Area home sales rose 6.7 percent in July, a report Monday from the Upstate Alliance of Realtors shows.

Upstate, which tracks data from Allen, Adams, DeKalb, Huntington, Noble, Wells and Whitley counties, said 577 homes sold last month, up from 541 in July 2011. The average July sales price of $130,945 is an 1.8 percent increase from $128,672 in the same month last year.

For the first seven months of the year, 3,569 homes have sold, up 9.9 percent from the 3,247 sold during the same period last year.

The average sales price this year is $122,511, up 5.8 percent from the $115,768 average recorded for the same period in 2011.

Best Buy names new chief executive

The fight over Best Buy’s future is getting ugly.

Best Buy Co, the nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, announced Monday it has tapped Hubert Joly, the former head of global hospitality company Carlson and a turnaround expert, as the new CEO and president. The move comes a day after talks between the ailing retailer and its co-founder, former chairman and largest shareholder Richard Schulze failed over his takeover bid proposal.

In a statement issued Monday, Schulze criticized the choice and vowed he would go forward with his proposal to take the company private.

“Best Buy continues to face enormous challenges and needs a clear plan and a proven leadership team with deep retail experience and knowledge of Best Buy to win back customers, inspire employees and reinvigorate its trusted brand,” Schulze said in a statement.

Wall Street also didn’t like the news, and investors sent Best Buy shares down more than 10 percent.

Lowe’s results miss expectations

For Lowe’s, the improving housing market is still a bust.

The nation’s second-largest improvement retailer cut its full-year-earnings and revenue forecasts Monday after posting a 10 percent drop in second-quarter net income.

Revenue at stores opened at least a year, a key yardstick for measuring the health of the retailer, declined 0.4 percent.

Lowe’s results were hurt in part by a timing shift in how the retailer reported the quarter and a charge tied to job cuts. But the latest performance also shows the company’s efforts to revamp its merchandise and prices isn’t working while its rival Home Depot, is reaping the benefits of the improving but still weak housing market.

USDA: Corn harvest ahead of schedule

One of the worst growing seasons most U.S. farmers can remember is coming to an end with a corn harvest that’s at least three weeks early thanks to an unusually warm spring and suffocating summer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday in its weekly crop progress report that 4 percent of the corn harvest is complete. Normally, just 1 percent of the crop is in at this point in August.

The harvest is much further along in states such as Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee. While farmers usually have to wait for the corn in their fields to dry or spend money on gas and electricity to dry it with huge blowers, in many areas, triple-digit summer temperatures have done the work.