96% of U.S. metro areas lost construction jobs this year, research finds

Construction employment dropped this year in more than 96% of the country’s metropolitan areas, according to research released today by the Associated General Contractors of America.

Of the 337 metropolitan areas, construction-related jobs plunged in 324 regions between August 2008 and August 2009, according to an analysis of federal employment data.

The Reno-Sparks area of Nevada was the hardest hit, with a 35% dive, followed by the 33% sag in the Duluth region spread over Minnesota and Wisconsin. Construction employment in Tucson plummeted 31%, and it slumped 30% in Wenatchee, Wash.

Several California areas suffered deep declines. Construction jobs in Redding dipped 28%, while employment in the construction, mining and logging sectors in El Centro dropped 27%. The Riverside, San Bernardino and Ontario region, as well as the Sacramento, Arden-Arcade and Roseville area saw construction jobs slide 23%. Construction, mining and logging work fell 23% in the Santa Cruz and Watsonville zone.

Statewide, California’s construction employment numbers dropped 19%, from 798,400 workers to 650,200. Construction jobs in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Glendale division fell 12%, from 145,400 workers to 127,300. The best performer in the state was the Hanford-Corcoran metropolitan area in Central California, which was ranked 95% nationwide with an 8% drop in construction, mining and logging jobs....

Average U.S. closing costs fall; San Francisco grabs the No. 4 spot

The average cost of getting a mortgage dropped about 12% nationwide over the last 12 months, according to a new study by Bankrate Inc.

Nationwide, the average closing fees on a $200,000 mortgage, with 20% down and a 30-year fixed-rate loan, totaled $2,732, down from $3,118 in 2008, the study found. Closing costs for home buyers haven't been this low since 2007, the survey said.

San Francisco had the 4th-highest closing costs in the United States, with average expenses of $3,117, a decline of 6% from $3,321 in 2008, the study said. Last year, San Francisco was ranked 11th in the survey, Bankrate said.

New York had been the most expensive state for closing fees for four consecutive years, with Texas holding steady in second place, the study said. But, in the most recent study, the two states switched spots.

On a $200,000 mortgage, closing costs in Texas averaged $3,855, the survey said. Closing fees in New York averaged $3,408, the study said.

Nevada was the cheapest state for closing costs with an average of $2,276.

The decline in closing costs for home buyers is a testament to the downward price shift in the real estate market, Bankrate said.

Researchers chose ZIP Codes in the largest cities of each state, analyzing the closing costs for a $200,000 home mortgage to figure out their averages, the survey said.

California was the only state to be broken in two for the study -- San Francisco and Los Angeles, Bankrate said. Average closing fees in Los Angeles came in at $2,861, which was good for the 14th spot. That's down 12% from $3,250 in 2008.

Bankrate's survey includes lenders' origination fees and title and settlement fees. Taxes, insurance, homeowners association dues or prepaid items weren't included in the study.

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Photo: A recently sold home in San Francisco. Credit: Getty Images

June L.A. home prices are up over May -- in the top tier

The latest numbers from a key gauge of home prices showed further signs of firming in the Los Angeles market -- at least at the high end.

On an unadjusted basis, prices in the Los Angeles area rose 1.1% in June compared with May, according to the latest Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which tracks home prices in 20 major metro areas in the U.S.

That was the first month-to-month increase recorded for the L.A. area by the closely watched index since September 2006. (When adjusted for seasonal sales trends, prices were up 0.4%.)

Although bolstering recent reports that home prices may have bottomed out in L.A., the wealth -- what’s left of it, anyway -- isn’t being shared equally.

At the lower tier of the market (homes priced under $278,293), prices were actually down 1.5% in June compared to May (down 2.2% seasonally adjusted), while the middle tier ($278,293-$441,092) was up 0.7% on an unadjusted basis and was down 0.1% when seasonally adjusted, according to Case-Shiller.

The top tier ($441,972 and above) was up 1.6% unadjusted and 0.5% on an adjusted basis.

In July, the median home price in Los Angeles was $339,430, according to the California Assn. of Realtors.
That’s down 44% from the peak of $605,300 reached in August 2007, according to the association.

But the July 2009 median price rose 3.9% compared with June’s $274,740 median price.

