Home prices across the state will continue to drop next year, even as sales, spurred by the low prices on foreclosed properties, will keep rising in 2009, according to a California Assn. of Realtors forecast slated to be released today.
Doubts about the stability of the nation’s financial markets are likely to linger through the middle [...]

There’s finally some good news on the residential real estate market: July’s pending home sales are up 6.2 percent from the same month a year earlier – the first time in two and a half years that housing statistics have posted a year-over-year increase.
But there’s an important proviso behind the new numbers, announced Tuesday morning. [...]

While sales numbers have declined since the first of the year, mid-valley real estate agents remain hopeful the market will improve.
At the same time, more homeowners are opting to put their houses up for rent.
“Sales aren’t dead,” said Art Prouty of Town & Country Real Estate, “but they have slowed quite a bit.”
Albany housing sales [...]

When it comes to residential real estate these days, it seems everything’s subject to negotiation.
That includes the real estate broker’s cut on the deal, according to a report issued Monday by Consumer Reports. Based on a recent survey of home sellers, 46 percent of people trying to sell their homes through agents tried to negotiate [...]