Home values have declined across the country, giving homebuyers the best buys they’ve had since 2004.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — It may be the best time to buy a house in more than four years.

Home prices have dropped so quickly and so far that valuations - the difference between what a home should cost and its actual price - are the lowest they’ve been since 2004, according to a report.

The Cleveland-based bank National City Corp. (NCC, Fortune 500), together with financial analysis firm Global Insight, revealed Tuesday that more than 88% of the 330 housing markets surveyed showed price declines and improved affordability during the last three months of 2007.

“Housing valuations are almost back to long-term norms,” said National City’s chief economist, Richard DeKaser. He called current affordability “the best in the past four years.”

But DeKaser cautioned that home prices could fall even further.

“This isn’t to say home price declines are over,” he said. “We could move below historic norms. By the end of 2008, housing markets could be broadly under valued.”

Prices still improving

There are still 21 housing markets, or 6% of those surveyed, that are severely over valued, including Atlantic City and Madera, Calif. That’s down from 56 overvalued markets at the peak of the housing bubble in 2006.

The report compares actual median home prices with what the authors determine are proper home values based on population density, relative income levels and interest rates, as well as historically observed market premiums or discounts, to determine whether markets are over or under valued.

The report also factors in market intangibles that make some areas more desirable places to live, and more expensive.

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Brian Wingfield and William Pentland 01.30.08, 2:20 PM ET

It’s no secret that the Southeast and Western United States are booming. The costs of living and doing business there are often cheaper there than in big coastal cities. But where and how much those cities are thriving might surprise you.

Take Alabama. The state has some of the fastest growing metro areas in the country, including Mobile, which is projected to have the greatest change in “gross metropolitan product (GMP),” 34% between 2007-2012, according to research forecasts done for us by Moody’s Economy.com.

In Pictures: America’s Fastest-Growing Large And Small Metros

One boon to Alabama is ThyssenKrupp’s announcement last year to build a $3.7 billion steel plant in Mobile. And Huntsville–expected GMP growth 15% by 2012–has long been a hub for defense and space research. Since the mid-1990s, Alabama has also become a manufacturing center for automakers like DaimlerChrysler (nyse: DCX - news - people ), Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ) and Hyundai.

“The automotive industry has been Alabama’s real growth industry in the last 15 years,” says Brian Hilson, president and CEO of Huntsville’s chamber of commerce.

Other metro areas, like Port St. Lucie and Palm Bay, are part of a growing biotech cluster in central Florida. Straddling Texas and Arkansas, Texarkana is seeing war-related development: Its Red River Army Depot is a major maintenance and storage facility for military equipment. And St. George, Utah, located about 120 miles from Las Vegas, has boomed in recent years as a destination for retirees.

All of them sit at or near the top of Forbes’ list of America’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, places large and small that offer at least the promise of booming economies for years to come.

To compile our list, we looked at all of the country’s 363 metropolitan areas, defined by the U.S. Census Bureau has a geographic region with a “core urban area” of at least 50,000 people. Because many small metro areas are high growth–and because we wanted to show growth in large cities as well–we split the group into two classes: the largest 100 metro areas (with at least 528,000 people) and everyone else. We use projections run for us by Moody’s Economy.com to show growth in GMP between 2007-2012.

Of course, if one looks at economic growth in the country’s largest 100 metros, the usual suspects jump to the top of the list. With an estimated 32% GMP growth from 2007-2012, Austin, Texas, is the winner for big metros. Atlanta, Seattle, Orlando, Houston and San Jose, Calif., also appear high on the list. What do they all have in common? They’re tech hubs with proximity to universities and a healthy increase in population. Austin’s population, for example, is expected to increase by nearly 15% by 2012, according to Moody’s Economy.com forecasts.

Bruce Katz, director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, says there are several factors to take into consideration when measuring the pulse of a metro area: innovation, human capital, infrastructure and the actual quality of a place.

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By Shonda Novak | Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 03:25 PM

Groundbreaking has been delayed for the condo project called 1155 Barton Springs, which is destined to replace the long-vacant Treehouse restaurant and nightclub at Dawson and Barton Springs Road.

Developers Elisabeth and Steffen Waltz and their partners had hoped to start construction on the project by the end of 2007. But yesterday, Elisabeth Waltz wrote in an email:

“These times seem to call for a measured approach. It may take us a few more months to start construction; we will start when we have 50% or more of the residences sold. (Personally, having been a real estate broker for many years, I would prefer all of them pre-sold).”

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By Sandra Fleishman
THE WASHINGTON POST
Sunday, February 24, 2008

WASHINGTON — Got a house to sell but worry about standing out from the competition?

Consider this: A research team at Cornell University has found that people will pay more for a house if its listing price does not end in a bunch of zeros.

In other words, the researchers say, you might make more money if you price your house at $325,425 rather than $326,000.

“It’s a psychological bias,” said Manoj Thomas, an assistant professor of marketing at Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. “A bias in judgment.”

The study concluded that because people are used to precise numbers for items that don’t cost much and to round numbers for large amounts, consumers generally and home buyers specifically tend to perceive that a price is smaller if there are digits at the end instead of zeros.

“It does seem ridiculous,” Thomas said. “But when you see a price, your response is not always based on deliberative reasoning.”

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FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
Friday, February 15, 2008 WASHINGTON — Median home prices fell in more than half of the nation’s 150 metropolitan areas during the October-December quarter, a real estate trade group said Thursday.

But fourth-quarter data from the National Association of Realtors show that Texas was largely unaffected by the price slump.

Only one metro area in the state, Beaumont-Port Arthur, posted a decline in median price for a single-family home, down 5.3 percent, when compared with the year-earlier quarter. The median price in the Austin-Round Rock area rose 6.4 percent, one of the best results in Texas, the trade group said.

