A Pittsburgh area couple has sued Google Inc., saying that the picture of their home on the Google Map’s Street View neighborhood photos violates their privacy, devalued their property, and caused them mental distress.

Google’s Street View function shows street-level images of homes and businesses in many parts of the country.

The couple suing Google, Aaron and Christine Boring, say one reason they bought their home in Franklin Park, Pa., was because of a desire for privacy. They say the images of their home on the Google site included their driveway, labeled “Private Road,” and were probably shot from that vantage, which meant the Google photographer trespassed.

A Google spokesman says the lawsuit is without merit because Google offers tools for removing a property from the Web site when a property owner doesn’t want it there.

But the couple’s attorney, Dennis Moskal, says that isn’t the point. Instead, the couple hopes the lawsuit will deter Google from violating other people’s privacy in the future.

Source: The Associated Press, Joe Mandak (04/04/08)

Pittsburgh continues to rank as one of the nation’s most stable residential real estate markets, according to a recent study.

There is a less than 1 percent chance that home prices in the Pittsburgh region will be lower in two years than they are today, according to the study released by Walnut Creek, Calif.-based PMI Mortgage Insurance Co.

“The reason that Pittsburgh has such a low risk is that prices there never exploded like they did in other parts of the country,” said David Berson, chief economist with PMI. “There were very stable home price gains.”

Only one other metropolitan area, Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas, had a smaller chance of seeing home prices decrease in two years, according to the study.

Topping the list as most risky real estate markets were Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. (93 percent), Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev. (91 percent), and Orlando-Kissimee, Fla. (85 percent).

The quarterly ranking, which uses data from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, considers only loans made by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. It does not include jumbo or subprime loans.

Cortesy of Pittsburgh Business Times