REAL ESTATE

More countries are seeing a rise in distressed sales of commercial properties in the second quarter, with South Africa, the United States and New Zealand faring worst as the market downturn worsens, a report showed.

U.S. homebuilder sentiment in August rose to its highest level in over a year, a private survey showed on Monday, adding to mounting evidence that the housing market and economic recession were leveling out.

Despite weakening second home purchases in 2008, the long-term demand looks favorable for the second-home market because there are large numbers of people in the prime years for buying a second home.

The value of U.S. homes fell by 12.1 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, but the rate of decline shrank for the first time since prices began to fall in 2007, real estate website Zillow.com said on Tuesday.

U.S. regulators said on Thursday that residential mortgage servicers dealing with first and subordinated liens on the same property must focus on getting the best overall deal for the loan's owners.

U.S. officials are considering a plan to isolate failing assets held by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, while an administration official said such an idea was in the early stages of development.

The percentage of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March, portending another blow to the housing market, Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday.

Consumer spending continues to decline, as rising unemployment and a prolonged recession force consumers to cut back.

The real estate investment arm of U.S. bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N) aims to sell a Shanghai office building for around 2.5 billion yuan ($366 million) to a Hong-Kong-listed developer, sources said on Tuesday.

Signs of recovery in the U.S. housing market and growing demand for wood as an energy source could herald a recovery in demand for forestry products, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

By the time Diane Kimsey called Jeannie Feenick, a sales associate with Weichert Realtors in Warren, N.J., in June 2008, the home owner had already conducted an exhaustive search for a real estate practitioner to list her Martinsville, N.J., home.

Investors in troubled markets like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and San Diego are watching as cash investors scoop up hundreds of condos at bargain prices from Miami developers and banks that are desperate to get the units off the books.

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Sunday that signs of stabilization and increased confidence in the economy could be dashed if home prices were to take another turn downward.

Despite a pick up in sales, commercial real estate prices posted a record drop in the second quarter, according to an index developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Real Estate.

The corporate bond market is signaling trouble ahead for those U.S. regional banks that are facing rising loan losses from commercial real estate.

The Federal Reserve seems to be volunteering to be top bubble burster. In a recent speech, Bill Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,

U.S. banks' losses from loans to homebuilders should start to taper off in about six months, a Standard & Poor's analyst said on Wednesday.

U.S. mortgage applications fell for the first time in four weeks, driven by a drop in demand for home refinancing loans as interest rates climbed, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.

U.S. mortgage rates rose for a second consecutive week as Treasury yields climbed, a move that does not bode well for the hard-hit U.S. housing market.

$2.2 trillion of properties acquired or refi nanced after this point in early 2004 have lost value since the transaction.

Companies that service risky residential mortgages are warning U.S. officials that a key program to slow foreclosures may push some financing costs higher and derail their efforts, said a leading subprime firm.

Senior U.S. housing officials and leading mortgage companies met on Tuesday to set explicit goals for preventing evictions and helping struggling borrowers with their home loans.

The U.S. housing market may finally have turned around after three years, given the rise in the widely-watched Case-Shiller home price index for May, the developers of the index told Reuters on Tuesday.

Property services company FirstService Corp (FSV.TO) reported a quarterly net loss on Wednesday, hurt by a drop in revenue in its commercial real estate unit and a deferred income tax charge.

It would seem that the US housing market - arguably the Achilles heel of the global financial morass - is finally looking up.

Home prices are stabilizing after steep declines last year, although prices are still down about 17 percent compared to last year, according to new home prices index report released on Tuesday which gives further support to the belief that the housing market is reaching a bottom.

Our high on the day so far was just after 10 AM when the new home sales report came out. Predictably, the headlines are in and

Senior U.S. housing officials and leading mortgage companies on Tuesday will make a fresh commitment to help troubled borrowers keep their homes and will promise to expand foreclosure-prevention aid, sources familiar with the plans said.

Though business is more competitive than ever, she finds nothing more gratifying than building and maintaining relationships with colleagues and clients in her seaside community north of San Diego.