The burglaries occurred over the past three years, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

“Detectives said . . . → Read More: Burglary Ring Hits Vacationing L.A. Times Subscribers]]> Detectives say suspects obtained lists of subscribers who had submitted “vacation holds.”

[Click picture to enlarge]

The U.S. finally has moved beyond attention-grabbing predictions from housing “experts” that housing is bottoming. The numbers are now convincing.

Nearly seven years after the housing bubble burst, most indexes of house prices are bending up. “We finally saw some rising home prices,” S&P’s . . . → Read More: Yes, The U.S. Housing Bust Is Over]]> The housing market has turned—at last.

[Click picture to enlarge]

The U.S. finally has moved beyond attention-grabbing predictions from housing “experts” that housing is bottoming. The numbers are now convincing.

Nearly seven years after the housing bubble burst, most indexes of house prices are bending up. “We finally saw some rising home prices,” S&P’s David Blitzer said a few weeks ago as he reported the first monthly increase in the slow-moving S&P/Case-Shiller house-price data after seven months of declines.

The U.S. finally has moved beyond attention-grabbing predictions from housing “experts” that housing is bottoming. The numbers are now convincing, according to David Wessel on The News Hub.

Nearly 10% more existing homes were sold in May than in the same month a year earlier, many purchased by investors who plan to rent them for now and sell them later, an important sign of an inflection point. In something of a surprise, the inventory of existing homes for sale has fallen close to the normal level of six months’ worth despite all the foreclosed homes that lenders own. The fraction of homes that are vacant is at its lowest level since 2006.

The reduced inventory of unsold homes is key, says Mark Fleming, chief economist at CoreLogic, a housing data-analysis firm. For the past couple of years, house prices have risen in the spring and then slumped; the declining supply of houses for sale is reason to believe that won’t happen again this year, he says.

Builders began work on 26% more single-family homes in May 2012 than the depressed levels of May 2011. The stock of unsold newly built homes is back to 2005 levels. In each of the past four quarters, housing construction has added to economic growth. In the first quarter, it accounted for 0.4 percentage points of the meager 1.9% growth rate.

“Even with the overall economy slowing,” Wells Fargo Securities economists said, cautiously, in a note to clients, “the budding recovery in the housing market appears to be gradually gaining momentum.”

Economists aren’t always right, but on this at least they agree: A new Wall Street Journal survey of forecasters found 44 believe the housing market has reached its bottom; only three don’t. (The full results of the Journal’s July survey will be released at 2pm ET)

Housing is still far from healthy despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to resuscitate it by helping to push mortgage rates to extraordinary lows: 3.62% for a 30-year loan, according to Freddie Mac’s latest survey. Single-family housing starts, though up, remain 60% below the 2002 pre-bubble pace. Americans’ equity in homes is $2 trillion, or 25%, less than it was in 2002 and half what it was at the peak. More than one in every four mortgage borrowers still has a loan bigger than the value of the house, though rising home prices are reducing that fraction slowly.

Still, the upturn in housing is a milestone, a particularly welcome one amid a distressing dearth of jobs. For some time, housing has been one of the biggest causes of economic weakness. It has now—barely—moved to the plus side. “A little tail wind is a lot better than a headwind,” says economist Chip Case, the “Case” in Case-Shiller.

From here on, housing is unlikely to drag the U.S. economy down further. It will instead reflect the strength or weakness of the overall economy: The more jobs, the more confident Americans are about keeping their jobs, the more they are willing to buy houses. “Manufacturing had led growth and construction had lagged,” JPMorgan Chase economists said last week.”Now the roles are reversed: Manufacturing growth has slowed as private construction comes to life.”

Plenty could go wrong. The biggest threat is a large shadow inventory of unsold homes, homes which owners won’t put on the market because they are underwater, homes that will be foreclosed eventually and homes owned by lenders. They have been trickling onto the market, slowed in part by government efforts to delay foreclosures; a flood could reverse the recent rise in prices. Or the still-dysfunctional mortgage market could get worse. Or overly zealous regulators or a post-election change in government policy could unsettle mortgage lenders or home buyers.

But the housing bust is over.

Written by David Wessel at capital@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared July 12, 2012, on page A2 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Housing Passes a Milestone.

Enjoy this Facebook Friday video.  If you have any questions, post below.

Foreclosure activity, which includes default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions, fell 5 percent from March to April and were down 14 percent year-over-year.

“More distressed loans are being diverted . . . → Read More: Foreclosures Plummet to 5-Year Lows]]> For the third consecutive month, foreclosure filings dropped, sinking to their lowest level since July 2007, according to RealtyTrac’s April report on nationwide foreclosure activity.

