Land Advisors Organization, a land broker, reported today that it sold over 2,100 residential lots in Riverside County last year for which buyers paid $61.7 million. This represented a 37 percent increase in the firm's transaction volume over 2009, the company said.
In January, Land Advisors brokered the sale of 69 ready-to-build single family lots in French Valley for an undisclosed price. The lots, part of Brookfield Land's large master planned Spencers Crossing residential project, were sold by Brookfield to Woodside Homes. Jeff Spindler, founding principal of Land Advisors' California division, said he expects that Woodside will build homes on the lots this year.
Also Land Advisors said recently it brokered the sale of about 80 unimproved acres on the northeast corner of Olivine Road and Monte Vista Road in Victorville. The acreage planned for 294 single family homes was sold by American Property Enterprises, a land investment company, to CV Communities, another land investment company. Land Advisors officials said the expect that CV Communities will hold the land to sell to home builders when homebuyer demand revives in the High Desert, which they figure could take several years.
"The market is very active with investors purchasing propery at prices that we haven't seen (so low) for close to ten years," said Spindler.
By contrast, home builder interest in buying land in Riverside and San Bernardino counties has ebbed since a surge of lot purchases in 2009, Spindler said. He said that is because an increase in sales driven by a federal tax incentive gave builders a perception that the market was improving faster than it actually was.
As a result, Spindler said, builders are still working through an inventory of lots they purchased in 2009 for more money than home buyer demand warranted and most are not in the market for more.
"The tax credit expired in April of last year and sales have been down ever since," Spindler observed.

--Leslie Berkman
lberkman@PE.com

Chili's Grill & Bar is offering free brownie sundaes to lure Facebook fans.

The promotion, which starts today, is detailed in a post on the wall of the restaurant chain's Facebook site, www.facebook.com/Chilis, which includes a link to the printable coupon. It's good for a free brownie Sunday until Feb. 10, but you have to buy an entrée, and you can only use one coupon per table.

If you don't want to print the coupon, you can also show the promotion code on your smartphone to a Chili's server.

Consumers who "like" Chili's on Facebook also are eligible for weekly gift-card giveaways and other coupons. Join the Chili's e-mail club, and you'll get a free brownie sundae on your birthday.

--Tiffany Ray
tray@PE.com

Hospitality Executive Center in San Bernardino has excellent location and good freeway visibility. What the two-building office tandem does not have, however, is that many tenants.

Two out of three was enough for Sunny Hills-Palladium LLC, a Southern California-based owner and manager of office properties. The firm has bought the Hospitality Executive Center on Hospitality Lane, a complex of two three-story office buildings, for $6.5 million.

The property was an REO, meaning the lender had taken over ownership. Commercial real estate broker Cushman & Wakefield did not disclose the name of the owner-lender it represented.

The purchase price was at "a significant discount" compared to what Sunny Hills-Palladium would have paid to put up a new office complex on Hospitality Lane. It's so close to the intersection of Interstates 10 and 215 you can practically touch the courtyard from a freeway, and it boasts a campus-like setting.

It is, however, only 47 percent occupied, JP Morgan-Chase, California Baptist University and Kaiser Permanente are some of the tenants there now.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

California can expect a better jobs picture this quarter, although "better" remains a word that must be qualified.

A Chapman University report called Leading Employment Indicator takes a snapshot of the strength of the job market in California by looking at several factors. The first-quarter reading of 101.6 is the highest it's been since the second quarter of 2008, a little before the economy crashed and burned.

A reading above 100 indicates that the state's job markets should be in growth mode in the quarter. Two problems exist, however. A 101.6 reading is barely above 100, which suggests that job growth will be scattered hither and yon but won't be a full-stream burst of hiring.

The second problem is evident when the number is compared to the fourth quarter of 2010, which was 100.8. That hints at very sluggish growth from one quarter to the next.

Chapman's economists use several criteria to come up with this number. A couple of them are looking fairly healthy. The rate of exports is strengthening in California, and that is a reflection of a stronger manufacturing sector. Cal State San Bernardino's report on manufacturing, which came out early last week, showed some decent growth, and some Inland Southern California manufacturers are catching on to the value of international markets.

Also, the S&P 500 is factored into this index, and the stock markets have been moving up for the last few months.

But you look at the list of the factors Chapman uses, and one sticks out like a sore thumb. That's construction spending, which is still a huge drag on California's economy. It is still declining, although the rate of descent has slowed in recent months.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

The growth of e-book downloads will outpace downloads of mobile applications through 2013, according to research by Boston-based Yankee Group.

