Photo: Participants in the Wounded Warrior Project are entertained on the beach at Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. Credit: CB Richard Ellis

MBC calculated the TOTAL single-family home sales dollar volume for the first half of this year, and found it is down 24% from the same period last year, at $140 million. Compared to 2007, when the dollar value of single family homes was close to $276 million, the volume for the first half of this year is down 49%.

The median sale price for a Manhattan Beach house was down 22% from the same period last year, and sales volume was down 41%. This is the lockup that's freezing the high-end market. Homes are selling when prices are lowered well below peak levels (so far this year that seems to be about 22% lower than last year); but relatively few sellers are able or willing to cut their asking prices to those levels.

As MBC notes, the average days on market for Manhattan Beach is more than 100 days. Sellers are holding on to high asking prices, and buyers either refuse --or can't afford-- to pay those prices.

--Peter Y. Hong

In a mortgage study released last week, federal financial regulators reported a 176% jump in short sales and deed-in-lieu proceedings from the first quarter of 2008 to the first quarter this year.  

Short sales and deed-in-lieu actions require borrowers to forfeit their homes to eradicate their mortgage debts, generally for less than the full amount due. Selling a home or handing it back to the bank in this manner does less damage to a borrower's credit rating than a foreclosure, and can be less of a hassle for the lender.

Year-over-year first-quarter short sales jumped from 5,523 to 17,036, according to the report from the Comptroller of the Currency and Office of Thrift Supervision, the U.S. Treasury Department agencies that oversee banks and S&Ls. Quarterly deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure actions edged up from 1,065 to 1,158.

Completed foreclosures still far outnumbered the alternate forfeitures. They totaled 78,936, up from 76,548 in the year-earlier quarter but far below the high of 126,266 in the third quarter last year. As noted here recently, foreclosure statistics are expected to spike again soon as federal, state, local and lender-imposed moratoriums expire.

The regulators said their report covered 64% of current home loans in the United States. They noted that most of the short sales involved borrowers with prime loans, not subprime or alt-A mortgages. 

The news release here describes other findings by the regulators and provides a link to the full 42-page report.

-- E. Scott Reckard

The one-story house, built in 1964, has four bedrooms and three bathrooms in 2,716 square feet. Described as an "architectural hacienda," the private walled and gated home has a courtyard entry, city light views, outdoor entertainment areas and a swimming pool surrounded by mature trees and landscaping. Inside the updated post-and-beam house are vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors and a redone kitchen.

The couple purchased the Los Feliz home in early 2003 for $1,244,000.

They plan to buy another home in the L.A. area. Bratton said he doesn't use the pool and is ready to be done with its upkeep.

No photos, but there are a few more details at latimes.com.

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Here are the homes getting the hits in online searches of L.A. County listings. Realtor.com ranked these as the top five most-searched-for listings countywide within 20% of the median list price of $420,000 for last week. When we ran this feature last month the median list price for the county was $409,000.

1. 1221 Oakridge Drive, Glendale 91205
Size: Four bedrooms, three bathrooms in 1,344 square feet
Listed for: $395,000

2. 6018 Amber Valley Drive, Whittier 90604
Size: Three bedrooms, two bathrooms in 1,249 square feet
Listed for: $350,000

3. 2060 Eleanore Drive, Glendale 91206
Size: Five bedrooms, three bathrooms in 1,534 square feet
Listed for: $447,000

4. 2711 Rustic Lane, Glendale 91208
Size: Three bedrooms, two bathrooms in 1,621 square feet  
Listed for: $449,000

5. 10001 Westwanda Drive, Beverly Hills 90210
Size: One bedroom, one bathroom in 450 square feet
Listed for: $399,000

Two of the same properties, #3 and #5, were on the list that ran June 9 too.

--Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: The 1924 Mediterranean-style home at 1221 Oakridge Drive, Glendale, topped the list of L.A. County median-list price searches last week at Realtor.com. Credit: Daniel P. Garcia

The Mortgage Bankers Assn. said today that Federal Housing Administration and Veterans Administration loans represented 35.9% of new mortgage applications in June, the highest level since November 1990.

