Blogs

President Obama flew to Las Vegas, ground zero of the housing crisis, to unveil a revamp of the Home Affordable Refinance Program.

With mortgage interest rates at near historic lows, millions of homeowners have refinanced to rates as low as 4 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage or 3 percent for a 10-year fixed-rate mortgage.However, millions of other

SANTA CRUZ --" The median sales price for a single-family home in Santa Cruz County in September was $490,000, the same as in August. The median, which is the midpoint of what sold, has topped $500,000 only one month this year unlike last year, when the median topped half a million for most of the year.

There were 145 sales in September, about the same as a

U.S. home prices may get a boost from an unlikely source: a pickup in sales of properties in default before they reach the stage where they are repossessed by the bank and sold. There has been a "dramatic shift" in banks' willingness to sell a property for less than the mortgage balance to avoid foreclosing, said Ron Peltier, chairman and chief executive

Reasonably enough, Americans hate almost everything about the real estate recession. Underwater owners hate that they can neither sell nor refinance, distressed homeowners and consumer advocates hate robo-signing, and just about everyone hates plummeting home values. They even strike fear in the hearts of the buyers who are taking advantage of them. 

So, it

 If the Obama administration really wants to save the housing market, it should speed up the foreclosure process -- not prolong the inevitable, experts say.

Four years into the housing crisis, the real estate market is still teetering on the edge. The Obama administration has tried one program after another to stem the tide of foreclosures with limited

 If the housing market were human, it would look like just wrestled a few alligators, after running an obstacle course through a snake pit.

The market is beaten and bruised, but still trying to emerge from the recession, which is why Greg Rand, a 20-year real estate veteran and author of Crash Boom (http://www.crashboom.com/) from Career Press, wants people

SAN FRANCISCO—A real estate tracking firm is reporting that sales of California homes slowed last month.

San Diego-based DataQuick said Tuesday that nearly 35,000 new and resale houses and condos were sold statewide in July. That represents an 11 percent decline from June and 1.4 percent decrease from July 2010.  

DataQuick says the median California home

The Southern California housing market showed some signs of stabilizing last month with sales popping up more than average from May to June, a real estate data firm reported Tuesday. 

Sales rose 11.6% from May, driven by first-time buyers and investors scouring the market for bargains. A total of 20,532 newly built and previously owned homes sold in the

Cruzioworks hosted a New Tech Meetup session, attended by many of Santa Cruz's geekiest citizens. The Meetup, headed by David Britton, always has interesting presentations and is a great way to meet other local technologists and see what's going on in town. If you haven't already, join at their website  -- it's easy and free of charge. 

The speakers:

Shane

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) drew attention from landlords in March when it leased most of a 36-story downtown Seattle tower built during the recession, a sign that technology job growth would help lift U.S. office rents and occupancies.  

“The reduction of big blocks of space is always the first indicator of recovery,” said Patrick Callahan, chief executive