Commercial real estate failures easier to spot than residential woes

Skeletons of unfinished buildings, weed-infested vacant lots for projects that never got off the ground and for-sale signs are the more visible remnants of an overextended market caught in the jaws of the biggest financial crisis and economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Commercial real estate failures are easier to spot than residential woes

Ann Strain walks Junebug, a Boston terrier, past a ghost town - hundreds of abandoned apartments with broken windows and weeds.

Realtors object to business tax

Real estate agents, now exempt, face new Manhattan Beach levy based on commission.

Be agreeable in negotiating pay

I worked for a bank in the mortgage department until the real-estate market bottomed out and I was laid off.

The dirty dozen

Japanese billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto aims to cash out roughly half his collection of million-dollar homes and land on Kahala Avenue. And the real estate tycoon is looking to make a considerable profit -- about $46 million -- if buyers meet asking prices that he recently pumped up.