REAL ESTATE

New U.S. single-family home sales in December rose faster than expected to their highest level in eight months and prices were the highest since April 2008, raising cautious optimism for a housing market recovery

Applications for U.S. home mortgages slumped last week as bankers recorded the slowest refinancing activity in more than a year, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Candy Spelling, television producer Aaron Spelling's wife, is still waiting for a buyer for her $150 million mansion, which is said to be the most expensive home in the world.

Supermodel Kate Moss has bought a ?8 million historic townhouse in London's Highgate area in the same neighborhood as Jude Law and Sienna Miller.

Research by a UK-based independent property investment consultancy found that the property was considered a better investment than gold and shares for investors to invest their cash to make profit.

Silicon Valley billionaire, Tom Siebel, founder of CRM vendor Siebel Systems, has sold his 62,000-acre Montana cattle ranch for $45 million.

The U.S. Treasury's toxic asset funds have gained 27 percent since they were created to help revive the mortgage-backed securities market, according to data expected to be released later on Monday.

Alexis Stewart, a radio host and daughter of Martha Stewart who has been trying to sell her duplex loft at 27 North Moore Street on and off since more than three years, has now slashed the price to as low as $9.5 million.

Based on average median household income estimates from 2005 to 2009, Westlake in Texas emerges as the most affluent neighborhood in America in a study by Forbes.

Zsa Zsa Gabor and her husband Frederic Prinz von Anhalt are planning to sell their Bel Air, Calif., mansion for about $28 million. An option of lease and buy is also available, said John Blanchette, a publicist for Gabor.

Hollywood actor Orlando Bloom has put his home in the Hollywood Hills for rent at a whooping $18,000 a month.

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff's sister-in-law Marion Madoff has listed her Palm Beach, FL home for $6.5 million.

Donald Trump, billionaire real estate mogul and outspoken critic of China, has been on a freewheeling China-baiting spree of late. The Chinese are not friends, but enemies, and that they do not understand niceness, Trump said in CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

Groundbreaking on new U.S. home construction fell more than expected in December to its lowest in over a year, suggesting the battered housing sector remains a major roadblock to economic recovery.

Home sales in Southern California rose above their seasonal pattern in December from November with a 20.5 percent gain but were down 12.5 percent from a year earlier, reflecting a sluggish jobs market and tight credit, MDA DataQuick said on Tuesday.

The Obama administration on Tuesday stepped up efforts to make it easier for struggling homeowners to renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, although it could be more than a year before such efforts pay off.

New York City expects to record a 3.75 percent rise in real estate market values for the fiscal year starting in July, the finance commissioner said on Friday, as he issued tentative assessments for property taxes.

Banks seized more than a million U.S. homes in one year for the first time last year, despite a slowdown in the last few months as questions around foreclosure processing arose, a leading firm said on Thursday.

After repossessing more than a record 1 million homes in the U.S., banks are now poised to foreclosure on even more properties in 2011, according to Realty Trac Inc.

Applications for U.S. home mortgages increased last week as lending rates eased from recent highs, an industry group said on Wednesday.

U.S. housing prices overall are expected to hit bottom by spring 2011 and begin a gradual rise in 2012, Frank Nothaft, chief economist and vice president of housing lender Freddie Mac said on Wednesday.

The U.S. real estate market is improving, at least for foreign investment dollars, according to the Association for Foreign Investment in Real Estate, or AFIRE.

Sales of new single-family houses climbed 5.5 percent in November 2010 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 290,000, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Residential real estate in 35 large and medium-sized cities in China is, on average, about 29.5 percent overpriced, according to estimates of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The value of U.S. homes is expected to decline by more than $1.7 trillion during 2010, following a drop of more than $1 trillion in 2009, according to data from Zillow Real Estate Market Reports. Since the market peak of June 2006, U.S. housing has lost $9-trillion in value.

Builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes improved a tad in November, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI).

The White House said on Thursday the administration is reviewing legislation that could make it more difficult for homeowners to challenge unjustified foreclosure actions.

The percentage of home sellers who cut their asking price fell in September, with price reductions smaller than the month before.

The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it was probing reports the nation's top mortgage lenders improperly evicted struggling borrowers from their homes as part of the devastating wave of foreclosures unleashed by the financial crisis.