Burj Dubai sets records and makes profits

By Malcolm Borthwick

In recent years Dubai has grabbed the headlines with audacious

Towering ambition: the Burj dwarfs its neighbours - and all other world towers

offshore islands, rotating buildings and a seven star hotel. On Monday it opened the world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai.

At more than 800m, Burj Dubai smashed the previous world record, which was held by Taiwan’s 508m Taipei 101.

It’s about twice the height of the Empire State Building, you can see its spire from 95km away and the exterior is covered in about 26,000 glass panels, which glisten in the midday desert sun.

The design of the building posed unprecedented technical and logistical challenges, not just because of its height, but also because Dubai is susceptible to high winds and is close to a geological fault line.

“You have the solutions for it but you always wonder how it will really work,” Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the developer behind Burj Dubai told the BBC.

“We have been hit with lightning twice, there was a big earthquake last year that came across from Iran, and we have had all types of wind which has hit us when we were building. The results have been good and I salute the designers and professionals who helped build it.”

West to East shift

One of the companies behind the Burj was the Canadian-based wind engineering firm RWDI. Extreme wind speeds on the ground in Dubai can reach 50km an hour. At the top of the building it can be three times as fast.

Wayne Boulton, general manager of RWDI’s wind engineering team in the Middle East, explains how they tested the building for wind resistance.

“We constructed a scale model and put it in a wind tunnel,” he says. “In the wind tunnel we are able to test a number of different wind speeds and directions. We can test the pressure you would get on the surface of the building under normal conditions and also under more extreme events.”

The last couple of decades have seen a shift in the building of skyscrapers from the West to the East. Four out of five of the world’s tallest buildings are in Asia and the Middle East.

Burj Dubai amid the Dubai skyline

“It comes down to confidence,” says Andrew Charlesworth from property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle. “A lot of these emerging economies see themselves as important players in the world and want to show they can deliver these sort of projects.

“The wealth of the world is shifting from the West to the East and emerging economies want to highlight their future expectations in terms of where they are gong to be positioning themselves globally.”

White elephant?

Dubai is a city of superlatives, where everything has to be the biggest and the boldest. But like many of the world’s past tallest buildings, Burj Dubai was planned and built during the boom years, and finished during a property crash. The Empire State Building was completed during the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Petronas Towers in Malaysia during the 1990s Asian financial crisis.

This has led many to question whether this latest record breaker is a white elephant. Though Mohamed Ali Alabbar argues it is anything but.

“As of today we have sold 90% of the building and we expect it to be 90%-occupied,” he says. “We were lucky to make more than a 10% return. Originally we thought we’d be lucky to break even, because we can make so much money from the land around Burj Dubai which is a 500-acre site.”

The fact that the developer has made a profit on its $1.5bn (£928m) investment has been helped by the fact that it bought the land with equity and not cash, and that it pre-sold most of the apartments and offices before the property crash.

Investors have already handed over 80% of the value of the apartments and offices, and will pay the remaining 20% on moving in. And in contrast to many unfinished developments in Dubai, the default rate among investors has been low.

But for investors, it has been a mixed picture. Fortunes have been won and lost on the Dubai property market, which has collapsed in spectacular fashion. Like many properties here, Burj Dubai was sold “off-plan” or before the building was completed. Offices and apartments went on sale in 2004 and most were snapped up by both local and international investors in just two days.

Mohamed Abdul Hadi is one local investor who made millions out of Burj Dubai long before the building was completed. “In 2007 we bought three floors on Burj Dubai,” he told the BBC. “The first investor paid 2,500 UAE dirhams ($680; £420) per square foot. We bought at AED 3,500 and one year later we sold at around AED 5,000. Look at the profit, where else can you have this but Dubai? And with no taxes.”

Oversupply

But those who invested late will be nursing large losses, according to Saud Masud, a real estate analyst at Swiss investment bank UBS. “Late stage investors may find this a lot more challenging because property prices in Dubai have come down by 50% and we think prices are likely to go down another 30%,” he says.

