Grim foreclosure outlook

The housing crisis will claim nearly 200,000 Los Angeles homes to foreclosure through next year - more than 80,000 of them in the San Fernando Valley - a report released Thursday predicts. Gregory J. Wilcox in the Daily News.

"The Wall Street Wrecking Ball," a report authored by two nonprofit housing advocates, estimates the mortgage meltdown has eroded almost $80 billion from the region's property values.

"We are all feeling the effects of foreclosures and we need strong solutions to the crisis - not just for families losing their homes but for all of us," said Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, which collaborated on the study with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment.

Home sales hit high
Home sales in the San Fernando Valley jumped 15 percent in August to the highest level this year as buyers took advantage of falling prices and declining interest rates, the local Realtors group said Thursday.Greg Wilcox in the Daily News.

A total of 618 previously owned houses changed owners last month, 79 more than a year earlier and 96 more than in July, said the Van Nuys-based Southland Regional Association of Realtors.