Hats off to Austin, which was named the top healthiest housing market. (Photo: iStockphoto)

The fall update on the 20 healthiest housing markets from BUILDER and Hanley Wood Market Intelligence is out. Cruising through the list is a very interesting exercise. Nearly all the markets on the list have at least one of three factors shoring up demand – a major university, a military base or a position as a capital city …Full Story

Home prices in South Florida now match what buyers are willing to pay. (Photo: iStockphoto)

Before relocating to Georgia in 1998, I lived for nearly 20 years in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. South Florida has always been an interesting real estate market, driven in part by its natural, immovable boundaries. It has the Atlantic Ocean on the east, the Everglades on the west and the end of the United States on the south. There really are only two ways for the market to grow – you either tear down something old and replace it with something new, or you go vertical. During the real estate boom, the market saw plenty of both …Full Story

More Americans than you might think live with unhealthy housing conditions. (Photo: iStockphoto)

The National Center for Healthy Housing, a non-profit organization that focuses on safe, sustainable and healthy homes, recently released the nation’s first comprehensive study of U.S. housing conditions …Full Story

Which of the four "F's" are keeping you out of the housing market? (Photo: iStockphoto)

Home Sales: The Four "F"s are still taking hold of buyers -- Fear, Financing, Falling Prices and Finding a Buyer for their 'other' house. That was a tweet I saw the other day from Bradley Hunter, chief economist for MetroStudy, which is a housing market research firm. He leads up a team of 650 researchers in 25 major housing markets across the country …Full Story

The City of Fort Myers hired nationally known urban planner Andres Duany to redesign its sagging downtown. (Photo: John Curry for Cyberhomes)

As a teen, I thought my hometown of Fort Myers, Fla., was the most boring place on the planet. I honestly could not get out of there fast enough. I left at 18 to go to college at the University of Florida in Gainesville and haven’t lived in Ft. Myers since. But we have family in the area, so we’ve made quasi-regular trips back home, including a visit the last week of August. On most occasions, I’ve looked around and found little that would make me want to live there again. This time, I was more intrigued.  …Full Story

A housing development in China -- one sign of the nation's growing real estate bubble. (Photo: iStockphoto)

 

While real estate markets in the U.S. and many parts of Europe are still trying to climb out of their post-bubble hole, markets in other parts of the world may be headed for a bubble – including those in China and Australia. While the governments of those countries are happy not to be experiencing the residential and commercial real estate deflation that other countries are struggling with, the prospect of a bubble may not be entirely welcome. …Full Story

Getting a handle on today's housing market can be a tricky proposition -- with so much in flux and with fluctuating housing prices and an uncertain job market, it can be tough to determine just where your home's value is headed or what trends are in store for any local housing market.

That's where Cyberhomes comes in. We're now offering the Cyberhomes Market Forecast, the first ever consumer report that can show you real estate data for a particular home or neighborhood and graph out where the local market is expected to head over the next 12 to 24 months.

For an introductory price of $3.99, you can get information such as a local 12-month housing forecast; projections of distressed, foreclosure and real-estate owned properties in the area; and loan and assessment information such as assessor market value, loan-to-value ratio and tax delinquency status …Full Story

While there have been some signs of recovery in the housing market, David. M. Blitzer, chairman of Standard & Poor's index committee, says that home prices have made no improvement. S&P released its home price indices yesterday, which showed that in the first quarter, home prices fell at the fastest annual pace on record.

"Declines in residential real estate continued at a steady pace into March," Blitzer said.

For the first quarter, the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index showed a decline of 19.1 percent from the same period a year before -- the greatest drop in the index's 21 years, with home prices now at the same level they were in the fourth quarter of 2002. The national index is released every quarter …Full Story

With home prices down a record 19.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, and home price declines slowing, now couldn't be better for first-time buyers to purchase a home.

But however good conditions may look now to buy that first home, first-time buyers should carefully weigh their decisions and think everything through before taking the plunge -- so they can avoid the mistakes that first-time buyers typically make.

New buyer mistakes

In this blog, I've written before about the mistakes I made when buying my very first house (and current home). Anxious to buy a home, I bought one of the first houses I saw (which was actually a plan for a home in a small community of houses being built by a builder). While I am generally happy with my home, there are times that I wish that I took my time a little more, looked at a few more houses and examined my options better …Full Story

First-time buyers are in the driver's seat in today's market. With so many sellers out there looking to sell, plenty of inventory, falling home prices, low interest rates and a $8,000 federal tax credit available for new home buyers, now may be the perfect time to jump into the market.

While prices are down significantly in most local housing markets, there are some locales that are better suited for first-time home buyers, Cyberhomes has found. We examined median incomes in ZIP codes across the U.S. and calculated how much a typical first-time homebuyer in each local market would be able to spend. We then looked at median prices in 7,000 ZIPS to calculate local markets' affordability and looked for ZIPs that offer good employment prospects and living conditions, as well …Full Story