Graphic comparing the world’s tallest buildings

“We have an oversupply in the property market today. We think it will reach 25% to 30% vacancy rates for residential property in a year’s time, and for commercial property it’s already 40%. Burj Dubai is not immune to that.”

The landscape of Dubai has changed dramatically over the last two decades. Sheikh Zayed Road is the 12-lane super-highway which runs through the city and is named after the UAE’s founding father. Twenty years ago there were just a few tall buildings here, now there are hundreds, all jostling for space. But in the three years that I’ve been here, the frenzied pace of construction has slowed down and many cranes now stand idle.

Developers are holding back on new multi-billion dollar flagship projects and focusing on finishing existing projects instead. About $190bn worth of Dubai real estate projects are currently on hold, according to Middle East Economic Digest. As in many parts of the world, banks are reluctant to lend and investors are reluctant to spend. Burj Dubai could mark the end of an era for skyscrapers in the Gulf – at least in the short term.

source:BBC news

Washington Report: Treasury Policy Change

by Kenneth R. Harney

The Obama administration announced a blockbuster policy change over the holidays that didn’t get a lot of press attention, but will affect the housing market for years.

The Treasury department said it is now committed to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with as many billions of dollars as is necessary to get them through the next three years. There’ll be no limit whatsoever anymore.

Previously the Treasury had limited its support to $200 billion apiece for the two formerly-private, now government-controlled, mortgage finance giants.

From here on, the Treasury said in its policy announcement, there will no “uncertainty about the (government’s) commitment to support the firms as they continue to play a vital role in the housing market during the current crisis.”

Though some critics howled that the Obama administration is writing a blank check, the significance of the move for real estate is potentially huge, for several reasons.

Number one: Fannie and Freddie provide funding for well over half the U.S. mortgage market — making home sales and purchases possible for hundreds of thousands of consumers.

Number two: The fact that the two companies have an explicit, full faith and credit backstop from the U.S. Treasury means that Fannie and Freddie can borrow in the capital markets at more favorable rates. Those lower costs of capital can then be passed along – at least in part – to home loan borrowers in the form of lower interest rates.

Finally, a key reason for the policy change – which also included permission for the firms to retain larger mortgage-asset portfolios – is to help Fannie and Freddie provide deeper loan modification assistance to greater numbers of seriously troubled borrowers.

Both companies are now expected to reach out and offer loan principal forgiveness to delinquent and underwater home owners – something that the current Obama loan modification program does not permit.

Partly as a result, Obama’s “Home Affordable Modification Program,” or “HAMP,” has been only minimally successful in attracting the participation of borrowers in the deepest trouble – especially those so far behind and underwater that they are walking away from their houses, sending back the keys to their lenders – and ultimately losses to Fannie and Freddie.

If the revised policy helps keep larger numbers of home owners out of foreclosure and out of walkaway mode, the impact on local real estate markets and home values could be significant over the coming couple of years.

source:realtytimes

Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises’ desert home

Dilemma in the desert: Developer, environmentalists face off over huge Calif. solar complex

By Michael R. Blood, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — On a strip of California’s Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation’s quest for cleaner power.

Oakland, Calif.-based BrightSource Energy has been pushing for more than two years for permission to erect 400,000 mirrors on the site to gather the sun’s energy. It could become the first project of its kind on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property, leaving a footprint for others to follow on vast stretches of public land across the West.

The construction would come with a cost: Government scientists have concluded that more than 6 square miles of habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise would be permanently lost.

The Sierra Club and other environmentalists want the complex relocated to preserve what they call a near-pristine home for rare plants and wildlife, including the protected tortoise, the Western burrowing owl and bighorn sheep.

“It’s actually a good project. It’s just located in the wrong place,” said Ileene Anderson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group.

The dispute is likely to echo for years as more companies seek to develop solar, wind and geothermal plants on land treasured by environmentalists who also support the growth of alternative energy. In an area of stark beauty, the question will be what is worth preserving and at what cost as California pushes to generate one-third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

The Bureau of Land Management has received more than 150 applications for large-scale solar projects on 1.8 million acres of federal land in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. In California alone, such projects could claim an area the size of Rhode Island, transforming the state into the world’s largest solar farm.

