The Southland’s unemployment will rise and personal income will fall as construction keeps sinking and the aerospace, textile and motion picture industries absorb blows, Jack Kyser predicts.
Unemployment in California and Los Angeles County will increase well into 2010, continuing to exceed the highest levels since at least the end of World War II, according to [...]

The Federal Reserve regulations require lenders to provide consumers with initial disclosures of their mortgage costs within three business days of their loan applications, among other changes.
Reporting from Washington — If you’re applying for a loan to buy a primary or secondary home, or planning to refinance, you should be aware of a little-publicized set [...]

The Obama administration recently sent a letter to the chief executives of the 25 lenders who have signed up for the Making Home Affordable program, urging them to move quicker to help troubled homeowners.
In the two-page letter, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Secretary for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Shaun Donovan, asked the servicers [...]

In a move that suggests its initial rescue plan was insufficient, the Obama administration yesterday announced plans to widen the eligibility parameters of a key housing initiative. The change would allow borrowers with mortgages valued at 125 percent of their home’s worth to refinance into more affordable loans. Previously, only borrowers with so-called loan-to-value ratios [...]

S & P/Case-Shiller index shows a decline of 18% in April from a year earlier. The January year-to-year drop was 19%. In the L.A. area, prices fell 21% from April to April; the January drop was 25%.
By Peter Y. Hong
July 1, 2009
U.S. home prices continued to fall sharply in April but are no longer doing [...]