The median sale price for existing single-family homes in the Bakersfield area was $130,000 in January, down 3.7 percent from December but up 2.4 percent year-over-year.

That's according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market prepared by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.

A state assemblyman has introduced legislation aimed at easing and simplifying property tax payments.

Assembly Bill 1552, introduced by Assemblyman Jim Silva, R-Huntington Beach, would codify Mello-Roos fees as tax deductible.

With about half of all mortgaged homes in the Bakersfield area stubbornly under water, a critical deadline is looming that hardly anyone seems to know about.

Usually when a significant portion of a home loan is forgiven, the difference between what was paid and what was owed counts as income at tax time.

Real estate experts are issuing year-end reports on the 2011 housing market, and by all accounts both the Bakersfield area and nation as a whole are on a heartening but agonizingly slow road to recovery.

Sales of existing homes in the Bakersfield area rose 3.2 percent to 7,019 from 2010 to 2011, compared with a 10.8 percent decline a year earlier, according to Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers in Bakersfield.

Home sales in the Bakersfield area were slow in December, which is typical during the holiday season, but there are still signs that bode well for the long-term health of the housing market, according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market prepared by Affiliated Appraisers.

The median sale price for existing single-family homes in the Bakersfield area was $132,000 in December, down 1.5 percent from November but up 5.6 percent over $125,000 in December 2010.

Investors are storming Kern County with cash offers to buy homes outright. Most are keeping the houses for rental income, but a few are fixing them up and reselling at a profit.

Yes, that's right. Flipping is back.

Nervousness about other investment options is whipping up a frenzy to buy multifamily residential properties in and around Bakersfield.

Partly it's because prices for duplexes, apartments and other multifamily homes are the lowest they've been in years, and interest rates are likely to stay at historically low levels for a while.

The Bakersfield housing market showed surprising strength last month, a time of year when sales are usually sluggish.

That's according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market prepared by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.

A task force discussion on the hot-button issue of city development fees Tuesday generated lots of ideas, but few specifics.

The group of Bakersfield City Council members and city staff is looking into ways to revive the local homebuilding industry.

The state has reached a settlement of more than half a million dollars related to a real estate company's failure to pay four Bakersfield agents minimum wage and overtime pay.

ZipRealty agreed to pay $586,068.54 in four wage cases filed with the California Department of Industrial Relations.

A task force of city staff and City Council members is set to address how to revive the sagging homebuilding industry in Bakersfield, and it's likely they will revive an old debate over development fees in the meantime.

Local developers say they need help, especially in the form of relief from development fees paid to the city that they say are depressing construction and sales.

Cities throughout California are grappling with foreclosed homes and struggling or recalcitrant homeowners whose properties have become eyesores. Now, an increasing number of local authorities are initiating health and safety receiverships, a legal process in which control of the property is temporarily taken from the owner and placed with a court-appointed officer.

"It's really an emerging field and an emerging resource that cities are turning towards," said Dean Pucci, director of the receiverships division for the law offices of Jones & Mayer.

Most people would go a little nuts if they had to cram four adults and four children into a three-bedroom house.

Brenda and Clint Wood have had their daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren living with them since the economic downturn cost the younger couple their home.

The median sale price of a single-family home in the Bakersfield area was nearly unchanged in October, rising 0.8 percent to $132,000 from September but down 2.2 percent over the same month last year.

That's according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market prepared by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.

Local builders are decrying proposals that would strengthen minimum energy efficiency standards for new construction, saying they could hinder new home building just as the struggling industry is clawing its way to a comeback.

At issue are proposed changes to the California Energy Code. Energy efficiency standards for residential and nonresidential buildings were established in 1978 in response to a legislative mandate to reduce California's energy consumption. The standards are updated periodically to reflect new technologies and building methods.

A small but growing number of distressed homeowners in California are keeping their houses because of a state program funded with $2 billion in federal stimulus money.

Keep Your Home California's launch in February was marred by procedural delays and criticism from consumer groups that said the eligibility requirements were too narrow and that the program wouldn't serve enough people.

Faith in Action, a coalition of local clergy and congregations, has a new campaign for the creation of an official registry of homes in or near foreclosure.

The idea of the "Bring Light to the Eastside" campaign is to assemble a reliable record of where foreclosed properties are and who owns them so that owners can be identified and contacted when vacant homes aren't properly maintained.

Average monthly rent in Kern County rose 2.8 percent to $850 in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, according to a new report from RealFacts, a Novato-based real estate data firm.

The company arrived at an average after a survey of owners of income property ranging from studio apartments to townhomes. Single-family homes were not included.