BrightSource Energy wants permission to construct three solar power plants on the site that together would generate enough power each year for 142,000 homes, potentially generating billions of dollars of revenue over time.

The sun’s power is used to heat water and make steam, which in turn drives turbines to create electricity. Built in phases, the project would include seven, 459-foot metal towers, a natural gas pipeline, water tanks, steam turbine generators, boilers and buildings for administration and maintenance. Each plant would be surrounded by 8-foot high steel fencing.

The site has virtually unbroken sunshine most of the year, and is near transmission lines that can carry the power to consumers.

In November, federal and state biologists reviewing the plan proposed that the company catch and move the tortoises and preserve them elsewhere on 12,000 acres, a proposal that could cost BrightSource an estimated $25 million.

John Kessler, a project manager for the California Energy Commission, said there is disagreement with BrightSource over what the company would pay for long-term maintenance for the land that would be purchased, and the company also believes the cost of buying it should be less.

The company declined to comment directly on those issues.

It will likely be months before state and federal regulators considering the plan make a decision on the tortoises’ fate.

BrightSource President John Woolard warned in government filings released last month that heavy-handed regulation could kill the proposal. He did not mention the tortoises directly but referred to “unbounded and extreme” requirements being placed on the company.

At a time when the White House is pushing for the rapid development of green power, Woolard predicted the outcome in the California desert would reverberate widely.

The large-scale solar industry “is in its infancy, with great promise to compete with conventional energy,” Woolard wrote. “Overburdening this fledgling industry will cause it to be stillborn, ending that promise before it has truly begun.”

The Sierra Club wants regulators to move the site closer to Interstate 15, the busy freeway connecting Los Angeles and Las Vegas, to avoid what it says will be a virtual death sentence for the tortoises. Estimates of the population have varied, but government scientists say at least 25 would need to be captured and moved.

The group argues that the reptiles are the “most genetically distinct” of all of California’s desert tortoises and point to a 2007 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report that found the tortoise population is dropping in parts of a four-state region that includes California.

“The project must not contribute to additional loss of habitat,” the Sierra Club said in government filings.

Roy Averill-Murray, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s desert tortoise recovery coordinator, said there are insufficient data to make judgments about the population on the BrightSource site.

Tortoise “populations across the board have declined, but we don’t have the same kind of information for this particular patch of ground,” Averill-Murray said.

In a statement, BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs did not address proposals to move all or part of the complex, pledging that the company “will continue to work with the environmental community to ensure that we establish a good example for projects that follow.”

In government filings, the company depicts the site near the Nevada line as far from untouched: It has been used for livestock grazing, has been crisscrossed by off-roaders and the boundary of a golf club is a half-mile away.

Except for the tortoise, no other federal or state threatened or endangered animal or plant is on the site, the company said. In 1994 the federal government designated 6.4 million acres as “critical habitat” for the tortoise in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, but the BrightSource site was not included “and is by no means in an area critical to the survival of this species,” the company concluded.

The complicated review is being watched closely.

“At this point, there are zero solar-energy projects on public land,” said Monique Hanis of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. “We are looking for ways to expand the market and reduce barriers … and get more of these projects moving.”

source:yahoonews

Are You Wearing Your Crash Helmet? Forecasting the Real Estate Market

by Clifford A. Hockley

The recession is far from over. The biggest indicator of our economic health is how many people are unemployed.

Unemployment

In September 2008, 121,240 Oregonians were unemployed. In September 2009, 211,529 Oregonians were unemployed which means roughly 90,000 more people than last year. Oregon’s unemployment rate was 6.8 percent in September 2008; in September of 2009 it is running at 11.5%. Crook County has the highest unemployment rate at 19.7%, with Gilliam County the lowest at 6.2%.

Unemployment is expected to continue to rise through the second half of 2010.

Increased Foreclosure rates

There is a direct correlation between unemployment and the ability of home owners to pay their mortgages. According to RealtyTrac, an online seller of foreclosed-property listings, Oregon had the 11th-highest home foreclosure rate in the nation from July to September (the third quarter). There were 76.6 percent more foreclosures in Oregon during the third quarter than a year earlier, during the third quarter of 2008. This pattern will continue until the economy bottoms out.

