The rich Hispanic culture of Northern New Mexico will be celebrated at the 56th Annual Traditional Spanish Market, Saturday and Sunday, July 28 & 29, 2007 on the Santa Fe Plaza. A destination event for residents and visitors alike, Spanish Market features handcrafted traditional arts by 250 local Hispanic artists, continuous music, art demonstrations and regional foods, and provides a unique opportunity for visitors to enjoy a taste of New Mexico’s vibrant Spanish culture, both past and present. Admission is free to the public.

Located at 7,000 ft. in the Southern Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico and is one of the great destination cities of the world.The rich multi-cultural history, vibrant art market and active outdoor scene make for an unparalleled quality of life, and the healthy, diverse economy with low unemployment attracts entrepreneurs from all parts of the globe.

What gave rise to housing boom may also taketh away…
There’s growing concern that easy access to credit, rather than fundamentals like housing supply, demographic trends and wage growth, was the primary driver of a dramatic run up in housing prices during the housing boom.

And if lenders gave rise to the housing boom, then lenders — and those who fund and regulate them — may also taketh away.

As subprime lenders go belly up or lose access to funding in an avalanche of delinquencies and foreclosures, there are fears that a glut of real estate-owned homes, or REOs, could flood the market, and depress prices in the hardest-hit areas.

In this four-part special report, Inman News goes in-depth to look at what’s happening now in the subprime market, what factors led up to the housing boom and how the credit crunch may play out in the marketplace. It’s a complicated story with many players, acts and audience members.
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Not so sure about foreclosures
RealtyTrac, a source of pre-foreclosure and foreclosure statistics, reported that Colorado had the highest foreclosure rate in the nation in December and for nine of 12 months in 2006 …Â
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In Part 1, “Subprime tsunami threatens to extend housing downturn,” looks at how economic events like the dot-com stock market bust and the flow of global investment capital helped ease access to credit, fueling a housing boom.

In Part 2, “Subprime mortgage lending boom sets the stage,” looks at how subprime lenders built the originating infrastructure that allowed private-label lenders to overtake government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the secondary mortgage market.

In Part 3, “Damn the early payment defaults, full steam ahead,” looks at how subprime lenders, having built up the infrastructure needed to originate loans in large volumes, needed to continue making risky loans to remain profitable.

In Part 4, “If foreclosures are the earthquake, watch out for the credit crunch tsunami,” looks at why lenders underestimate the cost of making risky loans during housing booms, and how the credit crunch may play out in the marketplace.

Real estate sites’ audience grows compared to last year…

Thursday, March 08, 2007

By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News

The Realtor.com property-search Web site topped the list of real estate sites for its share of Web traffic in February, according to Internet intelligence company Hitwise, followed by foreclosure and property-listings resource RealtyTrac.com and real estate information and services site HomeGain.com. And comScore, another Web ratings company, reported a growing audience for real estate Web sites.
Realtor.com had an 8.78 percent market share in the real estate category in February, Hitwise reported, while RealtyTrac had a 3.73 percent share and HomeGain had a 3.07 percent share.

Rounding out the top-10, in order from fourth to 10th, were: www.rent.com, www.remax.com, www.realestate.yahoo.com, www.zillow.com, www.apartments.com, www.ziprealty.com, and www.move.com. Move.com, which like Realtor.com is operated by Move Inc. (formerly Homestore), improved to 10th from a 12th-place ranking in January and a 17th-place ranking in December. Move.com bumped Century21.com from 10th in January to 11th in February.

The rankings of other top-10 real estate sites were unchanged from January to February.

The Hitwise data is based on a sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. The top-10 real estate industry Web sites accounted for 30 percent of visits to all Web sites in the real estate category in February, Hitwise also reported, while 41.21 percent of visits went to the top-20 real estate Web sites and about 70 percent of traffic went to the top-100 sites. Visitors spent an average of 10 minutes, 56 seconds at real estate industry Web sites in February.

Meanwhile, Web metrics company comScore Media Metrix reported in a separate analysis that Move Inc. Web sites ranked first on the list in total unique visitors for the real estate category in January 2007, though total unique visitors to the site fell from 9.26 million in January 2006 to 8.53 million in January 2007 — an 8 percent drop. Yahoo! Real Estate, at www.realestate.yahoo.com, ranked second on the comScore list with 4.02 million total unique visitors — a 94 percent gain from 2.08 million unique users in January 2006.

