HONOLULU - Dorie-Ann Kahale and her five daughters moved from a homeless shelter to a mansion this week, courtesy of a Japanese real estate mogul who is handing over eight of his multimillion-dollar homes to low-income native Hawaiian families.

Tears spilled down Kahale’s cheeks as she accepted from billionaire Genshiro Kawamoto the key to a white, columned house with a circular driveway, a stone staircase and a deep porcelain bathtub. Her family will live there rent-free but must pay utility bills.

“I’m shocked. I’m overwhelmed,” Kahale said. “From the little box we had to what we have today.”

BRENTWOOD - Zaio is attempting to catalog and photograph 100,000 homes a day across the country, which would make it one of the largest Internet databases in the world for point-and-click valuations. In the Bay Area, most of the activity so far has centered on the East Bay. But work will begin by the end of next month to add San Jose-area homes to the company’s database, a company executive said.

On a recent afternoon in Brentwood, certified appraiser Ron Simmons teamed up with a photographer to collect information on 378 homes in the city’s center.

The median home price in Los Angeles County hit a new high in February, but home sales continue to decline.

The county’s median home price rose to $616,230, a 5 percent increase from the previous month and up 9 percent from the previous year, according to figures released Friday by the California Association of Realtors.

Home sales dropped 15.9 percent in February compared with a year ago.

Los Angeles County continues to register large population gains amid a housing shortage, which fueled the median home price increase, said CAR Deputy Chief Economist Robert Kleinhenz.

More so than with any other room, remodeling your bathroom can increase your home’s resale value.

In fact, a moderate-sized bathroom remodel, which costs about $10,499, brings a 102 percent return on your investment, according to the 2005 Cost vs. Value Report published by the National Association of Realtors in REALTOR Magazine and by Hanley Wood in Remodeling magazine.But before you look to magazines and TV for ideas, it helps to know what flies in this area.

Walls

A soft landing in the housing market is looking a little more likely.Price and sales numbers released Friday, both for California and the nation, show February wasn’t all that weak compared with past years.

The news has observers hoping that there’s more strength - and less drag on the economy - than previously believed.

In California, housing sales were at their highest in eight months, posting their smallest year-over-year declines in more than a year, according to the California Association of Realtors.

Meanwhile, national sales unexpectedly improved by the largest amount in nearly three years. But analysts credited that more to good weather in the Northeast than to a real upturn.