Foreclosure activity, which includes default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions, fell 5 percent from March to April and were down 14 percent year-over-year.

“More distressed loans are being diverted into short sales rather than becoming completed foreclosures,” says Brandon Moore, CEO of RealtyTrac.

The drop in foreclosure activity was mixed, however.

“Rising foreclosure activity in many state and local markets in April was masked at the national level by sizable decreases in hard-hit foreclosure states like California, Arizona, and Nevada,” Moore said in a statement.

For example, in Nevada and Arizona, bank repossessions dropped about 70 percent and by more than 50 percent in California.

Meanwhile, in states like Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois, which require judicial review, foreclosure activity increased. New Jersey had the largest annual increase in foreclosure starts in April seeing a 180 percent jump.

In the 26 states that have a judicial foreclosure process, foreclosure activity was up 15 percent compared to April 2011.

Source: RealtyTrac and “Foreclosures Fall to Lowest Level Since 2007,” CNNMoney (May 17, 2012)

Also, Ikea is selling houses to . . . → Read More: Is California Really Giving Free Money to Homeowners?]]> California is helping homeowners pay their mortgage through a program called Keep Your Home California. Marsia saw a presentation during Congressman Brad Sherman’s Seminar on Refinancing, Home Purchasing & Foreclosure Prevention last February and it looks to be a great program. To find out who qualifies, watch this short video.

Also, Ikea is selling houses to go with their furniture, but they won’t provide the Swedish meatballs.   Enjoy this week’s video and please share it with someone you know.

Then Click Here for more detailed info

According to reports, con artists have visited customers in person, posted flyers, and used social media and texting to send messages claiming that President Obama will provide a credit or directly pay . . . → Read More: Alert: Multi-State Scam Offering DWP Bill Credits From President Obama]]> The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is warning its customers to be aware of a multi-state scam targeting utility customers.

According to reports, con artists have visited customers in person, posted flyers, and used social media and texting to send messages claiming that President Obama will provide a credit or directly pay utility bills.  The scammers ask for social security numbers, then provide victims with a fraudulent bank routing number with which to pay their bills. The routing number is fraudulent and no payments will be applied to LADWP customer bills.

Customers should not provide strangers with any personal information. All LADWP employees carry an ID badge and do not enter customer homes, or collect information or money from customers for bill payment in person, or over the phone, without prior written notification from LADWP.

Customers who believe they have been victimized by this scam should call 1-800 DIAL DWP.

– . . . → Read More: Here’s What You Could Be Paying For Street Cleaning Tickets]]> Mayor Villaraigosa’s latest proposed budget includes raising parking fines, especially in the street sweeping category. As the LA Times points out, the fines are high and will be hard on neighborhoods with mostly apartment buildings and too few parking spaces. (See here for more on the numbers involved in LA’s parking and parking fines.)

– Street sweeping would go up to $78
– Parking in a red zone would go up to $98.
– Parking too close to a hydrant would go to $73.
– Parking in a fire lane would hit $68.

The city collected $134 million in parking fines last year, one-third of which were for street cleaning–it’s expected to pull in $150 million this year.  Still, the number of tickets has decreased–it was at 3.2 million six years ago and is expected to be at 2.5 million this year.  We drivers must be learning.

So keep your eyes up when you park and read the signs thoroughly. Don’t think you’ll “only be a minute” as I’ve seen parking enforcement officers swoop down, write that ticket, take a picture of your dash to prove you didn’t hang up that handicap placard, and fly away in only three minutes.

Image: 1937 mural by Buckley Mac-Gurrin depicting the 1781 founding of Los Angeles. The mural once appeared in the Los Angeles Hall of Records, but is now in storage. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.

Law: Laws of the Indies Year: . . . → Read More: Laws That Shaped L.A.: Why Los Angeles Isn’t a Beach Town]]>

Image: 1937 mural by Buckley Mac-Gurrin depicting the 1781 founding of Los Angeles. The mural once appeared in the
Los Angeles Hall of Records, but is now in storage. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection.

Law: Laws of the Indies
Year: 1573
Jurisdiction: Spain (King Phillip II)
Nominated by: James Rojas

Los Angeles – second largest city in the nation, gateway to the Pacific, city of quartz, city of the future – should really have been located in Long Beach.

You know, Long Beach? That burgh to the south where something great happens every time you visit? Close to Pedro? Big on bike lanes, parades, Snoop, the Pyramid, a port?

That’s the provocative assertion – minus all the references – of renowned city planner James Rojas.

“The Laws of the Indies was a book created by the Spanish to colonize the New World,” Rojas says. “It’s relevant to Los Angeles in that it placed L.A. where it’s at today.”