Also, comScore reported that the total Internet audience for real estate Web sites increased from 34.79 million unique visitors in January 2006 to 39.85 million unique visitors in January 2007 — a 15 percent gain. Meanwhile, the total U.S. Internet audience grew 3 percent, from an estimated 170.8 million unique visitors in January 2006 to 175.56 million unique visitors in January 2007.

HomeGain ranked third on the comScore list in January, with total unique visitors dropping from 4.3 million in January 2006 to 3.89 million in January 2007. Rent.com ranked fourth, followed by MSN Real Estate, Apartments.com, AOL Real Estate, ServiceMagic.com, RE/MAX International Inc. and RealtyTrac.com in 10th place. ComScore’s top-15 list for the real estate category also included Zillow.com, Homes.com, ForRent.com, HPCInter@ctive (which operates a range of real estate sites including ApartmentGuide.com, RentClicks.com, NewHomeGuide.com and Rentals.com) and Century 21.

And Hitwise reported that the top-20 real estate sites in February, based on market share, included Century 21.com in 11th place, followed by Homes.com, ServiceMagic.com, ForRent.com, HUD.gov, HouseValues.com, MSN Real Estate (www.realestate.msn.com), ColdwellBanker.com, ApartmentGuide.com and ForeclosureStore.com.

“Realtor.com” was the most popular search term that led to traffic at real estate-related Web sites in February, Hitwise also reported, accounting for 1.68 percent of all traffic for that month. That was followed by “remax” with 0.92 percent of traffic volume, “apartments” at 0.71 percent, “real estate” at 0.6 percent, “homes for sale” at 0.51 percent, “century 21″ at 0.42 percent, “zillow.com” at 0.4 percent, “realtor” at 0.4 percent, “zillow” at 0.38 percent and “apartments for rent” at 0.35 percent.

The February Hitwise report lists a number of “fast-moving Web sites” in the real estate category, which are local Web sites that have experienced “substantial increases in rank” in the past four months. Those sites include Advantage GMAC Real Estate in Moses Lake, Wash. (www.agmac.com); RE/MAX Hometown Realty in Lincoln, Ill. (www.rmxhometown.com); Ellis County Realty LLC in Midlothian, Texas (www.elliscountyrealty.com); and A-1 Higdon Luxury Condo Rentals in Alabama (www.gulfshoresrental.com), among others.

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Part 2: Real estate forecast
The prevailing forecast among industry economists has been a gradually slowing housing market in 2006, and some brokerage company executives have said this is a good time to focus on growth and technology.

Online lead systems, back-office management platforms, Web-based transaction systems and interactive mapping systems are a few things some real estate brokerages are eyeing for next year.

In this forecast newsletter edition, we look at what brokerage company executives are expecting in the year to come and also give our own predictions. This is the last of our two-part newsletter on the 2006 real estate forecast. To view Part 1, click here.
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“Flexing those big builder muscles
…Builders have merged with one another and grown ever larger partly to get Wall Street’s respect and access to capital at low interest rates. Don Horton started his company in the 1980s with a single house in Texas. This year the company built more than 50,000 homes across the country making it the biggest of the big builders…”
Read More
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In Part 1, “What’s on the real estate tech horizon next year?” brokerage company executives talk about the hot real estate technology trends next year. Many pointed to lead management and transaction management systems as being at the top of the menu for a lot of brokers.

In Part 2, “Opportunity grows in slowing real estate market,” we spoke with executives from a few major real estate brokerage companies about what they are expecting in the market next year. Many of them pointed to a shifting market as the prime time for larger companies to get larger, while many smaller and mid-size companies may decide to sell.

In Part 3, “What will happen in 2006,” we reveal Inman News’ real estate predictions for the coming year. We give our two cents on what will happen with former Homestore executives scheduled to begin trial, as well as happenings with online real estate and mortgage interest rates.

Brighter outlook for businesses, jobs cited…

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Inman News

Better economic conditions in February boosted consumer confidence to its highest level since August 2001, The Conference Board reported today.

Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said the combination of “improving present-day business conditions” and less difficulty finding jobs helped to lift consumers’ spirits this month.

The consumer confidence index climbed to 112.5 in February from 110.2 in January, as the number of consumers claiming business conditions are “good” rose and the number of those saying conditions are “bad” fell.

Current labor market conditions were somewhat mixed in February, as fewer consumers said jobs were “hard to get” but fewer claiming that jobs were “plentiful.”

Consumers’ outlook for the next six months did not change significantly in February. Those anticipating business conditions to worsen remained at 8 percent, while those expecting business conditions to improve increased slightly to 16.7 percent from 16.3 percent.

The outlook for the labor market was relatively more upbeat, with just 14.1 percent of consumers surveyed expecting fewer jobs in the months ahead compared with 15.6 percent in January, but those holding the opposite view remained virtually unchanged at 13.7 percent. The proportion of consumers expecting their incomes to increase in the months ahead declined to 17.7 percent from 20 percent in January.

“All in all, it appears that the pace of economic growth exhibited in the final months of 2006 has carried over into early 2007 and may have even gained a little momentum,” Franco said.

The Consumer Confidence Survey is based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households.

From the Inman News Blog…

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Inman News

Editor’s note: The following excerpt, contributed by Inman News Publisher Bradley Inman, is from the new Inman News Blog. Now it’s easier to participate in the blog by leaving comments. To give feedback on this post and join the discussion, click here.

Open house guide, where are you?

I cannot seem to find an online Open House guide that comprehensively taps a national database of houses to visit on Saturday and Sunday (throw in broker tour stuff, too, OK?).

I like the UI on OpenHouse.com but it is thin on the data side. A couple of years ago, Realogy purchased the URL and has been slowly filling it out with listings.

Since newspapers have had a print monopoly on this important consumer feature for decades, it seems like Classified Ventures would be perfectly suited to offer this. Of course, most local newspapers offer the OH feature.

I am sure the Zillowites are on this, or maybe the Trulia boys who have perfected the art of legally scraping listings.

Over the years, I have gotten no less than 30 business plans from start-ups (FYI: the biz plans are peaking again, almost comparable to 2000) offering online open house guides. Of course, the challenge isn’t in building the technology application, it is in obtaining the data — too many sources. And what are the economics?

Help me out. What’s out there? Any cool open house feature sites, new tricks, etc.?

Agent seeks Internet edge in small island market…
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

By Glenn Roberts Jr.
Inman News

The revolution in online interactive mapping tools empowers home buyers with a great view … of roofs. And while mapping can satiate the thirst for “location, location, location” information, real estate agents know that what’s on the inside counts, too.

There are many ways to display home interiors online: slide shows and 360-degree panorama views, virtual tours and full-motion digital videos, interactive floor plans and street-level photos, and multimedia hybrids that incorporate a number of technologies.

For J.R. Crawford, a John L. Scott real estate agent in Vashon, Wash., the choice in virtual tour technology was all about standing out in a real estate market that has more agents than property listings.

The island community of Vashon, in Washington’s Puget Sound, has about 10,000 residents, 32 property listings and 60 real estate agents, Crawford says. “I was looking for an edge — How can I get my listings out there to other people who don’t know about the Puget Sound?”

She looked at several technologies but wasn’t satisfied. “I really couldn’t find any of them I liked. I didn’t think they gave the feeling of the house. (Some) were a little bit of a bump up of what you get on the MLS,” she said.

Steve Amos, founder of FKR tours, a company that offers virtual tour services for real estate professionals, said that the distortion effects of panorama imagery can be disorienting for some viewers. And then there is the problem of representing the layout of the home online with a collection of images.

Amos found GiveMePower Corp., a vendor that builds software to capture digital floor plans, and he combined this technology with photographs to create interactive online floor plans. Web site visitors can move a cursor over the floor plans to see photographs. Icons display the location and angle of each photograph.

The floor plans show such details as walls, doors, windows, decks, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, and fireplaces, among others.

There are several other companies that offer floor plan tools and services for the real estate industry, such as Obeo, Icovia and FloorplanOnline.com (see Inman News article).