Back in August 2005, at the peak of the easy-money era, just 6.8% of mortgage applications were for these federally insured loans. Of course, back then you could get a loan without a down payment, a decent credit score or even an income if you were willing to fudge the details on your loan papers.

The allure of VA and FHA loans these days is that, although they are paperwork-heavy, they require lower down payments than conventional loans, according to the report by the trade group.

--E. Scott Reckard

The biggest property value declines -- roughly 15% -- were in Lancaster and Palmdale. As the Times reported earlier, some neighborhoods in those cities now have homes selling at nominal prices below 1989 levels. Yes, 1989-1990 was a bubble period, as some have pointed out, but it's still remarkable for prices to sink below levels of 20 years ago, without even adjusting for inflation. It's happened in relatively few areas.

L.A. County property value declines in La Puente, Hawaiian Gardens and Norwalk, the most severe outside the Antelope Valley, were in the 7% to 8% range.

-- Peter Y. Hong

   Whether these hopeful buyers will be able to get such mortgages is a question lenders will have to answer. But mortgages with low down payments -- or none at all -- put a lot of hot air in the housing bubble. Zillow's Amy Bohutinsky said of the nearly one-fifth of buyers who plan to put no money down,  "Given the fact that home values are still declining in most markets [and most "bottom" forecasts reach into 2010], this surprises us."

-- Peter Y. Hong

In a sign of how much real estate values have declined since the recession began, Sands’ company Vintage Capital Group is expected to complete its purchase of the mall near the 405 Freeway on Thursday for $50 million.

That’s well below the combined $34.4 million Hopkins spent to buy it in 2003 and the $30 million it spent on improvements. Hopkins put the property up for sale for $100 million in 2005, but was unable to find a taker at that price.

"The world has changed," said Sands, who has bought and sold commercial real estate for many years. He formed Vintage Capital in 2001 to further his investment career after selling residential brokerage Fred Sands Realtors to competitor Coldwell Banker in a nine-figure deal.

The sellers are Newport Beach-based Hopkins Real Estate Group and its financial partner Genesis LA Real Estate Fund.

Genesis LA, a nonprofit corporation that provides financing for developments to benefit low- to moderate-income neighborhoods, had always planned to hold the mall for about five years and then sell and reinvest elsewhere, said Dana Haynes, development manager of the mall for Hopkins.

But Hopkins, which is part owner of a nearby former landfill being prepared for a new $800-million retail and residential complex called the Boulevards at South Bay, was not eager to sell the mall, Haynes said.

"We are disappointed to let go of it," Haynes said. "It’s not the best time to be a seller, but we found a buyer."

Sands said he plans further improvements to the 1.1-million-square-foot mall that is now anchored by IKEA, Target, Sears and JC Penney. The biggest addition would be a 16-screen theater complex, he said, and discussions are underway with two potential operators.

The 73-acre site has room for new construction. Sands said he plans to build as many as six free-standing restaurants soon and perhaps add a hotel when the economy improves. In the meantime, he said, "mid-scale" malls such as South Bay Pavilion can prosper.

"When your jeans wear out, you have to replace them," Sands said. "People still have to shop. People still have to eat."

Sands said he plans to bring more national retailers to the mall while avoiding luxury brands. "They’ve been hit the hardest" by the recession, he said.

Sands’ Vintage Capital also owns malls in Laguna Hills, Santa Clarita, New Mexico and Ohio.

The Beverly Hills Post Office area home of producer David Ladd and his wife, actress Dey Young, is on the market at $5,995,000.

The gated house sits on a wooded 1.1 acres with a tennis court, swimming pool, a tennis court and a guesthouse. The two-story home, built in 1937, has five bedrooms and five bathrooms in 5,536 square feet. 

The property has been listed alternately for sale or lease since 2007, when it was listed at $7,850,000.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: There is a library pub, a sun room, staff quarters for two, French doors and hardwood floors.

