Beverly Hills Real Estate blog Thursday 2-26-09

The Beverly Hills Real Estate blog www.patandmelody.com

Thursday morning and the skies over Hollywood are clear.  Today should be just like yesterday weather-wise.  67 predicted for the high downtown.  It was beautiful yesterday and today should be the same.

Tiger is back and gets a win in his first match play tournament in Arizona.  He looked good.

The market opened in positive territory as investors snapped up financial shares following news the Obama administration may request more money to shore up banks.

The best news we've heard in quite a while out of Washington comes from the Treasury Secretary who said a couple of days ago; it's possible we could see and end to this recession by years end.  That made a lot of people happy.  Let's keep that thought.

From CAR figures on National Home Prices. 

U.S. home prices posted record declines in the fourth quarter of 2008 according to a Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA's) House Price Index (HPI) report released yesterday. The FHFA seasonally adjusted purchase-only house price index, based on data from home sales, was 3.4 percent lower on a seasonally adjusted basis in the fourth quarter compared with the third quarter. The decrease was greater than the 2 percent decline reported in the third quarter, and the largest in the purchase-only index's 18-year history. Over the past year, seasonally adjusted prices fell 8.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 compared with the fourth quarter of 2008.

FHFA's all-transactions House Price Index, which includes data from home sales and appraisals for refinancings, showed significantly less weakness over the latest quarter than the purchase-only index, according to the report. The all-transactions HPI fell 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter, and declined 4.5 percent over the four-quarter period, the largest four-quarter drop in the index. Of the 20 ranked cities with the greatest price declines over the last four quarters, all but one, Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., was in California or Florida. The Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) with the greatest depreciation rate included Merced at -49.5 percent, Stockton at -40.2 percent, and Modesto at -37.8 percent.

That's it from here, have a great day.  See you tomorrow.