Home prices today are rising nearly as fast as they did during the peak bubble years of 2005-2006. Since that bubble helped push us into the Great Recession, we should all be on high alert for the next housing bubble. To track whether home prices are in or nearing bubble territory, today we introduce Trulia’s Bubble Watch, which is based on the most recent price data from the Trulia Price Monitor and other data sources.

So are we in bubble territory? No. Bubble-phobes can rest easy. Even with recent sharp home price increases, prices are still low relative to fundamentals and are far below bubble levels. continue reading

Housing # of the week: 95. That’s how many of the 100 largest metros have rising prices, according to Trulia’s Price Monitor for April.  continue reading

The Trulia Price Monitor and the Trulia Rent Monitor are the earliest leading indicators of how asking prices and rents are trending nationally and locally. They adjust for the changing mix of listed homes and therefore show what’s really happening to asking prices and rents. Because asking prices lead sales prices by approximately two or more months, the Monitors reveal trends before other price indexes do. With that, here’s the scoop on where prices and rents are headed. continue reading

Would you rather market or sell a newly-built home or a piece of local history? Across America today, you can find homes for sale that were built as long ago as the 19^th century or as recently as yesterday. There’s no mistaking a 1920s Dutch colonial, a 1970s A-frame, or a 2000s home tricked out with the latest spa features.

To guide you through the decades, we looked at listings on Trulia from the past two years and found continue reading

This week: blazing home sales-price growth, OK job growth, and a major housing-policy nomination.

An OK jobs report, with some clouds: continue reading

Each month, the Trulia Housing Barometer charts how quickly the housing market is moving back to “normal.”

Download this month’s Barometer to show your clients the housing market is 56% back to normal, up from 43% six months ago.

Brand and share this handout to

• offer your prospectives positive motivation to make their next real estate move now
• learn and share the major factors driving today’s recovery
• brand yourself as the local market real estate expert

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Spring house-hunting season is upon us. Home searches peak in March and April, and this year the search is especially frantic as inventory is near a 12-year low. Many homes don’t stay on the market for long, so buyers will have to move fast – especially in markets with bidding wars and competing investor activity. But when it comes to searching for a home, as with everything else, moving too fast leads to mistakes and regrets. To find out which regrets are most common – and who is most prone to making decisions they’ll later regret — we asked more than 2,000 consumers what, if anything, they regret about their current home and most recent home-search process. continue reading