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Movoto.com, this week released a report on the homes for sale market in California. As March 2012 closed, real estate inventory was broadly down across the state, with prices showing seasonal increases and small signs of strength.

Movoto tracks the major real estate trends in 15 local markets. As March 2012 ended, Movoto reports that real estate inventories

First, the good news: The real estate market has clawed its way back from the brink and is about a third of the way to a normal, pre-bubble market. The bad news: It's going to take until the end of 2015 to get us the rest of the way, and recovery could take even longer if the economy loses steam again.

Real estate website Trulia's new housing barometer

I'm trying real hard to keep a long-term perspective when it comes to statistical real estate trends. So my pledge to ignore short-term moves - read it here - was tested when the folks at Zillow releases their periodic survey of economists across the nation to see their outlook for housing values.

I found some interesting data within a Zillow report

"Home prices across the nation saw light levels of depreciation in February, consistent with the trend we have seen over the last several months," said Dr. Alex Villacorta, Director of Research and Analytics at Clear Capital. "However, the Northeast, Midwest, and West improved performance against last month's quarterly declines in light of increases in REO

Short sales continued to soar in January, reaching their highest level in California in three years. The California Association of Realtors reported in its Pending Homes Sales Index that the number of short sales increased from January last year and also from the previous month.

A short sale is a real estate transaction in which a homeowner sells a property

Median home prices went down and home sales enjoyed a slight rise for the whole of California, according to recently reported figures from DataQuick, a research company based in San Diego. This was attributed to the increase of distressed home sales around the San Francisco area and real estate investors in Southern California.

According to DataQuick's

Residential property prices the US decreased again in the fourth quarter of 2011 and few areas are likely to see increases in 2012, according to the latest data from Zillow.

It's latest Home Value Index fell 1.1% but there were less significant declines in the previous two quarters and overall the drop in 2011 was 4.7%.

Zillow predicts that home values will

If you're watching the real estate markets, the good news is that the Federal Reserve has pledged to keep interest rates low through 2014. The bad news is that the market is going to need it. The November Case-Shiller housing numbers, released this morning, indicate that prices tumbled 3.7% from the year before. That's below expectations of a 3.2%

A mood of optimism is evident in the California commercial real estate industry, despite the mixed economic signals of the past sixth months, according to the latest Allen Matkins/UCLA Anderson Forecast commercial real estate survey. The survey polled a panel of industry professionals on their views of how the market will change over the coming three

Home sales in Santa Cruz County in December were brisk as median price, the midpoint of what sold, was $475,000, remaining less than $500,000 for 11 of the past 12 months. The figures come from Gary Gangnes of Real Options Realty, who noted the December volume was up 24 percent from a year ago. It was the highest since 2004, when the boom was on and the

Has the U.S. housing market hit a bottom? Do we have further to go? When will a recovery start? These are the questions every homeowner and real estate investor are currently asking themselves - or should be.

Wall Street firms have optimistically been betting that the bottom's here. Research firms like Zelman & Associates predict the sector will pick up this

Bay Area homes have lost more than a third of a trillion dollars in value since the housing bubble burst about four years ago. And in the process, they have taken a big chunk of the economy with them.

During the boom, homeowners borrowed against that mountain of money, fueling a huge surge in everything from yacht sales in Silicon Valley to home heating

Pending home sales in California fell in November but were up from the previous year for the seventh consecutive month. Additionally, distressed home sales dropped in November from both the previous month and year, the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS(R) (C.A.R.) reported today.

Pending home sales: California pending home sales fell 9.1 percent in

Within the last year conventional lending programs have lessened their strict lending requirements, but that doesn't mean that obtaining a conventional home loan has become any easier. In fact, conventional lending is just as unaffordable and inaccessible as it has ever been to the average American which has led many to either avoid homeownership altogether

Since the beginning of the house-price crash in 2007, analyst after analyst has predicted that "the bottom" in house prices is just around the corner - only to be wrong every time.

But now, finally, it looks as though house prices may actually be nearing a bottom. Why?

Because, after falling nearly 35% from their 2007 peak, nationwide house prices are finally

Commercial real estate markets have been relatively flat this year, but improving fundamentals mean a more positive trend is expected in 2012, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said there is little change in most of the commercial market sectors. "Vacancy rates are flat, leasing is soft and concessions

Watching the U.S. home market struggle to rebound is like listening to children in the back of a car. No, we're not there yet. The National Association of Realtors reported that ten real estate markets are "leading the nation toward a general recovery and stability of the housing sector," but myriad problems are going to weigh down the housing market for

President Obama flew to Las Vegas, ground zero of the housing crisis, to unveil a revamp of the Home Affordable Refinance Program.

With mortgage interest rates at near historic lows, millions of homeowners have refinanced to rates as low as 4 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage or 3 percent for a 10-year fixed-rate mortgage.However, millions of other