The GiveMePower software, PowerCAD SiteMaster, interacts with a laser measuring device that communicates the measurements wirelessly to a laptop or handheld computer. The software draws the digital floor plan as the measurements are taken. Amos said, “Our typical accuracy — we try to keep within one-sixteenth of an inch.”

The tools make it possible for one person to quickly create a floor plan, Amos said, and he has developed complimentary techniques to measure the thickness of walls, for example, and produce more accurate measurements. There aren’t a huge number of online property listings that feature floor plans because “going out and actually capturing an as-built (floor plan) is very difficult,” he said.

“It’s rather problematic to draw a house. It is full of little problems like ‘How thick is a wall?’ Also, if you make a mistake then the mistake tends to percolate around the drawing and tends to amplify while the drawing process is going on.”

The software, called PowerCAD SiteMaster, can overcome such obstacles as freestanding walls, curved walls and other custom features that can be difficult to plot using traditional tools, he said.

Amos had earlier experimented with another type of technology that captures a flurry of laser-based measurements in every direction to generate room dimensions. That technique, which Amos said is akin to a garden sprinkler, has its limitations. “We tried that, and people’s furnishings and wall hangings would get in the way. With GiveMePower you don’t have to face that particular problem,” he said.

Real estate agents could probably figure out how to use the software on their own, Amos said, and the measurements can take more or less time depending on the degree of accuracy that agents are seeking. “It can take a couple of days between the photographs and measuring and drawing and the whole thing — and that’s typically not an investment that the real estate agent is able to make,” he said. If there is already a blueprint for a property, the creation of the interactive floor plan can be reduced to a couple of hours, he added.

Crawford said she uses the interactive floor plans for all of her property listings, and last year was her best year in the real estate industry since she joined the business seven years ago. “I have had some really positive feedback,” she said, and prospective buyers from outside the area have made travel plans to visit homes that they viewed in the floor plan tours, she said. And these buyers already have a sense of the properties’ layouts because of the online tools, she said. “They said, ‘I know where to go — the kitchen’s right over there.’ ”

Since Amos adapted the GiveMePower technology for the residential real estate industry, the company is now marketing to real estate professionals. Janeen Norman-Lando, a spokeswoman for Calgary-based GiveMePower, noted that real estate professionals can incorporate digital audio recordings and photographs with the floor plans, and the company offers training for its software. The software cost about $1,500 and a wireless-equipped laser measuring device runs about $700, she said.

Washington, D.C., claims six of the top 10…

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Inman News

New York City’s Empire State Building was chosen in a public poll as the nation’s architectural favorite in a poll conducted for the American Institute of Architects, the institute announced.

The “America’s Favorite Architecture” list, part of the institute’s 150th anniversary celebration, ranks the top 150 architectural among 247 pieces that were chosen by 2,448 members of the architectural group. The public poll featured participation by 1,804 adults.

The Empire State Building, designed by architect William Lamb, topped the list, and the White House, designed by architect James Hoban, took second place.

Washington, D.C., is home to six of the top 10 sites on the list, and New York City claimed two. Besides the White House, the Washington, D.C., sites include: the Washington National Cathedral, in third place; Thomas Jefferson Memorial, fourth; U.S. Capitol building, sixth; Lincoln Memorial, seventh; and Vietnam Veterans Memorial, 10th.

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge was fifth on the list; the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C., aka Vanderbilt Residence, was eighth; and New York City’s Chrysler Building was ninth.

After the Biltmore Estate, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, the next homes on the list were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s Kaufmann Residence (”Fallingwater”) in Bear Run, Pa., ranked 29th, followed by Wright’s Taliesin of Spring Green, Wis., in 30th place.

Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif., designed by Julia Morgan, is the next residence on the list, ranked 41st. Architectural firm Greene and Greene designed the Gamble House in Pasadena, Calif., which ranked 66th on the list. And Chicago’s Glessner House, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, ranked 83rd.

The list included a wide range of structures, such as hotels, baseball parks (sorry, Red Sox fans — Yankee Stadium is ranked higher than Fenway Park), office buildings, libraries, museums and theaters, government buildings, bridges, churches (including the unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City), hotels and shops (Apple has two retail stores on the list.)

