Greater Des Moines home buying activity dropped off after a federal tax credit deadline expired April 30, but spillover activity spurred additional purchases, with market activity in the past two months ahead of the pace set in the same two-month period a year ago, according to statistics released today by the Des Moines Area Association of Realtors. Contracts closed were up 11 percent in May, to 932 from 836 in April. The average sale price rose 1 percent, to $158,828 in May from $157,024 in April.

The Des Moines City Council will be asked tonight to approve a preliminary agreement to provide a $1.1 million economic development grant for the renovation of the Fleming Building, 604 Walnut St. Developer Jake Christensen plans to create 111 apartments in the former office building at a cost of $14.7 million. Apartments will rent for $500 to $700 per month, according to a council memorandum. The building cannot be converted to a cooperative, which would receive favorable property tax treatment, according to the memo. The building will undergo asbestos abatement and will receive a new heating and cooling system, windows and an 11-story internal stairwell. The assessed value of the building, which also will qualify for tax increment financing, has dropped 73 percent since 1995.

Casey’s General Stores Inc. sued Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. for allegedly dumping almost 2 million shares of the Ankeny-based convenience-store chain immediately after offering to buy it for $1.9 billion. Couche-Tard, based in Laval, Quebec, announced a bid April 9 to acquire Casey’s General Stores for $36 a share, which sparked a rise Casey’s stock price. Couche-Tard then sold its Casey’s shares, reaping more than $10 million and depressing their value, Casey’s said in a lawsuit filed last Friday in federal court in Davenport. Couche-Tard, with almost 5,900 locations, began building its U.S. presence nine years ago with the acquisition of Johnson Oil Co. assets, including 225 Bigfoot stores in the Midwest. It has since added Circle K and On the Run gas-station convenience stores. Casey’s has more than 1,500 locations in nine U.S. states, including Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.

The U.S. labor market will hold the key to a recovery in the hard-hit housing sector, according to a report released today from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. High foreclosures and a high jobless rate both pose significant challenges to the housing market, but some recovery in labor markets and record low mortgage rates could partly overcome other pressures, Reuters reported after the release of the report. The researchers noted that homeowners would feel poorer with real household wealth declining on a per household basis to $486,600 from $503,500 over the past 10 years, in “the lost decade.” Foreclosures have reduced some mortgage debt but the level of debt relative to equity still started 2010 at a record 163 percent, the report said.

Amazon.com Inc. won the top spot in an annual survey of the healthiest U.S. and Canadian retailers for a second year in a row, Bloomberg reported. Amazon.com’s technology keeps inventory levels and expenses down, said Consensus Advisors CEO Michael O’Hara, whose firm did the survey. Aeropostale Inc., Urban Outfitters Inc., CVS Caremark Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. round out the top five on the list. Amazon.com has posted three consecutive quarters of profit growth as consumers began spending again amid the economic recovery. E-commerce retailers have an “inherent advantage” because they don’t have to buy and own inventory in hundreds of stores, O’Hara said in an interview with Bloomberg.

The cost of fixing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that last year bought or guaranteed three-quarters of all U.S. home loans, will be at least $160 billion and could grow to as much as $1 trillion, Bloomberg reported. Fannie and Freddie, now 80 percent owned by U.S. taxpayers, already have drawn $145 billion from an unlimited line of government credit granted to ensure that home buyers can get loans while the private housing-finance industry is moribund. That surpasses the amount spent on rescues of American International Group Inc., General Motors Co. or Citigroup Inc., which have begun repaying their debts. “It is the mother of all bailouts,” said Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, who is now a consultant to the mortgage-finance industry.