There are several cities in the country where home values are climbing smartly. Portland (OR), Boise (ID), Seattle (WA), Salt Lake City (UT), Houston (TX), Austin (TX), Charlotte (NC) and Raleigh (NC), are among the cities bucking the national trend. Home appreciation there between the fourth quarters of 2005 and 2006 far exceeded the national average of 5.9 percent, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. In some markets, like Boise and Seattle, the appreciation jumped well into the double digits. There's no single secret to these cities' apparent success, but many of them missed the housing boom of the past five years. From 2001 to 2005, annual appreciation in these cities was between two and five percent, far slower than the seven to 12 percent national average, according to the OFHEO. Now they are playing catch-up. Most of the cities also have one or more strong industries to drive their economies - colleges and technology in Raleigh, banks in Charlotte, energy in Houston and aerospace in Seattle. And all have education levels above the national average.
Today's declining prices nationwide are in part the result of an earlier explosion of short-term investors in Florida, California and other booming markets. Recently, both investors and long-term homeowners have been cashing in or cutting losses in formerly hot markets and settling in areas that avoided the boom, such as the Carolinas, parts of Georgia and Tennessee, areas of Texas, the Western mountain states and the Pacific Northwest. (RealEstateJournal.com)
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