Real Estate

Foreclosures in the Sacramento region fell in March by more than half from the same month a year ago, CoreLogic reported Thursday.

Distressed home sales in California in April declined to their lowest level since February 2008, according to the California Association of Realtors.

A West Sacramento man is among the first in the state to use California's new Homeowner Bill of Rights to stop a bank from foreclosing on his home, and experts say the case marks a shift in a legal system that has traditionally favored lenders.

The number of Sacramento-area homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth continued tumbling in the first three months of this year, real estate tracking firm Zillow reported Wednesday.

A year ago, with the real estate market still in a deep slump, a San Francisco firm caught the attention of officials in California and elsewhere with its novel idea of using eminent domain to seize underwater mortgages in order to reduce the amount that borrowers owe.

In Sacramento County, the median price of detached resale homes rose by nearly a third in April compared with the same month a year before, DataQuick reported Wednesday.

Home prices across the Sacramento region continued rising in April, signaling an ongoing shift in the price and types of homes sold.

Phil Angelides, former California state treasurer and a veteran developer, thinks he has the key to the 48 acres along the Capital City Freeway: single-family homes.

After years of legal wrangling, Folsom has settled a long-running dispute with affordable housing advocates over how much new development must serve low-income residents.

The threat has been hanging over the Sacramento real estate market for years: A hypothetical "shadow inventory" of foreclosed homes that forecasters said could suddenly come up for sale and flood the market with cut-rate houses.

After years of meetings, negotiations and plan revisions, not to mention $30 million spent on site cleanup, Paul Petrovich is finally about to break ground on what he's calling his "legacy" project.

Directly adjacent to the downtown railyard that was a destination for generations of itinerants, Sacramento dignitaries this week dedicated an eight-story tower with 150 residential housing units for the homeless and working poor.

Their homes are gone, their credit is shot and their rent is often more expensive than a mortgage payment.

Steve and Tasha McLaughlin have had two kids since they bought their two-bedroom "Brady Bunch"-style house in South Natomas seven years ago. They need more room, but they can't move: The house they bought for $256,000 is worth just $90,000, and an attempt to sell it failed.

As more Sacramento homes slip into foreclosure, scores of house "flippers" have swooped in to buy properties at rock-bottom prices and sell them for quick profits.

View a chart of home sales in the Sacramento area.

Data for resale single-family detached homes that closed escrow.

Home sales charts.