    Deeper into the report (on sale for $29.95), however, are some results showing discontent with agents and apparently high levels of buyers who don't understand their mortgages:

    -- The average buyers' rating of their agents' performance was 3.3 on a 1 to 5 scale, with 5 being the highest. That was the same level as the 2008 survey, and down from 4.6 in 2006.

   -- Failure of the agent to "negotiate aggressively on my behalf" was cited by 82% of respondents as the reason for their dissatisfaction, up from 81% the previous year.

  -- About one-fifth of buyers (21%) said they did not know the terms of their loan or were unsure. Buyers of foreclosed homes said they were more informed, with only 12% saying they did not understand or were unsure of their loan terms. If you remove foreclosure buyers from the pool, fully 31% of "regular market" buyers said they did not understand or were unsure of their loan terms.

    The CAR survey was conducted by telephone with 1,400 people who bought homes in the second half of 2008.

    -- Peter Y. Hong

The Los Angeles field office received 9,971 "suspicious activity reports" in 2008; second-place Miami had 5,155. The report says fraud schemes include builders offering secret incentives to home buyers, such as falsely inflating a purchase price to make it appear as if a buyer has made a down payment when none was made. If the home forecloses, there is no home equity for the lender to recover.

Other schemes the report identifies are scams in which a group uses a straw buyer to intentionally default on a mortgage, then buys the property at a discount from the lender through a short sale; and foreclosure rescue schemes in which perpetrators offer to help a borrower in foreclosure and surreptitiously take over the deed to the property.

The report is a broad, but not very deep, overview of the scope of mortgage fraud. The FBI acknowledges that its findings are drawn from multiple sources, including local police, other government agencies, private consultants and trade groups, and that there are inconsistencies in the ways the groups gather and report data.

-- Peter Y. Hong

     May's 9.5% delinquency rate for L.A. County was up from 5% of mortgages late by 90 days or more in May 2008. First American bases its foreclosure analyses on public records.

    While the default rate has nearly doubled, the number of homes actually being sold at auction -- the final foreclosure stage -- has shrunk. In May, the L.A. County repossession rate was down to 1% of mortgages, from 1.1% a year ago. This discrepancy is the "foreclosure backlog" now looming over the housing market. It's caused by various government-mandated and voluntary foreclosure moratoriums, and possibly by lenders trying to manage the flow of repossessed homes entering the market.

    Nationally, First American reported 6.5% of mortgages were in default in May, up from 4% in May 2008. The national repossession rate was 0.7% in May, up from 0.6% in May 2007.

-- Peter Y. Hong

That much talked about "next wave" of foreclosures is on the horizon, according to a report by The Times' Don Lee:

Amid rising unemployment and falling home prices, mortgage defaults have surged to record levels this year. Until recently, many banks have put off launching foreclosure action on the troubled properties, in part because they had signed up for the Obama administration's home-stability plan, which required them to consider the alternative of modifying loans to make it easier for borrowers to make payments.

Just how big the foreclosure wave will be is unclear. But loan defaults are up sharply. And with many government and banks' self-imposed foreclosure moratoriums expiring, the biggest lenders indicate that they are likely to move more aggressively to clear up a backlog of troubled mortgages.

... rising foreclosures will depress home values, pushing more homeowners underwater. Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com estimates that 15.4 million homeowners -- or about 1 in 5 of those with first mortgages -- owe more on their homes than they are worth.

Out-of-work homeowners aren't going to qualify for loan modifications.

California accounts for an outsized share of mortgage loan defaults. A stunning 135,431 homeowners in the state were hit with notices of default in the first quarter, an increase of 11% from the earlier peak in the second quarter of 2008, according to real estate information service MDA DataQuick.

