The broader bursting of the U.S. housing market has had its share of effects on Seattle real estate, bringing down average sale prices and home values but making many homes affordable for a new class of buyers.

Sales are up in the Seattle area as of late. According to the Seattle Times, the number of closings on single-family homes in Kings County, in which Seattle is located, was up by 14.3% in September 2009 from figures of September 2008, an encouraging figure. Other positive signs on real estate in Seattle include the fact that September was the fourth month in a row where the monthly increase bested its figure from 2008. The uptick in sales in credited at least in part to the government's plan to offer tax rebates of $8,000 to first-time home buyers.

In the city of Seattle, September's median price was off 3.6% in September from a year earlier, however, though Northeast Seattle saw a year-over-year gain of 4.7%. Though the price of sales in Seattle have declined, the number of homes changing hand has risen, the homes are just selling at lower prices than before. The number of sales in September 2009 was up by 16.5% in Seattle from September 2008. Neighboring counties all saw increases year over year in that figure as well of at least 10%.

According to data from Zillow made available on Yahoo! Real Estate, there were nearly 3,000 homes for sale in Seattle in mid-October 2009, with a median price of just under $420,000, a fall of 2.1% from September's figures. Additionally, there were only two new homes for sale but nearly 1,400 foreclosed homes up for sale, with a median price of just over $300,000, a steady figure that remains unchanged from September.

Though the Houston real estate market was doubly beaten -- by both the withering national housing market and by a hit in 2008 from a hurricane -- the market has shown marketed resilience and recent figures show positive indications it is on its way back.

According data from to the Houston Association of Realtors, sales volume of single-family homes in September was up by 32% compared with September of 2008 real estate in Houston area. However, those figures must be taken in context, as September 2008 was the time when Hurricane Ike hit the Houston area, putting real estate in the back of many minds' focused on hurricane recovery efforts. Listings volume was down as well by 9.2% from 2008, with 45,520 houses on the market this September, compared with more than 50,000 last year.

September's median price for single-family homes was up slightly by 0.2% from 2008's figures, the fifth straight month in which the figure has seen a rise, but the average price for a single-family home was actually down 1.6% from 2008, to just under $206,000. Foreclosure inventory has been high in Houston but figures suggest the supply may be thinning, as foreclosed properties accounted for just 18.6% of sales in September of this year, compared with 19.3% in September 2008 and 34% in January of this year.
According to data from Zillow available on the Yahoo! Real Estate website, in mid-October, there were just under 5,200 homes for sale in Houston proper (excluding suburbs), with a median price of $157,000, down slightly by 1.9% from September's figure. There were 158 new homes for sale, a sign that builders are continuing in the construction of new homes with the confidence they will sell. There were almost 5,500 foreclosed homes on the market, with a median price of just under $98,000, down slightly by 0.8% from September's prices.

A market situated in a hard-hit area of the country, Memphis real estate has taken a slight beating in terms of volume since the beginning of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent financial crisis and recession. Monthly sales volume in Memphis is down 19.4%, more than the U.S. and Tennessee averages of 14.8 and 15.5, respectively, according to USA Today. Realtors predict that the market will be able to recover eventually though since the city is not plagued by an overabundance of homes or a specific flailing industry.

"Memphis is not a roller-coaster city," Jules Wade, the Memphis Area Association of Realtors' executive vice president, told USA Today. "Our market just kind of moves along at a fairly steady pace — nothing too fast and nothing too slow."

Real estate in Memphis in recent months has seen more negative signs, however: 36% of residential listings there saw a reduction in their sales price in September, the highest percentage on a list of the largest 50 cities in America, with an average reduction of 9%, according to the Memphis Business Journal.

According to data available on Yahoo! real estate, based on information provided by real estate firm Zillow, there were nearly 4,700 homes for sale in Memphis in mid-October 2009, with a median price of $117,000, down 2.4% over September's figures. There were nearly 2,700 additional foreclosed homes for sale, with a median price of just under $55,000, an increase of 1.9% over September's numbers.

The Cupertino real estate market, like many markets in the country, particularly in the hard-hit state of California, has suffered greatly since the U.S. financial crisis began and the real estate market began experiencing difficulties around the country. Cupertino, in the high-tech Silicon Valley area, seemed to suffered a bit less than others, though now figures are suggesting the area's market still has a slide before it can totally rebound.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, in August, the number of homes sold and the median price of homes sold in Santa Clara County fell from July, the first time there was a month-over-month decline since January, when the market seemed to begin its slow descent. Home sales were down 21% in August over July, the highest monthly decrease in the entire region. "The impact on August sales volume and prices shows just how fragile the housing market still is, and how affordability is a key driver of housing demand right now," Matt Anderson, a partner at Foresight Analytics, an economics research company in Oakland, told the News.

