Real-Estate Market
Sees a Housing Rebound

Here's a look at what's new in real-estate markets across the U.S. from around the Web. (Some links may require registration or subscriptions.)

Existing-home sales rise 3%

Sales of existing homes rose 3% in January from December, the largest percentage gain in two years, says a MarketWatch article. (Sales were down 4.3% year-over-year, MarketWatch says.) The median sales price dropped 3.1% from January 2006 to $210,600, the article says. "The price correction is working," the Web site quotes David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, as saying. He can't say definitively whether the housing market has bottomed out because January's warm weather helped to increase sales, he is quoted as saying. Condo resales were basically flat in January, dipping 0.1%, the article says.

How to Attract Online Buyers

Is your home ready for its close-up? An overwhelming majority of people -- 80% -- use the Internet when house hunting and many consider photos and virtual tours very important factors in their search, says a New York Times article. Your home's photo appeal can draw or detract online buyers, so it's important to work with a real-estate agent who uses high-quality photos or hires a photographer, the article says. Sellers should think about including more photos in their listing (having few photos may give potential buyers the impression that there's something to hide) and adding a virtual tour. "They're a great way of seeing a property without actually being there," the paper quotes a Dallas real-estate agent as saying. Photos should be taken with ample lighting and minimal clutter, the article says. Sellers may want to avoid certain buzzwords that are used by agents to soften a home's weaknesses -- for example, "cozy" and "charming" are descriptives used to describe a property that is small, the article says.

Vacation-home sales fall in Golden State

In 2006, sales of vacation homes in California fell 37% from the year before, according to a Los Angeles Times article. That drop is greater than that for home sales overall in the state, which saw a year-over-year decline of nearly 25%, the Times says. The median sales price for vacation homes rose, however, to $400,000, a nearly 11% gain from the year before, while the median price for all Californian homes increased 6.5% to $469,500, the newspaper says. The fact that the median vacation-home price rose despite the decrease in buyer demand is a good sign for the state's "economy and overall housing market," the article says, because it indicates that sellers of vacation homes aren't feeling pressured by economic factors to reduce their selling prices, the Times says.

Demand up in Manhattan

Bidding wars are again a fixture in Manhattan's real-estate market, according an article by The New York Times. In January, home prices rose 14.4% and the number of contracts signed increased 19.4% from January 2006, as buyers at all levels of the price spectrum competed for properties, the article says. Responsible for this exuberance are bigger Wall Street bonuses and a strong local economy, plus an "about-face" by buyers, who no longer seem to fear a real-estate crash, the newspaper says. Also enjoying an uptick in buyer interest is Brooklyn, where neighborhoods like Park Slope and Prospect Heights are seeing higher prices not reached since 2004, the paper says.

Has New Jersey's market hit bottom?

In the fourth quarter of 2006, home sales in New Jersey fell 20% from the same period the year before -- doubling the 10% decline seen across the U.S. during that same period, according to an article posted on NorthJersey.com. Yet, North Jersey real-estate agents quoted by the Web site say real estate's downward slide is petering out. For the region that includes New Jersey's Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties, plus New York's Westchester County and New York City, the median price for an existing single-family home was $498,400 at the end of 2006, down 3.8% from the end of 2005 and more than 11% from the third quarter of 2006, the article says. Yet, "I think we're going to have quite a good spring," one real-estate agent is quoted as saying.

Housing costs blamed for enrollment decline

Last year, Florida analysts predicted that 48,376 new students would enter the state's schools come fall. Instead, student enrollment increased by a mere 477 children, says an article by the Orlando Sentinel. That's the lowest student increase since the 1982-83 academic year, the newspaper says. What's behind the sizeable drop in student enrollment? Lofty home prices and costs, the paper says. A survey of the state's 62 county school superintendents for an analysis of the state's property-tax system shows that 50% believe that high housing expenses have dissuaded families from moving into their districts or have convinced other families to move out, the Sentinel says.

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