January 31, 2012, 7:28 AM EST By Charles Penty (Updates with investor comment in fourth paragraph.) Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) — Banco Santander SA, Spain’s biggest lender, said fourth-quarter profit plunged 98 percent as it anticipated tougher rules on recognizing real-estate losses at home and earnings declined in the U.K. and Brazil. Net income fell to [...]

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES – The pending dissolution of redevelopment agencies statewide has local affordable housing developers scrambling to plan for a future without the state’s top driver of low and moderate-income residential projects. The loss of the agency is an especially pronounced blow to Downtown providers and builders of subsidized housing in and around Skid [...]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development today released the final text of the department’s new nondiscrimination rule, which will prohibit sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in several of the agency’s programs, including Title VIII-based public housing and Federal Housing Administration-backed loans. The rule, according to a HUD news release, will be published in [...]

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) — Riverside has two historic Victorian houses for sale at $1 apiece, but city officials say finding buyers may not be so easy. “They are for sale. If you have a dollar and you can commit to moving it and rehabbing it, you may have it,” said Riverside Councilman Mike Gardner. That’s [...]

The commercial real estate market in the Twin Cities is showing small, but meaningful, signs of recovery as vacancy rates in most types of properties declined in 2011, according to a report released Monday by Cushman Wakefield/NorthMarq Real Estate Services. The survey of office, industrial and retail projects found a market-wide direct vacancy rate of [...]

IRVINE, Calif., Jan 30, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) – WNC Associates, Inc. (WNC), a national investor in urban renewal and affordable housing projects, has provided $9.5 million in Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) financing to The Landmark Group for the acquisition and adaptive reuse of two historic former mills in downtown Asheboro, NC. Landmark will [...]

WASHINGTON – Two D.C. Councilmembers are asking the Inspector General and the Attorney General to investigate alleged unethical and possibly criminal conduct on the part of the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Councilmembers Jim Graham and Michael Brown want them to take a look at how the agency over saw work by [...]