Bargains disappearing for distressed properties, Zillow says

Bargains on bank-owned homes are quickly vanishing in the country's most competitive markets.

Since the start of the mortgage meltdown, repossessed homes have been considered the discount aisles of real estate. Now competition among investors and first-time home buyers for affordable digs is making those distressed properties less affordable, a new analysis by Zillow.com shows.

"They will get somewhat of a deal, depending on the market," Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries said. "But, just generally, you are going to get less of a deal today than you would have gotten in late 2009 or early 2010."

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The shrinking discounts underscore how real estate has recovered this year as low interest rates and high affordability have sucked buyers back into the market. The number of for-sale homes has also fallen to levels not seen since the housing boom as foreclosures ease and homeowners — many who still owe more on their properties than they are worth — hold off on listing their houses for sale.

Zillow looked at sale prices of bank-owned homes and used a model to determine what that property would have brought if it had not been sold by a bank. In Las Vegas and Phoenix, for instance, a foreclosed home in September sold for the same price as a regular property.

Discounts were also marginal on bank-owned homes in the Inland Empire and the Sacramento region, 1.8% and 0.7%, respectively, according to the analysis. Both of these areas have grown increasingly competitive after being savaged by the housing bust. In the Los Angeles area, the foreclosure discount was 4.2% in September, Zillow said.

Certain Midwest and East Coast cities appeared to have the biggest foreclosure discounts. The Pittsburgh area had a discount of 27.4%, with Cleveland at 25.8%, Cincinnati 20.2% and Baltimore 20%.

Analysts figured the national foreclosure discount at just 7.7%. That's a big difference from the dog days of the housing bust, when people snapping up foreclosures could expect a discount of 23.7%, Zillow said.

Home shoppers looking for dime-store values now face a frustrating hunt. Gary K. Kruger, a real estate agent in Hemet, has seen buyers consistently bid on homes above the asking price and still struggle to make deals. One of his clients, a first-time buyer looking for a home in Vista, has bid on three properties — one a regular sale, one a bank-owned home and one a short sale — and lost each time.

Properties that are good for rentals or first-time buyers, along with properties priced in the lower-end of the move-up market, are "very, very hot," Kruger said.

"I have not had a successful person purchase a foreclosed home that was not an investor for months," he said. "Things are selling so quickly."

The story is similar in the Las Vegas region, said Keith Lynam, a real estate agent and chairman of the Nevada Assn. of Realtors' legislative committee. The number of foreclosed homes on the market in the Las Vegas area has dwindled to less than 300, compared with about 7,000 at its peak, Lynam said.

One of his clients, a potential buyer with a sizable down payment, has made half a dozen unsuccessful offers in the last six months.

"There is just zero inventory," Lynam said.

Experts are also revisiting the notion that foreclosed homes really drag down property values. A working paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta published in August found that although the homes of troubled borrowers did drag down values of surrounding homes, the effects were small.

That paper also found that the worst declines occurred before the home was repossessed, indicating that the declines stemmed from people abandoning their homes or letting them fall into disrepair.

Sean O'Toole, a real estate investor and founder of the website ForeclosureRadar.com, agreed with the Zillow analysis. Previous studies failed to take into account the nature of most foreclosures and their geography, he said. Typically, and particularly during the last five years, foreclosures have been concentrated in more traditionally affordable areas. So comparing the median home price of all foreclosed homes during the bust with the median home price of non-foreclosed homes results in an apple-to-oranges comparison, he said.

"The results that Zillow got make perfect sense to me, because there is actually more demand for REO and foreclosures, because people believe they are a deal," O'Toole said, using shorthand for the term "real estate owned," which is how banks refer to the properties on their books. "There is more demand for those."

Michael Novak-Smith, a real estate agent in the Riverside area who specializes in listing foreclosures for banks, said the market has reached a frenzy few would have expected so soon after the bust. One bank-owned home he listed about two weeks ago in Fontana for $145,000 attracted 157 offers. The seller took an all-cash offer.

"That is really telling, because a lot of these buyers think they'll just go out and get a repo," Novak-Smith said. "But buyers need to come in strong with their best offers, because you will get beat right out. An entry-level house with 157 offers? That's just mind-boggling to me."

alejandro.lazo@latimes.com

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Groupon lays off 80 sales employees

Chicago-based Groupon Inc. said Thursday it laid off 80 sales employees this week, reflecting ongoing efforts to automate some sales functions.

