Vegas prices

(AP) -- Home prices in the Las Vegas area are up for the eighth month in a row, while the number of homes sold in September is down from a year ago.

The Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that the median price of a single-family home sold in September was $140,000, up 1.4 percent from August and nearly 14 percent from last September.

Association president Kolleen Kelley said the price increases come as banks are less willing to foreclose and are opting more for short sales.

But she said prices tend to soften during the winter months.

The group reports about 3,300 homes, condominiums and townhomes were sold in September, down from about 3,700 in August and down from more than 4,100 last September.
Huge foreclosure scam

(AP) -- Three federal courts have frozen assets of 19 companies accused of scamming vulnerable homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed the requests in Florida, Ohio and California against the companies that are accused of promising relief to distressed homeowners and then charging them thousands of dollars for little or no help. The courts granted the government's request for restraining orders.

The FTC said the companies participated in three schemes: Prime Legal Plans-Reaching U Network, American Mortgage Consulting Group and Expense Management America.

The FTC has filed 38 other similar cases since 2008.
New Mexico graded 'C'

(AP) -- The American Society of Civil Engineers has given New Mexico's infrastructure a grade of “C.”

The group, led by Sonya Cooper NM ASCE president and NMSU College of Engineering associate dean of academics, recently released the state's grade in a new report.

The report assessed the status of bridges, water, roads and airports.

New Mexico's low grades were due to an aging infrastructure that is deteriorating, stressed by increasing demand and the lack of adequate funding to maintain and rehabilitate such systems.

ASCE recommended regular assessments of infrastructure every one or two years.

Cooper appointed professional civil engineers who are experts in 10 infrastructure categories to lead the evaluations. They assessed infrastructure in 25 cities and in six counties.
Wyoming wind approved

(Bloomberg) -- The United States has approved the development of two wind power projects in Wyoming that may generate as much as 3,000 megawatts, enough electricity for almost 1 million homes.

The Bureau of Land Management authorized site-specific environmental analysis to begin at the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre projects in southeastern Wyoming, according to a statement Tuesday.

The Power Company of Wyoming LLC will develop and operate as many as 1,000 turbines on about 220,000 acres, according to the statement.

“Wyoming has some of the best wind energy resources in the world, and there's no doubt that this project has the potential to be a landmark example for the nation,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.

The effort is part of President Barack Obama's strategy to promote wider use of renewable energy on federal land.

The U.S. Interior Department has approved 33 utility-scale wind, solar and geothermal projects since 2009 that will total more than 10,000 megawatts of capacity.
Road study expanded

(AP) -- A recent study of the cost of maintaining North Dakota's county and township roads is being expanded to include bridges.

The Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at North Dakota State University did the study at the Legislature's request.

It estimated it will cost about $7 billion over 20 years to maintain county and township roads statewide.

The estimate has been increased because of the heavy oil truck traffic on western North Dakota's roads.

Lawmakers have asked for similar estimates on what it will cost to maintain local bridges.

The institute is compiling that information.

Institute director Denver Tolliver said the updated study will be ready before the Legislature meets in January.
Transmission corridors

(AP) -- The state of Maine is accepting letters of Intent for the possible use of state-owned Interstate 95 and I-295 as corridors for transmitting electricity.

State energy Director Ken Fletcher said Maine's Energy Infrastructure Interagency Review Panel is accepting the proposals.

Fletcher said the project can reduce energy costs for Mainers.

By law, those wishing to receive the project must prove it will not impede in-state electricity generation and demonstrate that it will lower electricity rates and energy costs for Maine consumers.
Black & Decker sale

(Bloomberg) -- Spectrum Brands Holdings Inc., the Madison, Wis.-based consumer products company controlled by Harbinger Group Inc. (NYSE: HRG), agreed to buy Stanley Black & Decker Inc.'s (NYSE: SWK) home unit for $1.4 billion in cash, expanding into the home improvement and residential hardware market.

The deal will give Spectrum, which emerged from bankruptcy in August 2009, brands including residential lockset-maker Kwikset and Pfister, a manufacturer of faucets.

