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. [...]

Although the number of residential properties on the market has decreased slightly over the past year, the Ottawa Real Estate Board says prices remain strong.
Members of the board sold 1,390 residential properties in July through the board’s Multiple Listing Service system compared with 1,451 in July 2007, a decrease of 4.2 per cent. There were [...]

The Real Estate Group’s July Manhattan Rental Market Report, released today, suggests that landlords with large building portfolios can’t resist raising rents, even in a weak market. Doorman unit inventory continues to increase, and prices have followed. Defying traditional laws of supply and demand, the Manhattan rental (http://www.tregny.com/) market has sparked much confusion this month.
“The [...]

The devastating Wenchuan earthquake had only a limited impact on property markets in Western, Central and Northern China. The price and supply of luxury apartments in Western and Central China experienced a slight drop, but office and industrial markets in those regions continued to display rental growth. A surge of businesses entering Chengdu’s industrial parks [...]