In the News

When luxury home builder Toll Brothers blew past quarterly sales and earnings views this week, it underscored how much distance lies between the higher end of the U.S. housing market and the lower end.

Although Toll's (NYSE:TOL) stock price fell after it reported fiscal third-quarter results — amid a drop in new contracts during that quarter — the firm's otherwise robust returns show that there's plenty of money to be made in selling homes to buyers with deep pockets.

LOS ANGELES-The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), in collaboration with the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate, is bringing the ICSC University of Shopping Centers to the West Coast for the first time. Previously only available on the East Coast through the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, the executive level education event will be held on the USC campus Oct. 14 – 16. Industry leaders and educators, including members of the USC faculty, will conduct intensive training on cutting edge issues.

If you want to live in Southern California, it’s going to cost you.

According to Zillow’s July Real Estate Market Reports, households earning less than $60,000 are spending half their income on keeping a roof over their head, just as housing prices are expected to rise nearly 6 percent into 2015.

The average price for a house in the LA area is around $480,000, while Orange County has an average price of around $600,000, according to Zillow.

Southern California home sales plunged in July and show little signs of rebounding. And that, economists say, could stunt the region's economic growth.

Buyers scooped up 20,369 new and resale houses and condos in the six-county region last month, down 12.4% from a year earlier, research firm CoreLogic DataQuick said Wednesday. The sharp drop follows steady declines since October, as would-be buyers struggled to afford houses after prices surged last year.

The pain is especially acute for brokers, who depend on commissions.

At a groundbreaking ceremony in May, neighborhood activists and local government officials celebrated Ponte Vista, a development of 676 homes in San Pedro.

But officials also spoke of the decade it took to get construction started, amid neighborhood protests over the size and style of the homes and the traffic they would bring. Original plans called for a multifamily development with three times as many homes, with many more affordable options.

Now, with plans modified to include 208 single-family homes, prices will range from about $400,000 to $1.1 million.

The developers of the proposed project at 8899 Beverly Blvd. have backed away from a proposed “poor door” policy that would deny low-income tenants of apartments at the building access to a swimming pool proposed for condo owners.

A proposed West Hollywood complex would transform a large building — formerly home to ICM — into housing. The complex would expand and renovate the existing building into an apartment complex that would include a pool and a gym, but only for certain residents.

Today came the biggest deal yet: Zillow said it agreed to buy rival Trulia for about $3.5 billion. The pair will create the proverbial 800-pound gorilla for online real estate. Part of the reason for the merger-mania is that when it comes to online real estate, bigger is pretty much always better.

The real estate market is recovering slowly, but the online real estate space is booming.

To Richard Green, the director of USC’s Lusk Center for Real Estate, Downtown in 2014 is like the Westside of 2007: The area is desirable partly because of a lack of affordable housing in surrounding neighborhoods. Plus, he added, there are enough amenities that allow people to live in Downtown without feeling like they are giving something up.

Another Downtown strength, he said, is that it’s cheaper than nearby neighborhoods that are even more desirable. In Silver Lake, he noted, houses sell for $600-$700 per square foot. In that regard, $575 looks like a good deal, he said.

The American Homes 4 Rent-Beazer deal continued a trend that has seen REITs and institutional investors buy up single-family rental homes en masse as a way of elbowing into a market traditionally ruled by Mom & Pop operations.

Most of the units being acquired are entry-level homes. Normally, many of them would go to first-time buyers, but they're being "shut out" of the market, says Richard Green, director of the USC Lusk Center for Real Estate.

"Investors can buy with cash, which is ideal for sellers who don't want to wait for loans to be approved," he said.