By Alan Zibel

(Associate Press – The Huffington Post) Thousands of borrowers on the verge of foreclosure will soon have the option of renting their homes from Fannie Mae, under a policy announced Thursday.

The government-controlled company, through its new “Deed for Lease” program, will allow borrowers to transfer ownership to Fannie Mae and sign a one-year lease, with month-to-month extensions after that.

The program will “eliminate some of the uncertainty of foreclosure, keeps families and tenants in their homes during a transitional period, and helps to stabilize ... Continue Reading

(McClatchy Newspapers) SAN JOSE, Calif. — When California wildfires ruined their jewelry business, Tony Becker and his wife fell months behind on their mortgage payments and experienced firsthand the perils of subprime mortgages.

The couple wound up in a desperate, six-year fight to keep their modest, 1,500-square-foot San Jose home, a struggle that pushed them into bankruptcy.

The lender with whom they sparred, however, wasn’t the one that had written their loans. It was an obscure subsidiary of Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs Group.

Goldman spent years buying hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgages, many of them from some of ... Continue Reading

“All of the components of real estate value are going in the wrong direction simultaneously,” said Ross, one of nine money managers participating in a government program to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets. “Occupancy rates are going down. Rent rates are going down and the capitalization rate — the return that investors are demanding to buy a property – are going up.”

U.S. commercial property sales ... Continue Reading

The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales fell 3.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 402,000 from a downwardly revised 417,000 in August. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a pace of 440,000.

It was the first decline since March. Sales in September were down 7.8 percent from a year ago.

The median sales price of $204,800 was off 9.1 percent from $225,200 a year earlier, but up 2.5 percent ... Continue Reading

(Sacramento, CA) The California Association of Business Brokers (CABB- a non profit trade organization) says if you are a small business owner looking to sell your business but are waiting for the economy to turn around, use this time to start preparing. One of the most vital steps in this process is to understand what your business is worth.

Ron Hottes, president of CABB and of several Business Team Business Brokerages says that a business broker’s opinion of value can provide you with an objective view of what your business ... Continue Reading

By Ken Roberts

This article appeared in Business Insider Magazine’s second issue of 2009

If the real estate climate was reported like the weather, it might sound something like the following:
“Expect the stormfront in the South Bay real estate market to continue with cold temperatures, scattered showers, and occasional gale force winds in the middle class areas, gradually giving way to partial clearing and a warming trend for first-time buyers with the worst behind us for the high-end market.”
One of the barometers of the real estate climate is the number ... Continue Reading

By Brian Simon

This article appeared in Business Insider Magazine’s second issue of 2009

While entire nations must grapple with the harsh implications of “global warming” and how to address it, it will ultimately take cooperation on an individual grass roots community level to spread the message espoused by leading scientists to make a meaningful impact across the country. With that in mind, a number of South Bay-based businesses, agencies and cities have already made their mark on the green front. Here is an overview of a few notable contributors to the ... Continue Reading