Residents in these cities are breathing a sigh of relief, as home values begin to appreciate again. But these aren’t double-digit gains. Those days are long gone, economists say.What you will find, however, are cities with better than average job growth, and metros fortunate enough to have missed out on the housing bubble and related overbuilding. These markets have chugged along so slowly they have nothing to “correct,” analysts say.But not all these metros have happy endings. One market in particular, Cape Coral, Fla. — a poster child for everything wrong in real estate this decade — has finally hit bottom and is now inching back up. However, the climb back will take far longer than the boom; homes there are worth half of what they were in 2006.Here are the metro areas with the biggest gains in home prices since the fourth quarter of 2009 and a rosier outlook for the year ahead.NOTE: Average home prices are from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, as of the fourth quarter of 2010; price change is from Q4 ’09 to Q4 ’10; and employment statistics reflect March numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.View the complete article and the slideshow below:via 15 cities with the most improvement in home prices – MSN Real Estate.As you can see below, Hawaii is making a serious comeback in the housing market. So much so that it is fast becoming the place to be, even though the cost of living is still very high when compared to other parts of the nation.
2. Honolulu
Population: 905,034
Average home price: $409,900
Year-over-year home price change: +2%
12-month home price forecast: +3%
Job growth in the banking and information sectors is helping lead this Hawaiian market out of the recession relatively unscathed. Unemployment is low at 5.1%. Homeowners in this island city didn’t see the same crashing values that most others did. Values are down just 9% from the market’s peak in the fourth quarter of 2007. For that, residents can say, “Mahalo.”
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