From the monthly archives:

June 2012

Rising Home Prices Positive News For The Economy

June 27, 2012
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Tweet A new report shows home prices rose from March to April in 19 of the 20 largest cities. Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller Home Price Index also shows that prices were up one 1.3% nationally. House sales are up, mortgage rates are the lowest ever, and builders are starting to build again. Are we rising, [...]

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Housing Exuberance Led By Shiller’s U.S. Glamorous Cities

June 27, 2012
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Tweet Home prices are beginning to rise after a six-year slump in cities from San Francisco and Seattle to Miami with jobs and lifestyles that appeal to younger and affluent buyers. “A number of the cities that have done the best have been glamour cities,” said Robert Shiller, an economics professor at Yale University and [...]

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Top 10 Rising Real Estate Markets In May

June 27, 2012
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Tweet U.S. home values continued to rise this spring, according to an analysis by online real estate marketplace Zillow. As of May, national home values are up (0.5 percent) for the third month in a row, settling at $148,100. Some hard-hit metros are seeing a sustained recovery in home values, including Phoenix and three Florida [...]

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6 Must-Do’s Before Buying A Home

June 27, 2012
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Tweet You might be ready to buy a home, but are you armed with the knowledge you need? Do you know about credit score requirements? Are you familiar with flexible standards on Federal Housing Administration loans? Whether you are a first-time homebuyer or an experienced owner, buying a house requires a “preflight check,” in the [...]

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Why We Charge Less For The Things We Love

June 27, 2012
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Tweet Conventional economic wisdom holds that the more emotionally attached we are to something – our home, a cool car, a treasured item of clothing, a beloved piece of furniture – the higher the price we seek when selling it. But a new paper, to be published in the Journal of Marketing, suggests that really liking [...]

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Retirement Spots With Year-Round Pleasant Weather

June 27, 2012
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Tweet Many people dream of a retirement in which they will never again have to shovel snow or defrost a car. But at the same time, not many retirees want to swelter through or pay the air conditioning bills associated with several months’ worth of 95-degree days. To find some places with year-round pleasant weather, [...]

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Phoenix Home Prices Reach 41-Month High

June 27, 2012
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Tweet The median home price in Phoenix hit a 41-month high in May as sales increased in both the mid- to high-end segments of the housing market, accordiing to research firm DataQuick. In fact, the median price paid for a home rose for the sixth consecutive month. Still, prices in Phoenix remain down 43.2% from [...]

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Tech Boom Hits San Francisco Rental Prices

June 27, 2012
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Tweet The latest technology boom is helping to stem a decade-long exodus of residents from San Francisco, but the influx of well-paid workers is driving up already-high housing costs and straining public resources. While there are no migration data for late 2011 or this year, employers and economists say the renewal of San Francisco’s tech [...]

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A House To Look Smart In: Old-School Reading Rooms Stage Grand Return

June 27, 2012
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Tweet The idea of curling up with a good book has increasingly come to mean flipping on an e-reader, not flipping through the pages of a leather-bound novel in a book-lined room. Yet the home library is on the rise, having become something of a cerebral status symbol. Affluent homeowners are buying quality books in [...]

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Behind The Numbers: Rising Hopes On New-Home Sales

June 25, 2012
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Tweet Sales of new homes rose in May, fed by consumers taking advantage of record-low interest rates and limited supply. Sales climbed 7.6% from April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000, the Commerce Department said Monday. May’s sales surged 20% from a year ago and struck the highest level since April 2010. On [...]

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