"Groupon announced several months ago it would be using technology to increase productivity through automation," the company said in a brief statement. "This week we reduced the sales team by approximately 80 members as part of that effort. We will always aim to optimize business operations wherever opportunities are identified."

While the daily deals company did not disclose where the affected employees were based, most of its sales staff is in Chicago. Groupon employed 11,866 people as of the third quarter. Of this, 5,087 employees were in sales, meaning the cuts represent less than 2 percent of its sales force. Compared with the second quarter, however, Groupon's sales staff has shrunk. In the second quarter, the company employed 5,587 people in sales out of a total headcount of 12,820.

In a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings results, Chief Executive Andrew Mason said the company has spent six to nine months looking at technology tools that can replace inefficient manual processes, particularly in sales functions. Groupon had rapidly added headcount to keep pace with its supercharged growth in its early years and is now turning to automation, Mason said. For example, an internal tool used to personalize deals for consumers can also be used to predict the value of different leads in Groupon’s merchant database.

 "We've seen just in the last several months the productivity of our sales force improve, increasing the number of deals that a single sales person can close because of the new tools that we've released," Mason said, adding: "Those sorts of things are allowing us to increase productivity and continue to scale without adding the same headcount as we have in the past."

Groupon's third-quarter earnings, reported after the market closed, missed Wall Street expectations and prompted a sharp decline in the company's stock in after-hours trading.

wawong@tribune.com | Twitter @VelocityWong

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $300 million a year from $200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.

Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which tend to be in the tens of millions of dollars or more per investor.

It puts the firm on the same footing as more established corporate venture funds such as Intel's Intel Capital, which typically invests $300-$500 million a year.

"It puts a lot more wood behind the arrow if we need it," said Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures.

Part of the rationale behind the increase is that Google Ventures is a relatively young firm, founded in 2009. Some of the companies it backed two or three years ago are now at later stages, potentially requiring larger cash infusions to grow further.

Google Ventures has taken an eclectic approach, investing in a broad spectrum of companies ranging from medicine to clean power to coupon companies.

Every year, it typically funds 40-50 "seed-stage" deals where it invests $250,000 or less in a company, and perhaps around 15 deals where it invests up to $10 million, Maris said. It aims to complete one or two deals annually in the $20-$50 million range, Maris said.

LACKING SUPERSTARS

Some of its investments include Nest, a smart-thermostat company; Foundation Medicine, which applies genomic analysis to cancer care; Relay Rides, a carsharing service; and smart-grid company Silver Spring Networks. Last year, its portfolio company HomeAway raised $216 million in an initial public offering.

Still, Google Ventures lacks superstar companies such as microblogging service Twitter or online bulletin-board company Pinterest. The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals.

Soon it could have even more cash to play around with. "Larry has repeatedly asked me: 'What do you think you could do with a billion a year?'" said Maris, referring to Google chief executive Larry Page.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Butler returns INT for score, Colts lead Jags 24-3

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Darius Butler intercepted Jacksonville's Blaine Gabbert and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown as the Indianapolis Colts increased their lead to 24-3 over the Jacksonville Jaguars at the end of the third quarter Thursday night.

It was the second big defensive play of the game for the cornerback, who recovered a fumble in the second quarter that led to a score.

The Jaguars, who struggled offensively all game, seemed to finally be making some traction on their ensuing drive thanks to a 52-yard pass to Cecil Shorts that put them inside the Colts 30. But a sack and holding penalty on consecutive plays led to a punt.

Colts rookie quarterback Andrew Luck ran for two touchdowns and Adam Vinatieri added a field goal in the first half.

Luck was surgical in the opening half, keeping drives alive with several long passes.

He scored on a close 4th-and-goal sneak for his second touchdown, prompting Jacksonville coach Mike Mularkey to throw his play sheet as he ran onto the field arguing for a review.

He was assessed a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and told the play was reviewed and the ruling on the field confirmed.

That seven-play, 61-yard drive was set up by the Colts winning a challenge on a fumble by Laurent Robinson.

It was a microcosm of another abysmal half for the Jags in recent weeks.

Aside from the coaching staff losing two key challenges, Gabbert also had several passes dropped, and there was a costly false start penalty late in the half inside the red zone that caused the Jags to settle for a field goal as the offense struggled.

The Jaguars went three-and-out on their first two drives of the game, before using a few long passes and a scramble by Gabbert to get inside the Colts 30.

The drive stalled, though, and kicker Josh Scobee missed a 44-yard field goal attempt wide right. It would have given him a franchise-record 21 straight makes.