The technology firm said e-book downloads in the U.S. are expected to increase 83 percent a year for the next few years, with sales increasing from $313 million in 2009 to $2.7 billion by 2013.

By comparison, mobile app downloads will grow 72 percent a year.

That means consumers will purchase 381 million e-books a year by 2013, about four times the number they purchased in 2010.

At the same time, average prices for an e-book will drop from more than $9 in 2009 to $7 in 2013, the report found.

Growth will be spurred, in part, by students, 25 percent of whom say they are strongly interested in e-books in lieu of heavy, expensive textbooks. But seniors are interested, too. Twenty-two percent of people 65 and older said they were interested in e-books for features like scalable fonts and text-to-speech conversion.

--Tiffany Ray
tray@PE.com

Generation Y, frequently considered those born from 1978 to 1989, are the subject of intense surveys as builders of houses and apartments try to figure out what they want.

The reason for all the interest is because Gen Y forms a large consumer group--even a bit larger than the Baby Boomers, according to a report published by Meyers LLC, an Orange County based real estate research company. Meyers cites a report by the Marcus and Millichap commercial brokerage that 20-to-34 year olds constituted a 65 percent share of job gains in 2010.

In past years, people in this age group would have been most likely to purchase a condo as their first home, Meyers said. But data suggests that Gen Y is happy to rent apartments for the time being.

"Not surprisingly, California metro areas where these young professionals live make upmany of the apartment markets with the lowest projected vacancy rates in the nation," Myers said.

When Gen Y members do buy their first home, Meyers said data shows that they want that home to be a single family residence, not a condo. Also they are choosing efficient homes on smaller lots. According to a suvey by the Urban Land Institute, 67 percent of Gen Y expects to own a home by 2015.

--Leslie Berkman
lberkman@PE.com
--

A $100 million defamation lawsuit filed by the Corona maker of fancy digital vending machines against the author who wrote "The Zeroes: My Misadventures in the Decade Wall Street Went Insane" has apparently been dropped with prejudice.

That means AVT, Inc. (soon to be known as Automated Retail Systems Inc. according to a recent securities filing) won't be able to file another lawsuit on the same claim.

In the stipulation filed to dismiss, attorneys representing the defendants stated that each side would be responsible for their own costs and attorneys' fees.

The lawsuit which was originally filed in Orange County Superior Court and was then moved to U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, alleged that the book defamed AVT by linking the company in a pay-to-plug scheme that involved paying former baseball star Lenny Dykstra, then a contributor to Jim Cramer's Web site TheStreet.com, in the company's stock to recommend AVT to the readers of his investing newsletter. Cramer is the face of CNBC's "Mad Money" television show.

Shannon Illingworth, AVT's founder, said at the time the suit was filed that the company never paid Dykstra $250,000 in stock in order to boost its Wall Street position.

Defendants included Randall Lane, the book's author (whose first name was incorrect in the case title), publisher The Penguin Group and RTST Inc.(ostensibly, The Daily Beast which published Lane's first accounts of his life on Wall Street including stories about AVT Inc.)

Illingsworth recently said that his company dropped the suit because The Daily Beast retracted the story it published based on Lane's book. That doesn't appear to be the case, though, since the original link to the story is still active.

"All I cared about was, hey, retract the statements," he said.

I have another call into Illingsworth now that I've noticed that the story is still up on the site. In an interview last week, though, he said he was less concerned with making sure Lane's book was corrected or removed from shelves.

"It's chasing a dead horse," he said of the book.

In other AVT news, the company's board of directors approved a reverse split of its stock that would essentially make every 10 shares worth 1 in order to increase the per share value. According to a securities filing this month, the company believes that higher values shares will be more appealing to stock brokerages and could also land the company's stock on a larger exchange. Essentially 38.2 million outstanding shares will become 3.8 million outstanding shares.

Case information: AVT Inc v. Russell Lane et al (8:10-cv-01798-JST -JCG)

Related stories: Corona company files $100 million lawsuit against author - The Press-Enterprise

-- Kimberly Pierceall
kpierceall@PE.com

If you're going to cough and sneeze while at work, the least you can do is look away from the neighboring cubicle.

That's because an overwhelming majority of workers, almost three in four, insist on coming to work when they feel sick. And, a majority of those who stay home when they don't feel well go on a guilt trip over it, according to a survey released recently by the job-hunt Web site CareerBuilder.com.

The pressures of keeping a job and performing well could be adding up to what CareerBuilder called "presenteeism." The firm's study found that 72 percent show up for work when they're sick, and 55 percent feel guilty when they take a legitimate sick day. CareerBuilder talked to 3,700 adult, full-time, non-government workers, mostly during late December.