In the apartment marketplace, we will also see an increase in the foreclosure rate as some owners struggle with higher vacancy rates, lowered rental rates, and concessions. The Average apartment investor is going to face a loss of one month’s revenues, as a result of rental concessions they have to give to attract tenants. In suburban areas rents are dropping up to 10% while expenses for utilities and property taxes are creeping up. This has created a cash flow crunch for those owners who are highly leveraged.

Bad news (why we have fewer tenants) In addition to apartment dwellers not being able to afford rents because there are no jobs, or they have lost their jobs, we are seeing more roommates moving in together to reduce the rental costs until they can move from part time jobs to full time jobs. The federal first time homebuyer credit of $8000, coupled with low interest rates, have enabled many tenants to exit the rental market. These tenants are now moving into new homes, thereby increasing apartment vacancy rates.

In the Portland market place there are approximately 2500 condominiums unsold. The developers of these properties will have to make their payments to avoid foreclosure. To generate cash many are renting them. Depending on upcoming FHA rules condominium sales financing might be hard to find. If this occurs, some portion of the condominium market place will stay rentals for at least the next 36 months. This also pulls tenants out of the standard rental pool.

Finally, investors are purchasing foreclosed homes and converting them to rentals. Homeowners who have not been able to sell their homes are turning them into rentals to generate cash until the marketplace right’s itself. This is affecting the rental market resulting in reduction in number of apartment renters.

Good news

The good news is further off. In 2009 we expect the lowest rate of apartment construction since before the 1980′s. The forecast is for 900 apartment permits to be pulled in the Portland Metro area, compared to highs of 5000 permits a year in 2006.

Low construction rates will continue as bank financing for new construction will be hard to find.

This means that over the next 24 months the apartment marketplace will tighten. We expect rents to increase significantly at the end of 2011 and 2012 as demand will outstrip supply.

As the Federal tax credits for homebuyers evaporate, buyers will need higher down payments to purchase homes. Since it takes time to save for the higher down payments, we expect apartment tenants to stay tenants for an extended period of time. Increased demand will be generated by increased Population. Statistics show average increase in population in Oregon of 17,000 a year from now through 2015. Of this number we expect 32% per year to become tenants, because they are between 25 and 45 (typically a high rental group).

Eighty percent (80%) of the jobs nationally are in urban areas. This indicates that more people will move to cities rather than rural areas, and create apartment demand. Summary In summary, apartment owners will need to brave a downturn for the next 24 months, to get to the light at the end of the tunnel in 2012. This will motivate landlords to innovate to attract tenants and reduce operating cost. Our advice in the short term is not to leave that crash helmet out of sight. Today’s Local Market Conditions Report

source: yahoonews

Shoppers spend a little more during holiday season

Holiday shoppers spend a little more, but weaker gift card sales may mean rough January

By Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail Writer , On Monday December 28, 2009, 4:06 am

NEW YORK (AP) — Holiday shoppers spent a little more this season, according to data released Monday, giving merchants some reason for cheer.

The spending bounce means retailers managed to avoid a repeat of last year’s disaster even amid tight credit and double-digit unemployment. Profits should be healthier, too, because stores had a year to plan their inventories to match consumer demand and never needed to resort to fire-sale clearances.

Retail sales rose 3.6 percent from Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, compared with a 2.3 percent drop in the year-ago period, according to figures from MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse, which track all forms of payment, including cash.

Adjusting for an extra shopping day between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the number was closer to a 1 percent gain.

Last year, the economy was in “critical condition,” said Michael McNamara, vice president at MasterCard Advisors’ SpendingPulse. “This year, it’s in stable condition.”

A major winter storm that slammed the Northeast and shut in shoppers on the Saturday before Christmas derailed sales. But consumers appeared to have made up for the loss by shopping in advance of the storm and the days leading up to Christmas.

“We had a pretty decent surge,” McNamara said.