Of the 150 metro areas, 77 experienced price declines, with 16 showing double-digit percentage drops, the trade group said. The largest price declines were in Lansing, Mich.; Sacramento, Calif.; Jackson, Miss.; and Riverside, Calif., which posted price declines of 17 percent to 19 percent.

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MySpace pages, craigslist and blogs being used to lure buyers to housing developments

By Antoinette Martin
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Sunday, January 20, 2008

A condominium building under construction in Brooklyn has its own MySpace page. (”Scorpio” structure seeks “great people from the Metro area, and beyond, that want to live in a thriving community.”)

Some garden apartment rentals in New Jersey and a condo complex in Orange County, N.Y., have their own blogs.

In Stamford, Conn., the developer of a super-high-end condo tower is eschewing use of free classified-ad listings on craigslist.com to lure buyers, since “every mom-and-pop building these days is doing it.” But the company is putting big money into a virtual tour for its project Web site.

“A lot of people do all their home shopping online, start to finish,” said Kelly Marzullo of Core Marketing Group, which is using the Web to promote various Manhattan buildings and the Peninsula at City Place in Edgewater, N.J.

“People like to know everything about a building before they come in, or at least have a taste and a feel,” Marzullo said. Her Manhattan-based company does advertise properties on craigslist, building in links to Web pages that might include photographs, digital drawings, video, floor plans and the range of asking prices.  >>> Click for full article

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Friday, January 18, 2008

Austin Business Journal - by Jean Kwon ABJ Staff

The Austin City Council later this month may approve some of the city’s most aggressive affordable housing incentives to date targeted at developers and builders of downtown and Central Business District projects.

Developers of high-rise condos and other multifamily projects located downtown and within a 2-mile radius of Sixth Street and Congress Avenue who reserve a small percentage of units for affordable housing will automatically be able to exceed floor-to-area and height limits, potentially getting substantial boosts in density. These bonuses will be in addition to perks given during the development review process such as fee waivers and fast-track approval. Council members are set to review the proposed ordinance on Jan. 31.

To get the bonuses, developers must keep at least 10 percent of condo units affordable to households making equal to or less than 120 percent of Austin’s median family income. In 2007, the median income for a family of four was about $71,125. Rental units deemed affordable would have to be within reach to those who make equal to or less than 80 percent of the median family income, which is about $45,500 for a couple.

Alternately, instead of building affordable units on-site, developers may be able to contribute money to a fund devoted to paying for affordable housing elsewhere downtown. In the proposed ordinance, developers who choose the fee-in-lieu option would pay $10 for every square foot that exceeds the FAR limitation. That fee is based on the current value of land in downtown, which ranges from $15 to $20 per buildable square foot.

By code, downtown projects are limited to 5-to-1 FAR — meaning they can build up to five times the area of their lot. Central Business District projects are limited to 8-to-1 FAR and heights up to 120 feet. Under the proposed ordinance, the City Council would have the discretion to waive these limits altogether, depending on the project.  >>> Click for full article

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Major remodeling of rooms may get you less bang for your buck

By By Amy Hoak
MARKETWATCH
Sunday, January 13, 2008

CHICAGO — Homeowners interested in getting the biggest bang for their remodeling buck might want to shelve the idea of full-blown room remodeling and opt for more practical replacement projects that reduce home-maintenance needs, increase energy efficiency or improve curb appeal, according to a recent report.

Remodeling magazine’s annual Cost vs. Value Report found late last year that seven out of the top 11 projects that paid off the most at resale were replacement projects, said Sal Alfano, editorial director for the magazine. That includes window and siding replacements.

Also, minor remodeling is paying off more than expansive room improvements, according to the 2007 report. Construction costs for common remodeling projects were compared against the share of those costs recovered at resale, with projects broken down into “midrange” and “upscale” categories.

National, regional and city data can be viewed at the magazine’s Web site, www.costvsvalue.com.  >>> Click for full article

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Buyers take a fresh look at new and remodeled homes just across I-35 from downtown

By Charles Ealy
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, January 13, 2008

The numbers will probably surprise anyone who hasn’t ventured east of Interstate 35 lately. The 78702 ZIP code in East Austin currently has more than 150 properties for sale, and they’re just as eclectic as the artists who live in that part of the city.

A slew of modernist homes and condominiums are going for $400,000 to $600,000 or more. Remodeled homes are listed for up to $675,000. And four lots at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Harvey Street are on the market for $1.8 million.

The details reveal the big trends in a real estate area that got little attention 20 years ago. And it’s not hard to figure out why.

Despite a median home price that has risen by more than 50 percent in the past five years to $199,000, East Austin is still within reach of many potential home buyers, especially when compared with nearby Austin neighborhoods such as Travis Heights, Hyde Park and Tarrytown.  >>> Click for full article

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Average price up about $100 a month since 2005.

By Shonda Novak and M.B. Taboada
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Prices for apartment rentals in Austin are on the rise as occupancy rates increase, according to Capitol Market Research.

One-bedroom apartments have increased to an average of $714 a month, about $100 more than they cost two years ago. Two-bedroom, two-bath units are up to $938, also about $100 more than two years ago, according to the Austin-based real estate consulting firm that tracks the market.

The occupancy rate for 2007 rose to 96.6 percent, up from 94.4 percent two years ago.

“Everyone is upping their rents like crazy,” said Susan Albertson, a broker with Austin City Locators.

Albertson said the market is seeing a mix of newcomers and renters who are shopping around after their rents were raised. Also, more people have moved into the apartment market because of tighter credit standards for getting mortgages.

“There are people who are not able to pay their mortgage, and we’re starting to see a lot of people who aren’t buying a home,” Albertson said.  >>> Click for cull article

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