STATE HEADLINES:
By: Import User
Updated: January 7, 2009
HOUSING MARKET:
The Alabama Housing market finished the year with a strong showing in December setting yet another sales record...that`s according to the Alabama Real Estate Research & Education Center.
This is the fourth time that total existing home sales have set a record. In fact, with the exception of 2000, sales have increased in nine of the last ten years.
Existing home prices in Alabama also set a record in 2004, topping the 4.5 percent appreciation figure reported in 2003.
For the year 2004, average selling time was 141 days, seven days shorter than the average for 2003.
SCRUSHY UPDATE:
In Birmingham, former Healthsouth CFO Bill Owens took the stand again yesterday in the trial of Richard Scrushy. It is the fourth time Owens has been on the stand since that trial began three weeks ago.
Owens told jurors that he traveled with Scrushy in 2002 to New Jersey to discuss the sale of the company, a few months before the 2.7 billion dollar fraud allegations surfaced.
Scrushy is accused of orchestrating that scheme.
