The National Realty News article from May 15, 2007 continues below..... 

The strongest condo price gains were in the Salt Lake City area, where the first quarter price of $164,600 rose 25.6 percent from a year ago, followed by Albuquerque, where the median condo price of $147,100 rose 17.9 percent from the first quarter of 2006, and the Austin-Round Rock area of Texas at $169,000, an increase of 14.4 percent.

Metro area median existing-condo prices in the first quarter ranged from $91,600 in Bismarck, N.D., to $584,700 in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont area. The second most expensive condo market reported was the Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice area of Florida, at $413,900, followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana at $403,500. Other affordable condo markets include Wichita, Kan., at $94,500, and Greensboro-High Point, N.C., at $112,100.

Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast rose 1.2 percent to an annual pace of 1.13 million units in the first quarter from the same period a year ago. The biggest gain in the region was in New Jersey, where sales rose 7.6 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, followed by New York state, up 7.4 percent, and Massachusetts with a 3.9 percent increase.

The median Northeastern resale single-family home price was $268,900 in the first quarter, down 2.5 percent from the first quarter of 2006. The strongest price increase in the Northeast was in Binghamton, N.Y., with a median price of $98,100, up 8.9 percent from the first quarter of last year, followed by the Reading, Penn., area, at $141,300, up 7.3 percent, and the Trenton-Ewing area of New Jersey, which rose 7.1 percent to $283,800.

In the Midwest, total existing-home sales fell 6.1 percent to a 1.49 million-unit annual level in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. The largest sales increase in the region was in Iowa, where sales rose 8.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006, followed by North Dakota, which rose 4.7 percent from a year ago, and Indiana, up 2.9 percent.

The median existing single-family home price in the Midwest was $154,600, down 2.8 percent from the first quarter of 2006. The strongest metro price increase in the Midwest was in the Bismarck, N.D., area where the median price of $149,400 was 14.1 percent higher than a year ago. Next was the Champaign-Urbana area of Illinois, at $145,400, up 9.2 percent from the first quarter of 2006, and Akron, Ohio, at $111,000, up 6.5 percent.