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Are you finally off the fence and doing a little home shopping? As the market heats up and sellers regain control, here are a couple of trends to consider.

Low mortgage rates

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate on Zillow Mortgage Marketplace is currently hovering near historic lows, at 3.78 percent. And while rates have crept up this past week, they're not going

Increasing demand from new arrivals to the United States is helping to strengthen the housing sector, according to a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association analyzing the effects of immigration on real estate market trends.

“Immigrants are an important and growing source of demand that has bolstered housing markets in recent decades,” Prof. Dowell

Almost every corner of the Bay Area is poised for robust home-price  appreciation this year in a surge that will outpace projected national growth,  according to a forecast from real-estate information site Zillow.com.

Looking at 245 Bay Area ZIP codes, Zillow projects that 244 will see home  values ratchet up by significant margins in 2013, with 27 ZIPs

Many states with faster foreclosure processes are seeing sharper increases in home prices.

There are exceptions. And other factors, such as job growth, are likely stronger drivers of home price trends, economists say.

But home price data generally show stronger price increases in states where courts don't have to approve foreclosures than in states where they

Turnaround trends continued apace in the Bay Area housing market last month with the strongest January sales in six years and the tenth straight year-over-year increase in the median sale price, a real estate information service reported.

A total of 5,501 new and resale houses and condos were sold in the nine-county Bay Area last month. That was down 28.4

What has been reported nationally about the resurgent single-family housing market and the reasons for its recent growth spurt undoubtedly applies to California. Low inventory, rising median sales prices and a swarm of cash investors are just a few of the explanations, but it's important to remember that the local market is unique inits own right. From

The CoreLogic Pending HPI indicates that January 2013 home prices, including distressed sales, are expected to rise by 7.9 percent on a year-over-year basis from January 2012 and fall by 1 percent on a month-over-month basis from December 2012, reflecting a seasonal winter slowdown. Excluding distressed sales, January 2013 house prices are poised to rise

If California is a setter of future real estate trends -- as it has been in the past -- a report that foreclosures in the Golden State fell to the lowest level since 2006 is good news for the entire nation. According to San Diego-based DataQuick, the number of California homeowners pushed into the foreclosure process fell last quarter to the lowest level in

Sales of existing homes slipped 1 percent in the month of December as strict mortgage lending standards and scant inventory restricted sales, according to data on the latest real estate market trends released today by the National Association of Realtors.

Total existing homes, including single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops declined

After years of declining home values and a buyers’ market, 2013 could be the year of the seller.

Though the situation varies by region, we’ve seen a glimmer of hope for sellers and the housing market in general over the past six months. Homes that didn’t move for a year started getting activity as buyers came off the sidelines, their confidence in the

When housing prices first went off the cliff, most mortgage lenders refused
to cut deals with homeowners, choosing instead to repossess homes on a
grand scale.

Five years and billions of dollars in losses later, many banks can't cut those deals fast enough, writing off large chunks of mortgage debt and even paying homeowners to move out.

In recent months,

If you're looking for the source of this year's home price recovery, look West.

Western cities are recovering strongly after being hit hardest during the real
estate bust. The trend was confirmed Tuesday with the release of the
Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of 20 large cities. The index
was down 0.1% in October from September but up 4.3% compared with

Citing increased demand, strained inventory, record-low mortgage rates and robust investor interest, a real estate information service reported this month that Santa Clara County continued its rise in this fall.

DataQuick reported that the median home price in Santa Clara County rose to $550,000 in November, up 21.7 percent from $452,000 a year earlier.

U.S. home prices will likely continue rising in 2013, according to the latest round of predictions from Freddie Mac. The government-controlled mortgage giant expects the U.S. house price index to rise by 2% to 3% in 2013.

On December 11, 2012, Freddie Mac published the latest installment of their U.S. Economic and Housing Market Outlook. The monthly report

Up-trending home prices are seen as a great sign by most people involved in real
estate, because they instill a sense of comfort that, financially
speaking, the market can return to the glory days prior to its collapse.
But the sad truth is, there are more factors than home prices that affect real estate's health, no matter how encouraging the rise may

The success of the technology industry and desirable location are continuing to
influence home listing prices in the San Francisco Bay Area, elevating it to one
of the priciest real estate markets in the country. Today, the Home Listing Report (HLR) revealing several of the country's most expensive real estate markets are in Northern California. Google,

The latest real estate market trends show continued improvement with an increase in existing home sales and prices, and rising confidence among home builders, according to industry data released today.

Existing home sales rose 2.1 percent in October, while median home prices posted a year-over-year gain of 11.1 percent, according to a report released today

In the days leading up to the great recession, California led the country in subprime mortgage loans — reckless transactions that played a major role in the housing market bust, both here and throughout the rest of the country. However, a new RealtyTrac data report published in the San Francisco Chronicle shows the California housing market now

California has served as a remarkable barometer for nationwide real estate trends over the past decade. This fact is in large part due to the widespread publicity and concentrated marketing efforts that come from the region, which tend to not only set the stage for public opinion, but also tend to exaggerate the peaks and troughs. This lead to the Southern