LA home prices down 5.7% in past year

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News, notes and headlines:

--L.A. housing prices have dropped 5.7% over the past year, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller home price index. That’s a slightly worse performance than the average for the 10 largest cities -- a 5.0% drop. Reuters headline: ‘The decline in prices of existing U.S. single-family homes accelerated in August and fell at their fastest pace since 1991, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller national home price index.’

--The mortgage crisis today claimed its highest-profile victim: Merrill Lynch CEO Stanly O’Neal resigned.
Don’t feel bad for O’Neal: his walking-away money has been estimated at *at least* $159 million.

--Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo continues to blame divorce, job loss and illness -- but not bad underwriting -- for mounting defaults, according to this account in today’s LATimes.

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