-- Martin Zimmerman

Photo: A home in Burbank. Credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Hot Property: Veteran actor buys L.A. condo

Veteran actor James Hong ("Balls of Fury") has purchased a condo in a courtyard-style building in Los Angeles for $721,000, public records show.

The two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit has 1,437 square feet of space plus a patio with fireplace off the living room. There's a formal dining room, hardwood floors, city views and custom cherry cabinets and granite counters in the kitchen.

If you aren't familiar with Hong's body of work, imdb has about 350 acting credits for the 80-year-old spanning more than five decades.

In Hong's new 90048 ZIP Code, 19 condos sold in the first half of 2009 at a median price of $502, according to MDA DataQuick. That was a price drop of 9.5% from the same period in 2008. My calculator shows he paid just about that per square foot. 

No photos on this one.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

 

Following up on L.A. foreclosure properties

Back in March L.A. Land looked at some Los Angeles foreclosures for sale. Thought we might follow up to see what they went for:

5605 Shenandoah Ave., Los Angeles 90056
Size: This 3,565-square-foot home in the Ladera Heights area has four bedrooms and 3½ bathrooms. The 1959 two-story house sits on a roughly 9,600-square-foot lot.
Agent description: The home has granite kitchen countertops, ceramic and wood floors, a wet bar and an aluminum steel roof.
Listed for: $789,000

Sold June 9 for $705,000.

Another foreclosure listed then was:

4138 Bledsoe Ave., Los Angeles 90066
Size: The 1,297-square-foot home has three bedrooms and two bathrooms. The 1953 single-story home is on a lot of about 4,240 square feet.
Agent description: The traditional home on a tree-lined street in the Mar Vista area features hardwood floors, a private patio and a large, gated front yard with a pond.
Listed for: $489,900

Still for sale. The price was reduced to $440,000 July 20.

Also:

3952 Walgrove Ave., Los Angeles 90066
Size: The single-story home in the Palms/Mar Vista neighborhood is about 900 square feet. The home, built in 1941, is on a roughly 5,980-square-foot lot and has two bedrooms and one bathroom.
Agent description: The redone house has bamboo floors and travertine countertops.
Listed for: $679,900

Sold July 23 for $639,000.

So did the buyers get some deals buying foreclosures, or are those prices still too high?

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo:  The 90056 ZIP Code for 5605 Shenandoah Ave., top, has seen 26 sales since the first of the year at a median price of $650,000, according to MDA DataQuick. That's a price drop of 22.6% from the median for the first half of 2008. Credit: Nelson Shelton & Associates

Photo:  The 90066 ZIP Code for 4138 Bledsoe Ave., middle, and 3952 Walgrove Ave., bottom, has seen 114 sales since the first of the year at a median price of $675,000, according to MDA DataQuick. That's a price drop of 14.4% from the median for the first half of 2008. Credit: Maria Hsin

Downtown L.A. micro-lofts for rent may be affordable, but they sure are tiny

 

The Rosslyn Lofts in downtown L.A. announced the availability of micro-loft apartments last week featuring kitchenettes, free utilities and free Internet.

Redesigned to serve the downtown workforce, the 1913 concrete-and-steel building at 451 S. Main St. was largely gutted and now has 297 rentals, 259 of which qualify as "affordable housing." Households earning between 35% and 60% of the Los Angeles area’s median income are eligible to lease the units from $484 to $832.

Now here comes the micro part: The spaces range from 200 to 325 square feet. That's smaller than a standard two-car garage.

Does small mean affordable? You tell me.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments

Photo: The building's exposed brick adds visual interest to a wall of a model unit.  Credit: Parness & Associates

L.A. as landlord

 

Los Angeles is joining the movement by other cities around the country to buy up foreclosures and turn them back into viable residences. Fed Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan and others toured some of the homes Wednesday that L.A. plans to buy with its share of the funds under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. From latimes.com: 

The city intends to use its $33-million piece of that money to turn some of the homes into low-income rental housing. Others it will refurbish and sell to low-income and moderate-income families.

"We want to bring real families into these neighborhoods, not more investors," said Mercedes Marquez, the head of the city's housing agency....