A CareerBuilder official said it could be time some of those brave soldiers took a small step back, because their presenteeism is probably sickening others at the office. Also, she suggests that, if an employee is not feeling well but can get some work done at home, a savvy supervisor ought to be flexible and allow that.

Almost one if five employers now provide flu shots for the staff, so it's a concern to a significant number of companies, and nearly two in five workers say they got a shot this year.

And, employees are looking for other ways to hide from germs, with 78 percent telling researchers they wash their hands often and 32 percent bringing hand sanitizer with them. About 30 percent say they regularly clean their keyboards and telephones.

Also, germ concern is making some people less social. Fifteen percent said they avoid shaking hands, and 3 percent skip meetings if there's a known sick person in the room.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

A pad in a Palm Desert shopping center that contains a Bank of America outlet has been sold for almost $2.7 million, according to a statement from Marcus & Millichap, the commercial broker that facilitated the deal.

The 5,600-square-foot single-tenant property is on Monterey Avenue and is considered part of the Desert Gateway Power Center. Bank of America is about five years into a 20-year lease, and the deal includes an upward adjustment on the rent every five years.

An unnamed limited liability company sold the pad. The buyer was a private individual who lives in the Palm Desert area.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

Eight of the nation's 20 "most miserable" cities are in California, according to new rankings by Forbes. But if it's any consolation, the Riverside metro area is not among them.

Stockton, with high crime rates and painful unemployment, rated No. 1 on the list. It was the second time in three years the city has won the dubious title.

The annual list gauges municipal misery using 10 factors, including unemployment, crime and tax rates, weather, commute times and sports-team performance. This year, they added in foreclosure rates and changes in home prices to account for the impact of the housing crisis.

So perhaps it's no surprise that California and Florida, where underwater mortgages have sprung up like weeds, make up more than half of the misery list. Together, the states are also home to 16 of the 20 metro areas in the country with the highest home foreclosure rates, Forbes said.

Here's the full list of California's "most miserable" metro areas:

1. Stockton
3. Merced
4. Modesto
5. Sacramento
9. Vallejo
17. Fresno
18. Salinas
20. Bakersfield

Miserable cities not located in California, according to the Forbes list, were:

2. Miami
6. Memphis
7. Chicago
8. West Palm Beach, Fla.
10: Cleveland
11. Flint, Mich.
12. Toledo, Ohio
13. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
14: Youngstown, Ohio
15: Detroit
16. Washington, D.C.
19. Jacksonville, Fla.

For more on the list, go to www.forbes.com.

--Tiffany Ray
tray@PE.com

Ever since Restaurant Omakase closed its storefront off Mission Inn Avenue in downtown Riverside last March and the chef promised a new concept to open nearby -- The Salted Pig -- fans of the former restaurant have been anxiously awaiting the new one being built in a space once occupied by an antique store at 4205 Main St.

Chef Brein Clements had said The Salted Pig would open in the fall of 2010.

The restaurant is now scheduled to open to the public on Feb. 14 (arguably any restaurant's biggest business day as couples flock to dine out for Valentine's Day).

Preceding that will be a "secret" dinner on Feb. 12. Those who book reservations for that night's $45 prix fixe menu have apparently gotten a password. The restaurant can serve up to 250 people that night and there are just three tables left, said general manager Roryann Clements.

To reserve one of the last three tables, call 951-848-4020. No reservation (and no password) means no craft beer, fried olives and other gastro-pub food selections until the restaurant opens to all come Feb. 14.

Related: The Salted Pig's Facebook page

The congressman who represents most of California's border with Mexico has asked for hearings on the proposal to allow Mexican trucks access to America's highways.

Congressman Bob Filner, a San Diego Democrat, has written to the respective chairs of the Congressional committees on transportation and infrastructure and homeland security about President Obama's proposal for a new border trucking program with Mexico. Filner said he questions whether the administration "has any real sense of the impact of their proposal on road safety, border wait times, jobs or national security."

In addition to the ranking members of the key committees, Filner has also let James P. Hoffa, general president of the Teamsters, know he has requested the hearings. The union that represents hundreds of thousands of American truckers has been a frequent critic of Mexican trucks in the United States.

The Obama administration proposed the cross-border trucking change about a month ago, but it would be incorrect to call it, strictly speaking, an Obama initiative. It was originally part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was passed during to the first term of the Clinton administration and was proposed well before that. Since then, the proposal has floated up and down and been met with steady opposition centered on the loss of jobs, highway safety and pollution.

