present and past owners including actor Dylan McDermott and actress Shiva Rose, actress Melanie Griffith and actor Antonio Banderas, and actress Michelle Pfeiffer and TV show creator David E. Kelley.

The McDermotts, who were divorced at the beginning of this year, bought the 4,000-square-foot gated house in 1999 for nearly $4 million, public records show. They had originally listed the home for sale last summer -- for $11 million at one point.

There's a gallery of more photos. From the complete story at latimes.com: "When I was a struggling actor in New York, I once waited on Michelle Pfeiffer," McDermott recalled. "Years later I ended up buying her house."

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo credit: Nick Springett

Broad says mortgage rates need to drop further

Eli Broad, founder of KB Home, said the areas hardest hit by the housing crisis won't rebound until mortgage rates there drop to 3%, Bloomberg News reported.

Broad, speaking in an interview at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, also said the housing industry will see more mergers and acquisitions as the national housing slump continues.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Hot Property: Santa Fe Springs 'Extreme Makeover' home listed

 

The Santa Fe Springs home that was the subject of an ABC "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" remodel in 2005 has come on the market at $999,000. The 4,267-square-foot home has nine bedrooms and six bathrooms.

Phil and Loki Leomiti paid $161,000 in December 1998 for the then three-bedroom home, according to public records.

The expanded home was intended to house the Leomitis and the orphaned Higgins clan, five siblings ages 14 through 21 whom they knew through church, but a rift developed and a legal battle ensued.

Now the Leomiti family has decided to move on, according to the listing agents.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: The contemporary-style home has bamboo floors, triple-pane windows and a wide granite kitchen island. Credit: Bryan Chan / Los Angeles Times

L.A.-area prices down 40% from peak

U.S. home prices were down 18% in February from a year earlier, according to the Case-Shiller index released today. In L.A. and Orange counties, February prices fell 24% from a year ago and are off 40% from their 2006 peak.

How low will they go? Economist Christopher Thornberg has forecast L.A. prices to fall 55% from their peak. The folks at Case-Shiller, accentuating the positive, note this is the first time in 16 months the national decline was NOT a record fall.

-- Peter Y. Hong

AT&T Center gets 'gold' environmental certification, Patina restaurant

The recently renovated AT&T Center in Los Angeles, formerly known as the Transamerica Center, has received the first gold-level certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for an existing downtown building.

In 2007, Elleven, a downtown condominium tower completed in 2006, was awarded gold-level certification for new construction.

AT&T Center's owners also announced today that restaurateur Patina Group will move its headquarters to the 32-story main tower at 1150 S. Olive St. and open a restaurant on the ground floor. AT&T Center, which also includes an 11-story building at 12th and Hill streets, recently underwent a $35-million renovation that incorporated upgrades to its power and water systems to make them more environmentally friendly. More noticeably, the makeover included new metallic facades around the buildings and an illuminated glass enclosure on top of the tower that added two floors of office space.

The skyscraper was the first in the city to surpass City Hall in height when it was completed in 1965, and for decades it had a restaurant and bar on the top floor. With that space now converted to offices, the Patina’s Group’s new restaurant is being planned for street level.

Patina Group has agreed to occupy 30,000 square feet, according to landlord LBA Realty. Another new tenant will be Fox Entertainment Group, which has rented 25,000 for its cable sports division.

"The property is near Staples Center, home to many of our professional sports broadcast affiliates," said Steve Simpson, a senior vice president at Fox.

The Patina and Fox leases will bring the buildings to 85% occupancy, said Perry Schonfeld, a principal of LBA Realty.

-- Roger Vincent

Photo: At&T Center. Credit: LBA Realty

New flat-fee mortgage from BofA

As Bank of America Corp. phases out the Countrywide Home Loans brand -- you can read what I wrote about in The Times today -- the banking giant is rolling out interesting twists on its own mortgage offerings.

The bank today unveiled a flat-fee plan to allow people buying homes to see beforehand exactly how much they will pay for all closing costs. Those costs include the annoying application and processing charges by lenders, along with fees charges by such service providers as appraisers.

Bank of America will have three flat-fee tiers -- $1,995, $2,495 or $2,995 -- depending on the state. California, as if you had to guess, is in the most expensive tier.

So far, the program is available in full-service Bank of America offices but not the former Countrywide Home Loan offices acquired last year when the Charlotte, N.C., bank bought Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp. And for now, it’s only for purchase loans, not the refinancings that have, at least temporarily, made home lending a boom industry again.

The idea is to make the flat fees available eventually for refis and at the home-loan offices, Bank of America Home Loans President Barbara Desoer said in an interview.

In 2007, Bank of America attracted attention with a no-fee mortgage. But consumers tended to regard that loan with some suspicion, on the theory that you can’t get something for nothing, Desoer said.

Many competitors were offering similar no-fee loans two or three years ago, but these days few lenders have been offering promotions of any kind. Indeed, said Inside Mortgage Finance publisher Guy Cecala, "today mortgage lending is very expensive."

That fact should help Bank of America attract attention with its new plan. Still, as Cecala added, in an environment in which borrowers are out to capture 30-year rates at below 5%, the bank will have to compete on low rates as well as on low fees.

As if to address that issue, Bank of America's new approach includes a satisfaction guarantee. If a person decides that another lender’s loan is better after shopping at Bank of America, the bank will write them a check for $250, Desoer said.

Because Bank of America is so large, the moves are likely to attract high interest from consumers and perhaps force rivals to adopt similar programs, said Greg McBride, a senior analyst at the financial information firm Bankrate Inc.

McBride praised another Bank of America offering I described in today’s article -- a plain-language, one-page summary of loan terms to be provided to borrowers when the bank originates a mortgage and again when the loan closes.

That’s a big deal, he said, because of how many consumers complain that they didn’t understand loan terms. McBride said that on government-mandated disclosure forms, key terms can be buried where the borrowers may not see them.

-- E. Scott Reckard