The aim of the federal effort is to reduce blight and add affordable housing. There has been some grumbling among housing programs about the formula that was used for the funding allocation, with some agencies saying that big cities like Los Angeles and Cleveland gobbled up more than their fair share. Some real estate brokers and private investors also have been critical of the program, saying it could force prices down even further.

The funding itself is a small dose of medicine for a massive problem. Los Angeles saw more than 21,000 foreclosures in 2007 and 2008, and many of them are still on the market. Even if it spent every cent of its funding on buying homes and bought them at an average price of $100,000, the city would be able to buy only 330 homes.

It's hard to imagine 300 or so homes would have much impact on housing prices in a city as big as L.A. If there's a vacant house on the block that's becoming a public nuisance, having the Feds buy and fix it might make the neighbors happy. But this certainly sounds like a drop in the bucket.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: U.S. Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan, left, greets Assemblyman Mike Davis (D-Los Angeles) outside a foreclosed house on East 90th Street that Los Angeles is taking over. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

L.A. apartment building foreclosures rise

How foreclosures are affecting low-income renters comes from the Associated Press story datelined Los Angeles, "Renting families forced onto street as landlords lose apartments to foreclosure," at latimes.com:

The foreclosure crisis is hitting inner-cities hard as landlords default on mortgages in record numbers and foreclosures force tenants into the street. Boarded up apartment buildings have become common on impoverished city blocks while emergency shelters are swelling with mothers with children.

"The doors are busting down with people with this problem," said Mercedes Marquez, city housing general manager. "And the wave is still coming."

More on the national and local pictures:

While the nation's default rate on apartment buildings is still relatively low, it is rising quickly. Fannie Mae, for example, said its delinquency rate was 0.30 percent at the end of last year, double what it was at the end of September, and almost four times the rate at the end of 2007.

In Los Angeles, neighborhoods in the city's low-income south and central areas are being walloped.

In 2007, buildings containing a total of 1,690 apartments were foreclosed on. In 2008, owners lost buildings containing 4,789 apartments, according to the city housing department.

That's a lot of lost rental housing.

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Anna Siciliano, right, closes her gate after her aunt, Maria Clemente, left, and her husband, Jose Clemente, moved their belongings into her garage in Los Angeles March 15, 2009. Clemente's daughter, Maritza Lopez, center, looks on. The couple's landlord lost their rental property in foreclosure. Credit: Jason Redmond / Associated Press

Foreclosures in Culver City, Palms-Mar Vista and elsewhere

Are these really foreclosure prices? Reporter Maria Hsin went looking for foreclosures in Culver City, Ladera Heights and the Palms-Mar Vista areas and came back with the seven featured in a foreclosure gallery at latimes.com. But for what one is getting, these list prices sure seemed high to me. Here's a sample:

5605 Shenandoah Ave., Los Angeles 90056

Size: This 3,565-square-foot home in the Ladera Heights area has four bedrooms and 3½ bathrooms. The 1959 two-story house sits on a roughly 9,600-square-foot lot.

Agent description: The home has granite kitchen countertops, ceramic and wood floors, a wet bar and an aluminum steel roof.

About this area: In 2008, 38 single-family homes were sold in the 90056 ZIP Code at a median price of $770,000, according to MDA DataQuick, a decrease of 24.7% from 2007.

Listed for: $789,000

What do you think, L.A. Land?

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Courtesy of Nelson Shelton & Associates

Slicing and dicing L.A. listings

HousingTracker's weekly listing prices and numbers are up, but some new functions at Realtor.com now provide additional details about local markets.

From HousingTracker.net, for Los Angeles:

2009-03-02	Month/Month	Year/Year
Median Listing Price	$369,900	0.2%	-20.3%
Number of Listings	36,910	-2.4%	-23.2%

From Realtor.com, a wider view of the Los Angeles metro market:

Average Days On Market: 144
Active Listings: 265,519
Median Listing Price: $286,500
Average Sale Price: $370,895

From the main page, click on Find Home Values in the upper right and then click on the map. Or use the search field to find a specific city. For example, for Culver City:

Average Days On Market: 100
Active Listings: 140
Median Listing Price: $580,000
Average Sale Price: $552,870

Days on the market, while interesting to know, is often misleading because properties taken off the market and relisted start counting all over again. But Trulia is looking at coming up with a more complete listing history. Stay tuned for that.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?