Mexico is America's biggest trading partner, but goods trucked in over the border usually travel only a few miles before the loads are switched to American carriers. The closest transfer load site to the Inland area is in Otay Mesa, a little east of San Diego.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

Businesses, as well as schools, have long passed out liability releases that indemnify them from potential lawsuits (I remember one waiver that warned my sister she risked decapitation by playing high school volleyball) and the participants of high-risk sports generally know what they're getting into.

But liability releases mean little to the court of law when something is done that makes the sport inherently more risky. In a local case involving a 17-year-old horse rider who was killed at Galway Downs in Temecula when her horse crushed her, the rider's parents have alleged that the girl's trainer should be held liable.

Peggy Hosking of BB&K, an avid equestrian according to the description on her column for The Equestrian News, says the case - which was first dismissed in a Riverside County trial court in a summary judgment, then appealed successfully by the rider's parents and is now back in county court -- could have a wide-reaching impact on other sports where trainers and coaches could be held liable.

Hosking cites court records that said the horse in question had fallen two weeks prior and suffered head trauma. The parents have contended that for that reason, the trainer put their daughter at more risk than normal by allowed her to compete on a hose that was "unfit to ride."

In her article in The Equestrian News (page11), Hosking writes that the appellate court said trainers "can be sued for falsehoods
that lead an athlete to take greater risks."

Case information: Eriksson v. Nunnink

-- Kimberly Pierceall
kpierceall@PE.com

An industrial property in Rancho Cucamonga that is part of one of the area's more popular business parks has been purchased by a private investor for $1,734,000, the city's redevelopment agency is reporting. A private investor purchased the four-year-old building for $70 per square foot.

The 24,772-square-foot property is fully occupied by a single tenant. Got Xenon Inc., which makes aftermarket lighting equipment for the automotive industry, is locked in to a lease that has four years to run.

The facility is part of the Sixth Street Business Center, a master-planned industrial park near the intersection of Archibald Avenue. Nearby tenants in the complex include Safari Printing, Atlas Testing, Alljoy Supply and Ideal Comfort.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

Fisker Automotive

The plug-in hybrid Fisker Karma, due this spring from Irvine-based Fisker Automotive

Universal Technical Institute's Rancho Cucamonga campus will play a role in the launch of the Fisker Karma, a hybrid electric sports sedan that is expected to make its market debut this spring.

The institute, a technical training school with campuses around the country, will provide on-site technical training to about 100 U.S. Fisker dealers in preparation for the vehicle launch.

The car is a four-door plug-in hybrid that reportedly can go about 50 miles on pure electric and another 250 on a combination of electric and engine power. It has a top all-electric speed of 95 miles per hour and can go from 0 to 60 in 7.9 seconds. In "sport" mode, top speed jumps to 125 and the 0-60 time drops to 5.9 seconds. Prices start at about $96,000, not including applicable state and federal tax credits, according to recent news reports.

The manufacturing company, Fisker Automotive, was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Irvine. It's led by CEO Henrik Fisker, a former designer for Aston Martin and BMW.

Fisker in December announced a partnership with Shanghai-based China Grant Automotive Group to distribute the cars in China. In a December news release, Fisker Automotive said it has received more than 3,000 deposits for Fisker Karmas and plans to sell about 15,000 of them a year globally.

The company has a U.S. network of 42 retailers in 45 locations, according to the release.
To check out the vehicle, go to www

--Tiffany Ray
tray@PE.com

An Orange County jury has ruled that McMahon's RV -- based in Irvine but with locations in Colton, Palm Desert and four dealerships in Arizona -- discriminated against an employee because of his age, and ruled to award him more than $350,000 in damages, including a $50,000 punitive award.

The jury verdict was unanimous (the punitive award was a 10-2 decision).

Mega RV (doing business as McMahon's RV) planned to appeal, "to appeal to the fullest extent possible," said Adam Obeid, in-house legal counsel for Mega RV.

The case initially involved two employees -- Janice Brown (who was 64 when she was fired) and Robert Liemandt -- but Brown later dropped her case and went back to work for the dealership.

Liemandt had worked at McMahon's since 2005 in the dealership's Irvine and Colton locations. After suffering a heart attack that left him in an induced coma for five days, Liemandt returned to work as a manager and said that the company's president cut his bonus in half, then took away the remainder 21 days later, according to his lawyer John Belcher of Pasadena. Liemandt was later demoted from a management position to being a salesman, Belcher said. He was fired in March 2009 at the age of 66.

"This is an industry that caters to people above 50," Belcher said. "For a company like this to have an age discrimination verdict and a finding of punitive damages ... is really reflective that this isn't just a problem, this is a major systemic problem that got exposed."

