U.S. home prices fell for the 10th consecutive month in October, but local real estate professionals say Pike County's home prices have remained steady through most of 2007.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index on Wednesday reported that U.S. home prices in October posted the largest single-month drop since 1991. October also marked the 23rd consecutive month in which home prices either were below average or declined.

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. The lodge at scenic Lake Guntersville State Park in northeast Alabama will reopen Jan. 2 after being closed for almost four years and receiving $25 million in renovations.

The lodge is located on a densely wooded mountaintop and overlooks the park's 6,000 acres of woodlands. It has been closed since work began on renovations in March, 2004.

Park Superintendent Talmadge Butler said the project was delayed, mostly because of mold and mildew on the property, with the initial estimated cost of about $22.5 million increasing by about $3 million.

Plans to build a retail development with an outlet center, a big box retailer, restaurants and a hotel in a northern Minnesota city were unveiled last week. The news didn't get attention in Birmingham, but there is a local connection.

The company behind the project in Bemidji, a tourist destination and a major commercial hub in northern Minnesota, is an affiliate of Birmingham-based Capital Growth Properties Inc., a real estate firm formed two years ago when two brothers from Tuscaloosa merged their companies.

Many cities and communities yearningly talk about it, but it appears the Huntsville area is doing it - attracting highly sought, younger professionals, and they're coming in style.

They're blipping red hot on the local housing market radar. This elusive demographic is making its presence known, much to the elation of hardworking officials who diligently focused on luring them here to keep the area economy and communities dynamic.

Organization Supporting Business Owners, a business owners' association, holds monthly owner-to-owner networking events and training seminars. Standard monthly events are recurring, but some changes may apply during the holiday season. For current event locations and times, visit www.osbo.org or call Jim Campbell at 684-9191.

Wednesday

Strategic Speakers Toastmasters Club 6054 will meet at Redstone Arsenal's Von Braun Complex, Building 5220, Room 3018, at 11:30 a.m. The group meets each Wednesday. Contact C. Purifoy at 651-3621 or cpurifoy@bellsouth.net.

The largest building permit issued during the week of Dec. 10-14 in the city of Huntsville went to Joe Still Building Co. Inc., in the amount of $5.32 million, for building the exterior walls, roof, stairwells, windows and other structures for the 44,000-square-foot expansion of SportsMed Orthopaedic Surgery & Spine Center at 4715 Whitesburg Drive.

Joe Still Building Co. is the general contractor. Walker Family Properties, the developer, co-owns the building with SportsMed physicians. Construction is slated for completion next summer.

Other permits valued at more than $20,000 were:

The Rock Island Arsenal Task Force and a group of community leaders combined their experience, enthusiasm and determination Thursday for creating a one-team, one-fight to support and grow the arsenal.

Still enthusiastic after a tour earlier this month of the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., a delegation of two dozen Quad-City community representatives was folded into the longstanding task force. The community leaders, who represent the area’s chambers, economic development organizations and a variety of business sectors, nearly doubled the size of the task force to about 40 members.

MADISON - For about 200 or so residents, the Madison Planning Commission was like Santa Claus at its Thursday night meeting.

For a few property owners and developers, the commission was more like the Grinch.

It started with a large contingency opposing Gene Dowdy's request to amend the allowed land use for 2.28 acres at 309 Gooch Lane from low-density residential to commercial.

As many Real Estate markets around the country are struggling to find a way to weather the downturn, Mobile, Alabama is experiencing quite the opposite as the city has established itself as a hotbed of growth with mega-sized foreign-based investments fueling the economy.

Phoenix, Las Vegas and many areas of California are considered among the biggest “down” markets, while Mobile has quickly risen to the top of markets deemed “up,” according to CNN’s Money Watch.

A University of Alabama real estate expert says the high number of unsold houses across the state will continue to put pressure on Alabama's housing market.

When 2008 begins, there will be an estimated 43,000 houses up for sale across Alabama, a figure that is 8,000 homes higher than at the start of this year, says Grayson Glaze, executive director of the university's Center for Real Estate.