Back in January of this year, before the major media mentioned it, I told readers that bidding wars had erupted over short sales and foreclosures in South Florida. I also mentioned that these properties were often selling above their asking prices, and that home prices seemed not only to be stabilizing, but on occasion, to be rising. In addition, I noted that home sellers were conceding less and less on price.

The rise of the S&P/Case-Shiller Index also improved the stock futures this morning. Those numbers show that in the major 20 metropolitan centers in USA the home prices rose 1.6 percent.

People purchase homes for two main reasons. The first is the most obvious: for shelter, comfort and a place to raise a family. The second has to do with the American dream: we’ve been taught that a home is our largest investment. Buy a house, live happily ever after in it, and when you’re ready to retire, sell it for a nice profit above median price value.

Down here in Florida, real estate sales have been up for the last 4 months. Existing sale prices have moved up 0.2%, and unsold home inventories have declined from a high of 16 months to a low of 10 months. So why are real estate agents seeing emotions ranging from amazement to anger among buyers when sellers refuse to yield much of a discount on their selling price in lower priced homes?

Despite gloomy predictions and continual press reports that South Florida property values are sinking into the ocean, South Florida single family homes are appear to be holding steady at prices that are 30 – 35% below their 2006 peak. It’s the taxable values that are declining.

The National Association of Realtors' recent survey shows how the foreclosures, low mortgage rates and short sales have impacted the median home prices in the metropolitan areas of the United States. The National Association of Realtors says first-time buyers looking for bargains dominated the market.

Whether the home prices are falling or no depends on who you ask and in what part of the country you ask.

There seems to be no stopping it: home prices continued to slide in November, at a record annual pace, according an index of home prices in 20 major metropolitan areas released Tuesday.

Reuters reports that the prices of apartments are falling in Manhattan, the heart of New York City and will fall further.

Home and real estate prices fell a record amount in the United States last month, and U.S. home building dropped to a record low, providing more evidence of the problems in the American economy.

Are John McCain's voters really unrealistic about the prices of their houses? The recent survey by Zillow shows that McCain voters show more confidence about wwn homes' values than Obama voters. Also, at least 7.5 million American homeowners are "underwater," owing more on their homes than they are currently worth, according to a report released today. In other words: If they sold their homes today, they'd have to bring a check to the closing, CNNMoney.com reports.

A closely watched index shows home prices tumbling by the sharpest annual rate ever in July, but the rate of decline is slowing.