Issued in 1573 by King Phillip II, Laws is regarded as the first urban planning manual to reach the Americas. Previous and subsequent iterations of Laws codified municipal matters ranging from the existential to the essential to the mundane.

The 1512 version of Laws, for instance, mandated improved treatment of Native populations encountered by the Spanish. Suffice to say, these rules were not always followed locally nor well-enforced by a distant and oft-profiting Crown.**

So how does Los Angels as Long Beach fit into all this?

Because, as Rojas explains, the Laws of the Indies dictated that Spanish New World cities be constructed twenty miles from the sea (“to avoid any attacks from pirates,” Rojas says), near a freshwater source (“the L.A. River”) and close to a native tribe (“for labor”).

That explains Olvera Street and its surroundings. This historic plaza core (or close enough, anyway) of El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de la Porciuncula – L.A.’s original name from 1781 – is situated thirty miles as the crow flies from the Santa Monica Bay and just a Zanja Madre away from the L.A River and similarly near the then-site of Yangna, the largest Tongva village.

The Old Plaza. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

But if then-Governor Felipe de Neve had been the representative of a different Age of Exploration European monarchy – say the Dutch or the English – then La Placita would likely have been elsewhere instead – such as somewhere near where the Queen Mary is docked today.

“If another group had colonized L.A. they would have put their settlement down in Long Beach,” Rojas says. “That would have been a more perfect location. Long Beach had two rivers – the San Gabriel and the L.A., an abundant supply of resources like food and water and there was a bigger population of native tribes in that region.”

Instead, this Long Beach History Timeline indicates it took until 1882 for modern, coastal Long Beach to begin to take shape, although the area was included as part of a larger land grant from Spain three years following the founding of L.A.

Compared to the Dutch and the English, Rojas says the Spanish had a much different philosophy of settlement goals and patterns. “The Dutch were more about the resources and ports, the English had a whole different way,” he says, “but the Spanish made a really urban attempt to capture the New World.”

That’s due to sweeping geo-political-religious events that took hundreds of years to unfold, beginning a millennium or so ago.

“The whole idea was that the Laws of the Indies came out of the Spanish kicking the Moors out of Spain, city by city,” Rojas says. “That was their logic how to conquer, that was what they knew, that’s what they were going to do in the New World.”

Not the most romantic notion of the birth of American urban planning, but one that led to places such as Mexico City, Lima, Peru, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico and so many other once-Spanish-held spots.

As mentioned above, the impact of the Laws of the Indies extended far beyond only the selection of a city’s site. Before signing off for the week, we’ll leave with another city planning legacy – or memory – of these consequential Spanish regs. That legacy? City grids.

“The Laws of the Indies even indicated the street pattern,” Rojas says. “The plaza was the center of the settlement and the cardinal points of the plaza faced north-south-east-west.”

Rojas adds: “That’s why the grid of L.A. changes at Hoover and at Indiana,” referring to a pair of eastside city streets.

As KCET.org contributor D.J. Waldie explained in the L.A Times these “four Spanish leagues square” of Spanish streets in and around Downtown were subsequently interlaced with a Jeffersonian, north-south American pattern.

1929 map displays the angled grid pattern around downtown. Note the change in angle at Hoover
towards the left of the map. Image courtesy of the USC Digital Library.

Waldie’s piece noted that due to the ebbing and flowing of the (pre-concreted) L.A. River the Spanish grid was oriented 36-degrees from compass points north and south – not quite but close enough to the 45-degrees demanded by the Laws.

Whatever the actual angle, Rojas cites the original blocks’ orientation as a leading example of how the Spanish grid was designed more in keeping with nature than the grids of other empires and the U.S.-designed grids that would soon follow.

“The Spanish wanted to have wind tunnels, they wanted to have more shade and more walkable streets,” Rojas says.

Those weren’t the top priorities of a recently, revolutionary-born United States.

“The thinking was,” Rojas says, “‘We’re going to grid out this space, we’re going to sell property and we want to do it really quickly. We’re not concerned about the walking conditions.’”

Now that, at least, sounds like L.A.

Original article lives HERE

The Laws That Shaped L.A. will spotlight regulations that have played a significant role in the development of contemporary Los Angeles. These laws – as nominated by a variety of experts we’ve been polling – are considered to have been either beneficial to the city or malevolent. The laws may be civil or criminal, and they may have been put into practice by city, county, state, federal or even international authority.

During the course of the column’s run, laws covering a wide swatch of topics will be featured. These range from immigration to ecology, taxation to trademarks, public safety to public art, civil rights to public health, transportation to housing, ballot initiatives to intellectual property and much, much more.