According to data compiled by Yahoo! real estate, there were 156 homes for sale in Cupertino in mid-October 2009, with a median price of $1.17 million, down 1.6% from September prices. There were no new homes for sales and 61 foreclosed homes up for grabs, with a median price of just over $655,000, a fall of just 0.1% over September prices.

Summer was a down time for real estate in Cupertino and the greater Silicon Valley area, according to data in the San Jose Mercury News. In August, sales of existing homes fell 2.7% from July's rate, according to the National Association of Realtors. Still, the figure represented a rise of 3.4% from August 2008.  New home sales in the area were up just 0.7% and the number of new homes sold was down 4.3% from August 2008.

Virginia is a state that encompasses many markets and many different spectra of residents, from the high-priced urban and suburban areas around the Washington, D.C., area to the more rural and mountainous regions in the state's west. Virginia real estate as of late has seen mixed results of positive and negative signs.

In Northern Virginia in the D.C. area, prices have fallen about a third from the 2006 peak in Loudoun County, about a quarter in Faifax County and about 40% in Prince William County, according to a post in the Real Estate Dispatch in October.  However, local realtors say there have been some encouraging signs regarding real estate in Virginia in recent months.

“There has been a little bit of a rush in October and I see it as a strong last quarter. We don’t see the prices going up, but we are very busy. There is a lot of activity and a lot of buyers. That $8,000 credit for first-time buyers and low interest rates have buyers out there. It’s very surprising to me, though, that buyers seem to be out there on their own, working with listing agents. That is a very difficult thing to do, and I would advise against that,” Lilian Jorgenson of Long & Foster, McLean told the Sun Gazette newspaper.  There is currently a push by many to get Congress to extend that $8,000 tax credit, which expires in the end of November.

According to data available on Yahoo! real estate, median home sale prices have continued falling in 2009, from around $249,000 to $239,000 by October. Figures in October showed there were just under 68,000 homes for sale in Virginia, with a median price of $239,000, unchanged from September. The state harbored almost 20,000 foreclosed homes up for sales, with a median price of just over $216,000, down 1.4% since September, and there were more than 260 new homes for sale, with a median price of $370,000, down 1.3% since September.

An oceanside city near the larger area of Santa Cruz, Capitola, California, was known to have high home values because of high demand for its properties on the water. But like many markets in the U.S., the Capitola real estate market has suffered some serious setbacks brought on by the grueling collapse of the greater American housing market.

Though recent statistics have shown the market may be improving -- the median sale price for a single-family home in Santa Cruz County was $533,000 in September, the highest in more than a year, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel -- many realtors urge caution in this market, noting that the full inventory has yet to come up for sale. Over the past several months, 30-40 default notices have been posted weekly, but only 10-15 new bank-owned listings come on the market each week. "There are double the amount of foreclosures as bank-owned listings," Ruth Bates of Thunderbird Real Estate in Capitola told the Sentinel. "The banks are managing their inventory."

Comparing September 2009 with September 2008, listings in the Santa Cruz area as a whole are down by 24%, sales are up 3% and 11% of September 2009's sales were of homes of $1 million or more, Gary Gangnes of Real Options Realty told the Sentinel. However, sale price categories must be examined to extra further trends. Higher-priced homes are tending to have more inventory building up -- at a current pace, a five-year inventory is available of homes of $2 million-plus -- whereas lower-priced homes are selling much better, spurred on by those looking to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. Of homes under $300,000, Bates said there was just a five-month inventory buildup, a normal demand. http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_13565734

According to Yahoo! Real Estate, which compiles data provided by Zillow, there were 88 homes for sale in Capitola in October 2009 with a median price of $649,000, a decrease in price of 7.2% from September. Additionally, there were 40 foreclosed homes on the market with a median price of just under $379,000, a slight increase in price since September of 0.3%.

As some market indicators show the recession may be easing up, the Boulder real estate market is generally bucking this trend, as its market continues to stagnate. Though, like most all residential real estate market in the U.S. the city took a hit due to the economic crisis, some numbers are slowly making their way back up, but the crisis is far from over. Home values declined by 3.2 percent in the first half of 2009 as compared with the first half of 2008.

All 11 of the major housing markets in the northern Colorado area have seen declines in home values, according to a semi-annual in-depth study on home prices released by the Colorado State University Everitt Real Estate Center in September, as reported in the Cherry Creek News.  Homes for sale in Boulder now include a large number of foreclosures. The county saw an increase year-over-year of more than 260% of foreclosure filings, much higher than the state's average of a 72% increase.

The real estate in Boulder includes an increased inventory across the board as well, and a decrease in the number of sales. The number of single-family attached home closings fell 21% compared with the first half of 2008, while detached homes saw a fall of 19% compared with 2008, according to the Everitt Real Estate Center. The center reported that the inventory of homes below $300,000 has remained steady. However, the $300,000-plus market has seen a marked increase in the number of homes for sale, as more and more homeowners find themselves unable to meet their mortgage payments.