New York’s World Trade Center, though it is no longer standing, is ranked 19th on the list. The structure was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, Antonio Brittiochi and Emery Roth & Sons.

The architectural institute has encouraged a dialog about the list, and the site incorporates a blog through which visitors can comment about the structures on the list, the rankings and sites that should have been included on the list.

Pete Kalison of Williamsburg, Va., commented at the blog site, “There is a glaring omission. The Wren Building at William & Mary. Not only is the Wren Building, attributed to architect Christopher Wren, the oldest university building in the United States (1694), a stunning achievement by itself, but it’s magnificent vistas — both front and back — are perhaps unrivaled among America’s colleges.”

Another commenter, Brian Kenzer, stated at the blog, “What about the John Hancock Building in Chicago, more beloved and far more graceful than its blocky cohort: The Sears Tower.”

And several participants said that Detroit’s architecture was overlooked. “Such a mistake to not mention any of the fine architectural structures located in that city,” said one visitor. “For example: Michigan Central Station, Wayne County Building, Guardian Building, Fisher Building.”

The public poll and survey of institute members was conducted by Harris Interactive. Interviews with members were conducted from Oct. 18 to Nov. 22, and the public poll was conducted from Dec. 27 to Jan. 3. Public respondents evaluated up to 78 structures that were selected in random order from the larger list of 247, and participants were also offered the option to write in other works that were not included in the group of works that they evaluated, the institute reported.

Economist says sales, prices stabilized in fourth quarter.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Inman News

Existing-home sales in most states were down from year-ago levels in the fourth quarter, marking the likely bottom for the current housing cycle, while prices in many areas corrected as a result of sellers’ willingness to negotiate, according to the latest quarterly surveys by the National Association of Realtors.

Total existing-home sales — including single-family units and condos — were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.24 million units in the fourth quarter, down 10.1 percent from a 6.94 million-unit level in the fourth quarter of 2005. Even with the general decline, six states showed increases in the sales pace from a year ago and one was unchanged. Complete data for three states were not available.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate for a particular quarter represents what the total number of actual sales for a year would be if the relative sales pace for that quarter was maintained for four consecutive quarters.

In the fourth quarter, metro-area single-family home prices, examining changes in 149 metropolitan statistical areas, show 71 areas had price gains from a year earlier, including 14 metros with double-digit annual increases, and 73 areas had price declines; five were unchanged.

David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, said it appears the fourth quarter was the bottom for the current housing cycle. “This information confirms 2006 was the year of contraction, and hopefully the fourth quarter was the bottom of this current business cycle,” he said. “Home sales are leveling at historically high levels, and examination of data within the quarter shows home prices stabilizing toward the end. When we get the figures for this spring, I expect to see a discernable improvement in both sales and prices.”

The national median existing single-family home price was $219,300 in the fourth quarter, down 2.7 percent from a year earlier when the median price was $225,300. The median is a typical market price where half of the homes sold for more and half sold for less. For all of 2006, the median price rose 1.4 percent to $222,000.

A new comparison of annual single-family home prices in metropolitan areas shows that typical sellers experienced healthy gains on the value of their home over the last five years in almost all 131 available areas, even in areas with recent price declines.

NAR President Pat Vredevoogd Combs, from Grand Rapids, Mich., and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt, said a broader view of home prices is necessary because housing is a long-term investment. “Since the typical owner stays in a home for six years, it’s more useful to look at the five-year comparison for metro-area home prices — most of them are seeing strong gains,” she said. The median five-year price gain is 41.8 percent.

Combs said there’s a lag in measuring market conditions. “The fourth-quarter data is showing us recent history, but right now, buyers are responding to seller pricing and incentives, and there’s a bit of a pent-up demand as a result of buyer hesitation during the second half of 2006. We’re not looking for big changes, but a gradual rise in sales and home prices is projected — that will be good for the overall housing market and related industries.”

According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate on a 30-year, conventional fixed-rate mortgage was 6.25 percent in the fourth quarter, down from 6.56 percent in the third quarter; the rate was 6.22 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The biggest total sales increase was in Indiana, where existing-home sales rose 13.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005. In Arkansas the fourth-quarter resale pace rose 11.1 percent from a year earlier, while Texas experienced the third-strongest gain, up 6.2 percent.