Online sales were a particular hot spot, fueled by a big increase the weekend before Christmas. They rose 15.5 percent on the season, though they make up less than 10 percent of all retail sales.

One worrisome sign: Merchants are facing big hurdles to lure shoppers back in January amid lean inventories and what appear to be weak gift card sales. Gift card sales are recorded only when they are redeemed.

Stores count on a post-Christmas boost because of the growing importance of January on the retail sales calendar. Last year, the week after Christmas accounted for 15 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak, a research firm.

Retail consultant Burt P. Flickinger describes gift cards as “the lifeblood” of the post-Christmas season, because shoppers typically spend more than the value of the cards.

“Retailers with a disappointing December are going to need January to survive,” Flickinger said. “Inventories are even too low for retailers.”

Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman at Taubman Centers Inc., said a survey among its centers this past weekend showed that merchants are on track to generate on average low single-digit sales increases from a year ago, though they still have a week to go.

MacDonald noted that the centers had a strong last-minute sales surge, and this past weekend, business has been strong. She added that 85 percent of shoppers are buying, 10 percent are exchanging and about 5 percent are returning items.

Gift card redemption rates have been discouraging this weekend, she said. They averaged 10 percent, based on a sampling of malls, she said. In good years, those rates are anywhere from 30 to 40 percent. That confirms that gift card sales were just “lukewarm,” she said.

“Shoppers are seeing more value in deeply discounted merchandise” than buying gift cards, MacDonald said.

Ricki Smith, 30, of Prairie Village, Kan., had no returns and was hunting for bargains Saturday at the local Walmart store.

“Today, I bought mostly clearance stuff, stuff that got marked down to half-price, ” she said. She added that there were a lot of leftover bath sets, which were mostly what she bought. “The Christmas area, the actual decorations, it was pretty picked over,” she said.

Among the hottest sectors this shopping season, according to SpendingPulse:

– Consumer electronics, up 5.9 percent, helped by flat-panel TVs, smart phones, cameras and video games.

– Footwear, up 5 percent.

– Jewelry, up 5.6 percent. Last year, jewelry sales fell 30 percent.

Weaker area included luxury items, whose 0.8 percent increase came nowhere near making up for last year’s 20 percent decline. Apparel sales fell 0.4 percent on top of a 19 percent decline last year.

A full picture of how individual retailers did will not be known until Jan. 7, when many report December sales.

AP Writer Heather Hollingsworth in Roeland, Kan., contributed to this report.

source:yahoonews

Troubled German bank HRE says it has repaid some state aid

FRANKFURT (AFP) – The troubled German bank Hypo Real Estate  said Monday it had paid back a small part of the aid it had received from the government and other German financial institutions.
HRE, which is now completely state-owned, reimbursed seven billion euros (10 billion dollars) of an initial rescue package worth 50 billion euros provided in 2008 by a consortium that included the federal government, the central bank and private institutions, a statement said.

The total amount of guarantees still at HRE’s disposition fell to 95 billion euros from 102 billion, the bank said.

The “cost to HRE of the cash availability has declined,” noted the German financial market stabilisation fund SoFFin, the body with which the guarantees were negotiated.

HRE is obliged to pay a tax on the liquidities even if it does not use the cash, SoFFin explained.

The bank collapsed just over a year ago amid the global financial crisis owing to mistakes made by its German-Irish subsidiary Depfa.

German authorities nationalised the bank to avoid a failure they felt could threaten the banking system as a whole.

On Monday, the European Commission gave its provisional authorisation for 18 billion euros in new public guarantees for HRE pending a final restructuring plan for the bank.

European Union authorities have insisted that banks that have received public aid sharply reduce their operations.

source: yahoonews

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Asian markets rise on stronger US housing starts

Asian markets rise as stronger US housing starts suggest economy might be picking up

By Joe Mcdonald
BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets were mostly higher Wednesday after a jump in U.S. housing starts suggested the world’s biggest economy is picking up speed.

Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney all rose after major U.S. indexes gained Tuesday on news that November home resales jumped 7.4 percent, above a forecast 2.5 percent.