According to the Daily Camera newspaper, through June, housing activity is down by 26% compared with 2008. One sign of slightly more optimism is that Boulder's median sales price during the second quarter of 2009 was $528,808, up 0.7 percent from last year's second quarter.

The Fort Worth real estate market is continuing to suffer from the ill effects of the burst bubble of the U.S. housing market, with slumping prices and overstock of supply. In the third quarter of 2009, new home sales were down 34% year over year, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Sales of all homes still fell over the summer, but the declines are becoming smaller. Prices were down just 1.6% in July over the 2008's figures, the smallest decrease in almost two years. These indicators lead several experts to believe that real estate in Fort Worth is at or nearing its bottom, at which point it can then begin to climb out and back up. In 2009, home prices in the Fort Worth area were only off about 4% from their peaks in 2007. Many markets across the U.S. are off by as much as 30% of their peaks, showing the Fort Worth market has been more resilient than many others.

Foreclosures may continue to plague the area, however. According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, in August, the number of mortgage holders 90 days or more behind on their payments in the Dallas-Fort Worth area rose to 4.8%, higher than the state's average of 4.4%. This figure was up from 3.4% in August of 2008.

According to data compiled by Zillow and available on Yahoo! Real Estate, there were nearly 5,000 homes for sale in Fort Worth in October 2009, with a median price of almost $147,000, an increase of 2.5% from September's figures. There were additionally nearly 60 new homes for sale with a median price of just over $200,000, an important figure because many markets have zero new homes for sale. Foreclosed homes accounted for more than 2,225 homes on the market and rang in with a median price of almost $95,000, an increase of 1.8% from September's sales figures.

Charlotte, similar to many cities in the US, has felt the economic impact due to the meltdown of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Although Charlotte real estate was one of the last markets to be affected by the mortgage crisis, we will certainly be one of the first to recover due to the fact that there is a high demand for what Charlotte homes for sale and the surrounding areas have to offer. Credit must be given for the recovery to Charlotte as a whole, which provides an outstanding financial climate.

Having relocated to Charlotte in 1981 with my family from New York, I’ve marveled at the beautiful weather, clean streets, wonderful lifestyle and educational opportunities that this great city and it’s surrounding areas has to offer. In 1981, I would have considered Charlotte a “Southern City” and now I consider it “a cosmopolitan city in the South”.

Charlotte continues to grow and prepare for the next decade, thanks in part to our outstanding public and private leadership. With such major companies as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Air and Carolina Health Care present in Charlotte, our market will recover, as noted by the Case Shiller report from September 2009. While the report is only statistical in nature, it is an indicator of the secure frame of mind that business leaders and the general public possess.

The report also noted that, in this “growing North Carolina city, prices were flat on a year over year basis. Charlotte is one of those healthier areas of our country and the buying interest is recovering.”

Expectation for a full recovery, although some time from now, continues to be full of hope and optimism. Charlotte and the surrounding area offers so much to so many looking for a quality lifestyle, a positive work climate and an opportunity for financial independence. My family and I chose Charlotte in 1981 and have made it our home. We will continue that concept for many years to come as we look to retire in this wonderful region.

Lynn Welles, for Schwebel & Assoc. / Prudential Carolinas Realty /

One of the most expensive markets in the country, the New York real estate market has taken a beating amid the U.S. financial crisis and housing market slump. One thing that must be considered when examining the New York market, like many others, is that it is actually a collection of many small markets, each with its own distinct trends and fluctuations. What may be true of real estate in always-pricey Manhattan might differ with the trends of the markets in the other boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.

As of data available mid-October 2009, real estate in New York seemed poised for a rebound, even if it may take years for values to reach their pre-recession levels. The number of sales over the summer in Brooklyn were up 29.3% over the previous quarter, according to New York magazine, though that figure still represents a decline of 19.3% of the same quarter of 2008. But sales were up across the board, with apartments, co-ops, condos and townhouses all seeing more buyers. In Queens, activity was up 31% from the quarter prior, though also down 13.9% from 2008 levels at the same time.

Average home prices varied in 2009's third quarter for all of New York, with possibly positive signs in some boroughs mixed with negative signs in others. Average sale prices  in September were from the previous month up by 6% in Brooklyn to $534,000, 3% in the Bronx to $367,000, 1% in Queens to $406,000. Staten Island saw a decrease in prices of 1% to $382,000, while Manhattan saw a drop f 5% to $1.23 million.

Appraiser Jonathan Miller, whose firm, Miller Samuel, prepared surveys for Prudential Douglas Elliman that New York magazine reviewed, wrote: “The surge in activity provides evidence of increased confidence and improved affordability, but not a housing bottom due to future challenges of rising unemployment, tight credit and shadow inventory.”