According to Belcher, former employees testified during the nine-day trial that Brent McMahon, the company's president, had said: "[Robert Liemandt] has had a heart attack, he's a liability, we need to get rid of this guy." and "We need to get rid of that old f----er."

According to the first amended complaint, former sales manager Mark Croft testified in a deposition saying:

And when Bob [Liemandt] came back to work, Brent [McMahon], I mean in front of maybe a half dozen guys, we're all standing there kind of BS'ing in a group, you know, made comments like "We've got to get rid of that guy before he falls over dead. He's getting up in age. He's had a heart attack."

Mega RV (McMahon's) plans to wait and see what happens in post-trial motions. The judge could disregard the jury's verdict and render his own, order a new trial or decrease the damage.

"Mega RV respects our jury system but in this particular instance there was no evidence of discrimination and the calculation of damages was excessive given the evidence actually presented," said Obeid, in-house legal counsel for Mega RV.

Case information: Janice Brown; Robert Liemandt vs. Mega RV Corp. (Orange County Superior Court Case no: 30-2010-00388086)

-- Kimberly Pierceall
kpierceall@PE.com

Riverside-based Best Best & Krieger LLP is the 27th largest law firm in California, up five spots compared to a year prior, according to this year's list from The Daily Journal.

It was the only Inland-based law firm to be among the top 50 largest firms statewide. Among just Southern California firms, it was ranked 15th.

Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP, a nationwide firm with an office in San Bernardino, was ranked third statewide, and second in Southern California.

In the Inland region, the top five law firms based on the number of lawyers working in their Inland offices:
BB&K - 85 lawyers
Gresham Savage Nolan & Tilden APC - 56 lawyers
Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP - 33 lawyers
Reid & Hellyer APC - 18 lawyers
Thompson & Colgate LLP - 18 lawyers

-- Kimberly Pierceall
kpierceall@PE.com

One thing Vertis Communications probably doesn't need is an excessive number of properties, so it's a good bet the Inland-area office of Voit Real Estate Services has helped them with a pair of recent deals.

Vertis is one of the largest marketing companies in the world, but it's had more than its share of financial headaches lately. In November the firm filed for bankruptcy, and it was the second time in about 30 months the Baltimore-based company sought protection from creditors and reorganized.

Voit's Inland team announced this week it has closed two deals in eastern Los Angeles County on Vertis' behalf. It successfully completed the sale of a 21,799-square-foot building on West Citrus Edge Street in Glendora for $2.2 million. The name of the buyer was not disclosed.

The marketing firm is keeping a presence in that general neighborhood because Voit has successfully negotiated the renewal of Vertis' three-year lease at 3200 Pomona Blvd. in Pomona. Walt Chenoweth, Voit's executive vice president, said in a statement that his staff was able get a favorable lease rate. By sitting down with landlord TA Associates Realty six months before the lease expired, it gave Voit and Vertis some leverage in the negotiations.

Vertis, a company with major retailers and consumer services companies on its client list, has about 100 locations across the country.

--Jack Katzanek
jkatzanek@PE.com

Would you like to know if your furniture fits in the rooms before you decide whether to buy a house in a new subdivision that has caught your attention? Perhaps you would like to know exactly what the house would look like after you select various architectural options and exterior colors?

Shea Homes will quench your curiosity with a new website it launched this month that offers an array of features, resources and tools to assist potential home buyers.

In announcing the website that Shea developed with the help of Red Door Interactive, Shea Homes president and chief executive, Bert Selva, said "Our goal was to provide a lot of resources for home shoppers, including home buying guides, check lists, financing information and information about the purchase process from start to finish."

One of the features of the new website is the Shea SpaceBuilder Tool that helps people plan out the space inside the house they may buy and determine if it is suited to their needs. They can create their dream home by selecting architectural options and colors and considering various floor plans to decide wheter furniture would best fit in a room. The tool also allows shoppers to share the homes they like with friends and relatives through email or on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

--Leslie Berkman
lberkman@PE.com

Spending in restaurants has increased 5 percent since October 2009, according to a report by management consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates. And a modest, seven-month climb from recessionary spending levels is predicted to continue.

"Consumers are re-integrating eating out into their lifestyles," Todd Hooper, a retail and restaurant industry strategist, said in a news release.

October 2009 was the low point for dining out during the Great Recession, the report said. Consumer spending could lag in the first quarter, the company said, but "restaurants should be planning for overall growth in 2011."

The report comes on the heels of positive 2011 forecasts from the National Restaurant Association and Technomic, a Chicago-based food industry research group.

--Tiffany Ray
tray@PE.com