Wall Street Journal: The former “Star Search” host was $644,000 behind on payments on $4.8 million in mortgage loans when a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp. filed a default notice Feb. 28 with the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office

USA Today: To the untrained eye, the size, scope and sophistication of the alleged scheme is noteworthy. But to the FBI in Las Vegas, the problem is the opposite: In recent years, there have been so many mortgage fraud cases, the bureau and local prosecutors have had to establish a special task force to combat the problem.

Future of Real Estate Marketing: word from SearchEngineLand that Google UK has launched Google Merchant Search – a way for consumers to compare and shop for loans from various originators.

Los Angeles Times: In a sign of how difficult it is to sell new homes in Southern California right now, a San Diego developer is offering a “buy one, get one free” deal, pairing million-dollar homes with less expensive homes.

Global Insight: California, Florida and Michigan accounted for the steepest losses and contained 45 of the 50 worst performing metropolitan areas for this period. California and Florida had been among the most overvalued states for the past several years and Michigan is reeling from the impact of a slumping economy. Other housing markets in the bottom 50 include Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada and Bend, Oregon, areas cited in earlier House Price studies as being precariously overvalued and likely to be the next “shoe to drop.”

Luxlist: This week’s real estate action of Scarlett Johansson, “Malcolm in the Middle” actor Justin Berfield, Matthew Perry, Nicole Kidman, and more!

Bloomberg: Home prices fell in 23 U.S. metropolitan areas in March, led by Sacramento and San Diego, as rising foreclosures prolonged the housing recession.

Global Pensions: REITs have come a long way in 15 years and offer investors advantages over traditional forms of real estate investment. However, this does not seem to have translated into popularity among investors. Andrew Sheen investigates why

The New York Times:  A few years ago, when multiple bidders would show up at a real estate open house, the truly desperate resorted to writing love letters to the sellers – Today’s real estate market, however, calls for a different kind of letter, less a fuzzy valentine and more like a cold splash of water.

Reuters: A record 183,000 U.S. homeowners avoided foreclosure in April through mortgage loan workouts, bringing the total to 1.6 million at-risk borrowers who have had mortgage terms or payment plans modified in less than a year.