It will be financed exclusively with debt and is Spectrum's largest transaction since the $661 million purchase of kitchen-appliance maker Russell Hobbs in 2010.
Spousal affiliation

(AP) -- Businesses affiliated with the husband of Democratic Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill have received almost $40 million in federal subsidies for low-income housing developments during her first five years in office, though it appears only fraction of that has made it to the family's bank accounts, according to an Associated Press analysis.

McCaskill's Republican challenger, Rep. Todd Akin, said the federal payments should be a cause for concern among voters.

McCaskill campaign spokesman Caitlin Legacki called such assertions “flat-out wrong.”

There is no evidence that McCaskill personally routed the money to her husband's businesses. But she voted for some -- and against other -- bills that funded the federal housing and agriculture departments, which in turn provide subsidies to businesses with federal contracts to provide low-income housing.

The AP reviewed five years' worth of federal personal financial disclosure statements filed by McCaskill, which list more than 300 “affordable housing” businesses in which her husband, Joseph Shepard, had at least a partial ownership during the time she has been in office.

At least one-third of those businesses also appear to be listed as recipients of federal payments in an online government database that tracks spending.

The firms affiliated with Shepard appear to have received about $39 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Housing Service or the Department of Housing and Urban Development between 2007 -- when McCaskill took office -- and the end of 2011.

According to McCaskill's financial reports, Shepard earned an income of between about $400,000 and $2.6 million from those businesses in the years in which they received government payments.
Canadian starts fall

(Bloomberg) -- Canadian housing starts fell in September, signaling a resilient residential real estate market, government figures showed.

Work on new homes dropped 2.3 percent to an annual pace of 220,215 from a revised 225,328 in August, Ottawa-based Canada Mortgage & Housing Corp. said Tuesday.

Multiple-unit construction in urban areas fell 3.9 percent to 136,088 units, and single-family starts decreased 1.4 percent in September to 67,643 homes.

“Following a period of elevated housing starts activity due to strong volumes of multifamily unit pre-sales in 2010 and 2011, the pace of housing starts is expected to moderate,” Mathieu Laberge, CMHC's deputy chief economist, said in the report.
Dutch lenders

(Bloomberg) -- Dutch lenders, with almost 80 billion euros ($103 billion) in commercial real estate loans on their books, haven't set aside enough money to cover potential losses, according to the country’s central bank.

Banks have set aside less than 2 percent of the total, an amount “insufficient to absorb large losses,” the Dutch central bank said in a report Tuesday.

In addition, valuations of the properties backing the loans are often outdated, according to the report.

The office vacancy rate in the Netherlands is 14 percent, the central bank said, which is among the highest in Europe.

Dutch commercial real estate prices have been falling for four years, dropping by about 12 percent from a September 2008 peak, the bank said. Supply will probably continue to outweigh demand as online retailing rises, office space is used in a more flexible way and the workforce grows more slowly.

The bank supervisor said it's hard to value properties because of a lack of transparency and liquidity.

About half of collateral appraisals are more than a year old, according to a survey of banks' loans, the central bank said.
Irish home sale

(Bloomberg) -- Irish home owners are willing to sell residential properties for as little as a quarter of their peak prices during the country's real estate boom, according to a paper by an Irish Central Bank economist, citing recent auction data.

“On average, the maximum reserve price was set at 25 percent of the peak asking price, indicating that sellers are willing to transact at prices up to 75 per cent below” peak levels, Eoin O'Brien, an economist at the Dublin-based bank said in the paper. “Auction properties have sold on average at a discount of almost 70 percent.”

O'Brien cited data drawn from auctions conducted by Allsop Space since last year up to Sept. 28.

The median price for sold properties was 107,000 euros, and the majority of them were sold on behalf of receivers and liquidators, according to the paper. Sales prices for Dublin property prices were “broadly in line” with official data, showing a 55 percent fall in Dublin house prices, according to O'Brien.

The paper looked at about 400 properties sold at auction, with auction results showing a 68 percent decline in prices from the property peak.