The housing figures, which came after upbeat earnings and forecasts from technology companies and more corporate dealmaking, countered gloom about third quarter economic growth being revised lower.

“It’s being driven by sentiment out of the U.S. and the fact that U.S. markets continue to hold up in the face of rather mixed data,” said Kirby Daley, senior strategist at Newedge Group in Hong Kong.

China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 12.70 points, or 0.5 percent, to 3,064.29, while Sydney’s S&P/ASX added 0.6 percent to 4,731.8. Tokyo was closed for a holiday after the benchmark Nikkei 225 added 1.91 percent on Tuesday.

Hong Kong bucked the regional trend, with its Hang Seng Composite Index shedding 10.21, or 0.1 percent, to 21,081.83.

Investors were closely watching U.S. markets in the absence of major Asian developments.

“The market realizes that as long as China remains strong, Asia is going to benefit, and as long as the U.S. doesn’t hit a major bump in the road, Asia will remain stable,” Daley said. However, he said that after recent strong gains, “I don’t think there will be a significant push higher.”

China’s government is forecasting full-year 2009 growth of 8.3 percent following a rebound driven by Beijing’s 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus. Private sector economists expect growth of up 9.4 percent.

The Shenzhen Composite Index for China’s smaller second exchange added 11.10 points, or 1 percent, to 1,120.53.

Elsewhere, Seoul’s Kospi was up 0.2 percent at 1,658.3, while Singapore added 0.5 percent and Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.6 percent.

Tuesday on Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 50.79, or 0.5 percent, to 10,464.93 following the housing report by the National Association of Realtors.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 3.97, or 0.4 percent, to 1,118.02, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 15.01, or 0.7 percent, to 2,252.67. Both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are at their highest levels since last October.

That came despite a government report revising down U.S. third-quarter gross domestic product growth. The Commerce Department’s new reading showed a growth rate of 2.2 percent, down from the previous estimate of 2.8 percent. The growth, while smaller than originally believed, still managed to break a record four straight quarters of decline.

Oil fell 4 cents to $74.36 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

In currencies, the dollar rose 0.1 percent to 91.69 yen. The euro was down slightly at $1.4248.

source: yahoonews

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Home sales likely rose again in November

Home sales likely rose in November to highest level since February 2007, spurred by tax credit
By Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Home resales are expected to have risen to their highest level in nearly three years in November, as an extraordinary level of federal support has pulled the housing market back from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Economists project home sales rose 2.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.25 million, up from 6.1 million in October, according to Thomson Reuters. If accurate, it would be the third-straight increase and the best month for home sales since February 2007.

The National Association of Realtors’ report is scheduled for release Monday at 10 a.m. EST.

“Things are stabilizing,” said Pete Flint, chief executive of real estate Web site Trulia.com. “There is a significant amount of buyer interest out there.”

One encouraging sign, at least for sellers, is that prices are stabilizing and rising in some areas. About one in five sellers who listed their homes at the start of December cut their prices at least once, down from about one in four during most of the year.

Buyers last month were racing to finish their sales before the original expiration date of a tax credit. It was originally scheduled to expire on Nov. 30, but Congress decided last month to renew and expand it.

In addition to a credit of up to $8,000 for first-time buyers, homeowners who have lived in their current properties for at least five years can now claim a tax credit of up to $6,500 if they relocate. To qualify, buyers must sign a purchase agreement by April 30.

But now that the deadline pressure has lifted, many analysts expect sales to drop during the winter months and recover in the spring.

“Buyers have no sense of urgency now,” said Gary DeRosa, an agent with ZipRealty Inc. in Seattle.

And many experts caution that the pain for the housing market isn’t over. A record 14 percent of homeowners with a mortgage are either behind on their payments or in foreclosure.

Home prices are likely to start falling again as foreclosures make up a larger share of sales during the winter months, when sellers generally keep their homes off the market.

Prices fell 0.7 percent from September to October, according to a report released Monday by real estate data company First American CoreLogic. The company forecasts prices in large cities will fall about 4 percent before hitting bottom in March.

AP Real Estate Writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
source:yahoonews