Housing Market, Good News | featured news

The U.S. economy is a study in contrasts. The housing, banking and auto industries are surging back to health and that has helped push the stock market to a five-year peak. Higher prices for homes and stocks tend to make people feel wealthier and spend more.

U.S. builders started work on homes in December at the fastest pace since the summer of 2008 and finished 2012 as their best year for residential construction since the early stages of the housing crisis.

A housing renaissance has begun. This may be hard to believe after the dizzying, six-year-long crash in home sales, construction and house prices. But housing turned the corner last year, and it will take off in 2013.

Home prices posted their biggest annual jump in more than six years in October in a sign the housing sector continues to recover, data analysis firm CoreLogic said on Tuesday.

An index measuring the number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes in October jumped to nearly its highest level in almost six years.

There is a dirty little secret about economics writing. The thing that offers the surest path to glory to front page play for a story, to lots of Web traffic, to a pat on the back from editors is doom and gloom. When we can point out something that is awful, whether it is a collapsing job market or rising poverty or skyrocketing gasoline prices, the world seems a whole lot more interested in what we have to say. It's not for nothing they call economics the dismal science.

U.S. builders started construction last month on the most single-family homes and apartments since July 2008, more evidence that the housing recovery is gaining momentum.

Home resales rose in October and a gauge of homebuilder sentiment climbed to a six-year high in November, a sign slow improvements in the labor market are helping the housing sector recovery gain traction.

The housing rebound stems from more people chasing fewer homes. Interest rates remain near record lows, luring buyers. And investors with cash have poured into the market.

A measure of U.S. home prices jumped 5 percent in September compared with a year ago, the largest year-over-year increase since July 2006. The gain reported by CoreLogic offered more evidence of a sustainable housing recovery....