On top of state IOUs, budget woes and a statewide moratorium on housing foreclosures, California will be working its way through this for a long time.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: A sign promotes free bus tours of foreclosure properties outside a real estate office in Victorville on June 15, the first day of a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. The California Foreclosure Prevention Act pressures lenders to work to keep borrowers in their homes. Credit: Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images

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

Depending on your point of view, the national tree of Chile has a distinctive open symmetrical silhouette or it is a bizarre pyramidal evergreen with snaking branches and sharp-pointed, stiff leaves. Found in Chile in the 1780s, this native of Chile and Argentina, inhabiting the lower slopes of the South Central Andes Mountains, was named for the local Araucana people. Since there are no monkeys in its native range, the common name is only theoretical.

The tree is sometimes planted as a novelty in a large landscape area, but its habit of dropping 10-to-15-pound cones makes it inadvisable to linger nearby. The monkey puzzle tree may live to a ripe old age, reputedly up to 1,000 years old, but conversion of habitat is threatening its existence in parts of its original range.

Slow-growing in youth, the monkey puzzle tree eventually reaches 70 to 90 feet tall and 30-feet wide. The gray-barked trunk is straight; heavy branches droop down, but sweep upward at the end. Shiny and sharp leaves are less than 2 inches long and may last for 10 years. Male and female cones, produced when the tree is 30 to 40 years old, usually are borne on separate trees. Seed production in the 6-to-12-inches long, 3-to-6-inches-wide female cones is heavy and the seeds are edible.

The tree prefers regular water but is somewhat drought-resistant. It likes full sun and tolerates almost any well-drained soil. It will take frost and snow, needs little or no pruning and is little affected by pests or diseases.

Usually an oddity, the tree does occur in the Los Angeles area but the accompanying picture was taken on a recent trip in the Netherlands. The owners of this particular tree may not have realized its ultimate size or fruit disposal technique.

--Peter Severynen

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Peter Severynen

The 3,300-square-foot post-and-beam house, built in 1972, has four bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms and sits on a heavily treed lot of about a half-acre.

The couple's 90272 ZIP Code saw 32 single-family home sales in the first quarter at a median price of $2,025,000 ($753 per square foot), according to MDA DataQuick, a drop of 5.8% from the first quarter of 2008.

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: A terrace and patios off the back of the four-story house. Credit: Stephen Moritz

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis House in Los Feliz has landed on the Multiple Listing Service at $15 million.

The 1924 concrete-block structure has four bedrooms and 4 1/2 bathrooms in about 6,000 square feet. The Mayan-inspired California landmark -- it is a state landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places -- sits on about three-quarters of an acre with city, canyon and ocean views.

The seller is the Ennis House Foundation, a nonprofit that has spent about $6.5 million to restore the earthquake- and water-damaged estate. The house "needs more stewardship at this point than a small nonprofit can sustain," the foundation states on its website.

It is estimated it will take an additional$5 million to $7 million complete the restoration. Deep pockets, anyone?

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Architectural details include high, wood-beamed ceilings, art-glass windows, a window-lined loggia looking onto the pool, and a glass mosaic-tile fireplace in the living room. More photos are at latimes.com. Credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

One of the FTC's new cases alleged that five Van Nuys companies had bilked consumers out of about $300 million by selling fraudulent programs related to real estate or online businesses.

The companies -- John Beck Amazing Profits, John Alexander, Jeff Paul, Mentoring of America and Family Products -- and five people who had founded or run those companies were accused of violating federal laws related to telemarketing and consumer fraud.

The FTC accuses the companies of making "false and unsubstantiated claims about potential earnings" that customers could make by following their advice in books, CDs and DVDs titled "John Beck's Free & Clear Real Estate System," "John Alexander's Real Estate Riches in 14 Days" and "Jeff Paul's Shortcuts to Internet Millions," which were sold for $39.95 each.

People who purchased the programs, advertised through infomercials, unknowingly were signed up for additional monthly charges of $39.95 and offered "personal coaching services" that cost several thousand dollars.

Messages left at the companies' offices were not returned Wednesday.

Anyone in L.A. Land have any first-hand experience with any of these outfits? By the way, the FTC is calling this push "Operation Short Change."

-- Lauren Beale

Thoughts? Comments?