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No 'Bust' in Sight ...........

Sep 06, 2006

No 'bust' in sight for these solid markets

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Aug. 31, 2006 -- Anyone reading the news would think the sky is falling in the housing market, but in many markets that?’s definitely not the case.

BusinessWeek.com screened data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to identify markets with the highest home-price appreciation during the second quarter. To eliminate markets that were undervalued to begin with, the magazine only considered cities that had a median home price higher than the national average of $227,500.

Nationally, home prices increased 3.7 percent in the second quarter. But these top 10 markets all saw prices climb at least three times faster than that:

* Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News (Va.-N.C.), up 23.6 percent from a year ago

* Portland-Vancouver (Ore.), 19.1 percent.

* Tampa-St. Petersburg (Fla.), 18.8 percent.

* Eugene-Springfield (Ore.), 18.3%

* Orlando (Fla.), 17 percent.

* Los Angeles-Long Beach, 14.6 percent.

* Phoenix-Mesa (Ariz.), 11.8 percent.

* Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington (Pa.-N.J.-Del.), 11.4 percent.

* Hagerstown-Martinsburg (Md. -WVa.), 11.4 percent.

* Norwich-New London (Conn.), 11 percent.

Source: Business Week Online, (08/23/06) Christopher Palmeri and Douglas MacMillan

Lyn Acer