Over the last five years, metro areas with the largest single-family price gains include the California areas of Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario (up 155.3 percent) and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana (up 142.3 percent), followed by the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach area of Florida (up 135.4 percent).

In the fourth quarter, the largest single-family home-price increase was in the Atlantic City, N.J., area, where the median price of $339,800 was 25.9 percent higher than a year ago. Next was the Salt Lake City area, at $223,600, up 22.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005. The Trenton-Ewing area of New Jersey, with a fourth-quarter median price of $289,000, increased 18.9 percent in the last year.

Median fourth-quarter metro-area single-family prices ranged from a very affordable $78,400 in Elmira, N.Y., to nearly 10 times that amount in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara area of California where the median price was $760,000. The second most expensive area was San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, at $733,400, followed by the Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine area (Orange County, Calif.), at $690,700.

In addition to Elmira, N.Y., other affordable markets include the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman area of Ohio and Pennsylvania, with a fourth-quarter median price of $80,000, and Decatur, Ill., at $89,200.

In the condo sector, metro-area condominium and cooperative prices — covering changes in 58 markets — show the national median existing condo price was $220,900 in the fourth quarter, down 2.1 percent from the same period in 2005. Thirty-one metros showed annual increases in the median condo price, including seven areas with double-digit gains; 27 metros had price declines.

The strongest condo price gains were in the Austin-Round Rock area of Texas, where the fourth-quarter price of $160,000 rose 16.5 percent from a year ago, followed by the Newark-Union area of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the median condo price of $352,600 rose 16.4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005, and Springfield, Mass., at $160,400, an increase of 14.6 percent.

Metro-area median existing condo prices in the fourth quarter ranged from $102,600 in Wichita, Kan., to $580,300 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area. The second most expensive reported condo market was Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana at $402,000, followed by the San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos area of California at $358,200.

Other affordable condo markets include Bismarck, N.D., at $103,500, and Greensboro-High Point, N.C., at $119,100.

Regionally, the Northeast saw an existing-home sales pace of 1.04 million units in the fourth quarter, which was 6.6 percent below a year ago. The median Northeastern resale single-family home price was $274,600 in the fourth quarter, which is 2.5 percent below the same period in 2005.

After the Atlantic City and Trenton-Ewing areas, the strongest price increase in the Northeast was in Pittsfield, Mass., with a median price of $220,600, up 4.7 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005, followed by the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area of New York with a median price of $198,700, up 4.1 percent.

Total existing-home sales in the South were at an annual rate of 2.49 million units in the fourth quarter, down 8.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005. After the gains in Arkansas and Texas, the next strongest increase in the South was in Kentucky, up 5.6 percent from a year ago, while Mississippi’s sales rose 2 percent.

The median existing single-family home price in the South was $181,700 in the fourth quarter, which is 3.7 percent below a year earlier. The strongest increase in the South was in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area of Texas, where the median price of $120,000 was 15.1 percent above the fourth quarter of 2005. Next was Raleigh-Cary, N.C., at $226,300, up 14.5 percent from a year ago, followed by the Cumberland area of Maryland and West Virginia, with a 14.4 percent gain to $98,000.

In the Midwest, total existing-home sales declined 8.6 percent to a 1.43 million-unit annual level in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier. The median existing single-family home price in the Midwest was $161,800, down 4.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005.

The strongest metro-price increase in the Midwest was in the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island area of Iowa and Illinois, where the median price of $116,400 was 6.6 percent higher than a year ago. Next was Dayton, Ohio, at $119,500, up 5.9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005, and Rockford, Ill., at $121,500, up 5.7 percent in the last year.

In the West, the existing-home sales pace of 1.28 million units was 17.8 percent lower than the fourth quarter of 2005. The best performance in the region was in Alaska where existing-home sales rose 0.4 percent from a year earlier.

The median existing single-family home price in the West slipped 0.4 percent to $355,100 during the fourth quarter. After Salt Lake City, the strongest increase in the West was in the Salem, Ore., area, at $223,100, up 14.9 percent from fourth quarter of 2005, followed by Farmington, N.M., at $183,000, up 14 percent, and Spokane, Wash., at $189,200, up 12.2 percent from a year earlier.

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