Jacksonville appeared to intercept Luck on the first play of the ensuing Colts series, but the interception was nullified by a roughing the passer penalty on defensive tackle Terrance Knighton.

The Jags' defense did intercept Luck late in the half, but otherwise put little pressure on him.

Indianapolis was without six starters, including both of its starting cornerbacks, two offensive linemen, their starting tight end and All-Pro defensive end Robert Mathis.

Still, they entered the night riding a three-game winning streak, including close wins in consecutive games engineered by the rookie Luck.

It was the sixth game the Colts played without coach Chuck Pagano, whose leukemia diagnosis in October has definitely inspired his team.

Playing in his first prime time game, Luck was one the most recent players to shave his head in his coach's honor, joining more than three dozen others.

The Jaguars came into the matchup hoping to continue their three-game win streak in the series.

Jacksonville had the advantage of home teams boasting a 6-2 mark in Thursday night games this season, after going 7-2 in those prime time games in 2011.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said before the game that fact hasn't been lost on him.

"We had some discussion about that this week. We're looking at that," he said. "One of the things I want to try and do is get the analysis on how teams are performing outside of the Thursday games. We've got to be careful of making decisions quick without the data. We've got to analyze that."

Home teams are 29-14 all-time.

"Yes, but that's not what I'm interested in," Goodell said. "What I'm saying is how are they doing outside of that? In other words, those teams may have a higher percentage of winning anyhow. So, you just have to look at that."

It was the Jaguars annual "Salute to Service" Military Appreciation Game.

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL.

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VP Joe Biden guest stars as celebrity crush on “Parks and Rec”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Someone has a big crush on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden – and now she is getting to meet him.

Biden will make his TV acting debut with a cameo on NBC‘s comedy “Parks and Recreation” as the celebrity crush of actress Amy Poehler‘s ditzy local councilwoman Leslie Knope, NBC said on Thursday.

Biden, 69, will play himself in the episode “Leslie vs. April,” airing November 15, where Knope, a city councilwoman for the fictional small town of Pawnee, Indiana, has a surprise meeting with the vice president in Washington D.C.

Knope has long described her ideal man as having the “brains of George Clooney and the body of Joe Biden.”

“Meeting Vice President Biden was a thrill for me and for Leslie,” Poehler said in a statement.

“He was a good sport and a great improviser. The vice president maintained his composure while I harassed him and invaded his personal space. The nation of ‘Parks and Rec’ will be forever grateful,” she added.

The scenes with Biden were shot in July in the chambers of the vice president’s ceremonial office, during the TV show’s recent trip to the nation’s capital to film scenes for this season’s storylines.

The biggest challenge of landing Biden’s cameo was keeping it a secret before Tuesday’s U.S. elections. Airing the episode prior to November 6 could have been equivalent to a campaign contribution to advertise a candidate, executive producer Michael Schur told Entertainment Weekly.

“Parks and Recreation” follows the Pawnee Parks department and its tireless deputy Knope, who puts all her efforts into improving her little hometown.

This is a big season for Poehler’s character, who is finally elected into city government, gets engaged to campaign advisor Ben Wyatt and meets her political heroes including Senators Barbara Boxer, Olympia Snow and John McCain, who were featured in September’s season premiere.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Calif. city plans to provide transgender surgeries

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

The city's Health Commission voted Tuesday to create a comprehensive program for treating transgender people experiencing mental distress because of the mismatch between their bodies and their gender identities. San Francisco already provides transgender residents with hormones, counseling and routine health services, but has stopped short of offering surgical interventions, Public Health Director Barbara Garcia said Thursday after the vote was announced.

The idea for a new program that included surgeries came out of conversations between public health officials and transgender rights advocates who wanted mastectomies, genital reconstructions and other surgeries that are recommended for some transgender people covered under San Francisco's 5-year-old universal health care plan.

At the urging of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, the commission agreed this week to drop sex reassignment surgery from the list of procedures specifically excluded from the Healthy San Francisco plan.

But Garcia described the move as "a symbolic process" for now because the city currently does not have the expertise, capacity or protocols in place to provide the surgeries through its clinics and public hospital.

"The community felt the exclusion on Healthy San Francisco was discriminatory and we wanted to change that as the first step," she said.

Instead of expanding the existing plan, the Health Commission approved the establishment of a separate program that covers all aspects of transgender health, including gender transition. Garcia hopes to have it running by late next year, but said her department first needs to study how many people it would serve, how much it would cost, who would perform the surgeries and where they would be performed.

"Sex reassignment surgery is not the end all. It's one service that some transgender people want and some don't," she said. "We can probably manage this over the next three years without much of a budget increase because we already have these (other) services covered."

San Francisco in 2001 became the first city in the country to cover sex reassignment surgeries for government employees. Last year, Portland, Ore. did the same. The number of major U.S. companies covering the cost of gender reassignment surgery for transgender workers also doubled last year, reflecting a decades-long push by transgender activists to get insurance companies to treat such surgeries as medically necessary instead of elective procedures.

Kathryn Steuerman, a member of a transgender health advocacy group in San Francisco, said the city's latest move would help residents avoid going into debt to finance operations related to gender transition, as she did.

"I am filled with hope and gratitude that we are achieving this level of support for the well-being of the transgender community," Steuerman said.

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Marilyn Monroe photos on auction in Poland

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Who doesn't want a picture of Marilyn Monroe?

Hundreds of photographs of the blonde bombshell and other celebrities, including famous ones of Monroe in bed and as a ballerina, were sold for some $750,000 Thursday evening at an auction house in Poland.

Bidders and spectators packed the Desa Unicum house in Warsaw, where 238 pictures by the late American fashion and celebrity photographer Milton H. Greene were up for sale. Only one remained unsold, among some 500 bidders.

The auction house said in a statement that the 2.4 million zlotys obtained made it the nation's biggest photo auction to date.

Most of these pictures of Monroe were taken from 1953 to 1957 when Greene was her advisor and business partner. He made many of the prints during Monroe's lifetime and they are highly valued by collectors. They include series of refined black-and-white studio photos and shots taken in natural surroundings, sometime in provocative poses, some in color.

As the bidding began, a black-and-white photo of a reclining Monroe in black stockings sold for 50,000 zlotys ($16,000), and another of her in a ballerina's dress sold for almost $20,000. A picture of her in bed sold for $8,500.

The auction also offered Greene's pictures of other stars, like Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Marlene Dietrich and Liza Minnelli.

A picture of Nelly Nyad in white veil was among the bestsellers, at some $14,000, the auction house said.

Other greats in the vast portrait collection, which had been estimated at $680,000, included Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Alfred Hitchcock and Marlon Brando.

The photos come from a collection of some 4,000 Greene pictures that Poland obtained from Chicago businessman Dino Matingas in the mid-1990s as the result of a complex communist-era embezzlement scandal linked to the buy-out of Poland's state debt. Proceeds from the auction will go to the Polish government.

Some of the images have never been published before, according to Marta Maciazek, the Polish official in charge of cleaning up the mess from the corruption affair.

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Chicago sets brisk timeline for electric aggregation deal

The City of Chicago laid out a timeline Thursday for how it intends to quickly complete a deal that would move approximately 950,000 Chicagoans to a new electricity supplier.

The timing of the deal is important because Chicagoans stand to save the most money over Commonwealth Edison's rate between now and June 2013, when ComEd's prices are expected to drop because pricey contracts they entered into years ago will expire. The timeline has Chicagoans moving to the new supplier in February 2013.

In Tuesday's election, Chicago voters passed a proposal to allow the city to negotiate for better electricity prices on behalf of residential customers and small businesses. The city is one of hundreds of Illinois communities participating in so-called electricity aggregation and is by far the largest city in the nation to attempt such a large bulk purchase for electricity.

Michael Negron, deputy chief of policy and strategic planning for the mayor's office, said electricity suppliers have shown great interest in snagging Chicago's service. Nearly 100 people packed a conference Monday for the city's "request for qualifications" process. The bidders ranged from multi-billion corporations to smaller providers from all over the country, he said. Industry analysts say the deal could be worth hundreds of millions of dollar to the winning supplier or suppliers.

The timeline is as follows:

Nov. 14: Municipal aggregation ordinance introduced as substitute ordinance in city finance committee

Nov. 21: Bidder responses to request for qualifications due

Nov. 26 - Dec. 11: Finance committee will conduct two public hearings on aggregation ordinance

Early December: City and Delta Institute convene stakeholder process for identifying options for a portion of savings to go toward increased energy efficiency or the development of cleaner, renewable energy sources.

Dec. 5: Qualified pool of energy providers announced

Dec. 6: Issuance of request for pricing; responses due within days. The sole selection criteria at this point will be price because the RFQ phase will have screened out bidders based on their capacity, financial stability, customer service and ability to deliver cleaner energy.

Dec. 12: City Council considers aggregation ordinance

Mid/Late-December: Opt-out letters are sent to approximately 1 million customers

Early January: Opt-out data processed and final customer list prepared.

February: Participating Chicago customers are switched over the course of the month

March: All Chicago ratepayers who have not opted out are under the new supplier. City will announce its plan for investment of savings into cleaner energy or improved energy efficiency.

Read more about the Chicago electricity deal.

jwernau@tribune.com | Twitter @littlewern

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Jury begins deliberations in cop beating trial

Jurors at a trial involving a notorious 2007 beating of a female bartender by an off-duty Chicago officer began deliberations Wednesday that will include considering a rarely tested question -- does the Chicago Police Department have a code of silence?

In the final argument to jurors before deliberations began, an attorney for the bartender, Karolina Obrycka, decried what he described as decades of unofficial protection for officers.

“The evidence you heard didn't come from a television script or a movie script,” attorney Terry Ekl said. “There is an active, live code of silence. It is part of the culture of the Chicago Police Department.”

In the high-stakes trial at the U.S. Dirksen Courthouse, lawyers for Obrycka contended that the city as well as Officer Anthony Abbate are accountable for the beating and the cover-up that allegedly followed because of the longstanding code of silence.

Over 2 1/2 weeks, the jury heard expert evidence about the department's allegedly weak discipline of bad cops as well as testimony from numerous witnesses about an allegedly extensive effort to protect Abbate after the disturbing, videotaped beating at Jesse's Short Stop Inn was released and became an Internet sensation.

On Wednesday Ekl listed how a drunken Abbate engaged in a series of criminal acts on Feb. 19, 2007, that average citizens would be held accountable for -- assaulting and harassing bar patrons, beating and kicking Obrycka and then driving home intoxicated.

“He doesn't have any concern at all,” Ekl said. “It's in his DNA. It's part of his life. He's a Chicago police officer. You think someone from the … district is going to come over and arrest him? No.”

The jury deliberated for about five hours Wednesday before recessing until next week because of scheduling conflicts for the judge.

Ekl's closing argument was interrupted by several objections from city attorneys, particularly when he criticized their defense for using diversions and ignoring or distorting evidence.

“When you hear the arguments, is it any wonder the code of silence has existed for decades?” Ekl said.

Abbate, who was ultimately convicted of a felony and fired from the police force, potentially faces liability over allegations that he conspired with friends, including police pals, to threaten Obrycka not to pursue charges against him. If the jury agrees that a code of silence exists, the city could be held liable for the vicious beating.

From the start, city attorneys said they were fighting Obrycka's lawsuit on principle. Abbate was off-duty and his actions had nothing to do with his work as a Chicago police officer, they said.

They have blamed his actions that night on his extenstive drinking, calling it “absurd” that Abbate was counting on police to protect him. They also argued that he fled after the attack, showing that he feared getting in trouble, and was later investigated by the department.

“It is clear from the video that Anthony Abbate acted out of rage,” attorney Barrett Rubens, representing the city, said Tuesday in her closing argument. “… Anthony Abbate did what he did because he was hammered.”

In his closing, Ekl also addressed a messy and complicated aspect of the case -- the numerous conflicting stories from Chicago police officials and Cook County prosecutors about how aggressively they wanted to punish Abbate.

City attorneys have maintained that Chicago police wanted to pursue felonies -- even though two department investigators had Obrycka sign a misdemeanor complaint within three days of the beating.

Debra Kirby, then head of the department's Internal Affairs Division, testified that she conveyed her desire for felony charges to Thomas Bilyk, a Cook County prosecutor who was supervising the Abbate investigation, in a phone call days after the beating.

But Bilyk denied the conversation happened. In her closing argument, Rubens suggested Bilyk didn't tell the truth and reminded jurors of a police report in which a Chicago detective said that Bilyk had called for lesser misdemeanor charges at a Feb. 23 meeting.

But Ekl, with his voice rising, told the jury Wednesday that the report was dated 23 days after the meeting -- and just two days after Abbate surrendered to police and pressure was mounting on the state's attorney's office to upgrade the misdemeanor charges.

asweeney@tribune.com

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Apple slides to five-month low, uncertainty grows

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Y.later(10, this, function() {
if(!("Media" in YAHOO)){YAHOO.Media = {};}
if(!("ugcrate" in YAHOO.Media)){YAHOO.Media.ugcrate = {};}
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