Housing markets

Housing markets in the U.S. that did not experience overzealous price appreciation during the first half of the 2000s are now among the ranks of the strongest housing markets. According to Forbes.com, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and El Paso topped their ranking of housing markets for 2009, a year in which no major metropolitan area would see housing price increases.
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Edge cities

Journalist Joel Garreau coined the term "edge cities" in the 1990s to describe new urban centers growing within larger metropolitan areas. Typically centered around freeway interchanges, edge cities have white-collar jobs, tall office buildings, shopping and entertainment, hotels, corporate headquarters and hospitals. The archetypal edge city is Tysons Corner, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.
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Feng Shui

Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese belief that the physical characteristics of a house and the positioning of the home will affect the fortunes of the owner. Feng Shui as a practical philosophy existed even before the Chinese learned to write. Feng Shui was first introduced in America during the California gold rush in the 1840s.
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Curb appeal

Curb appeal is the first impression of a house as seen from the street. Tips for improved home curb appeal include: make sure the house and yard look clean and well-kept; kill mold and mildew on and around the house; clean the windows and gutters; pressure wash dirty siding and decks; edge the sidewalks; remove lawn weeds; rake and dispose of leaves; and trim tree limbs near the home's roof.
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Grover Cleveland

"No investment on earth is so safe, so sure, so certain to enrich its owners as undeveloped realty. I always advise my friends to place their savings in realty near a growing city. There is no such savings bank anywhere." - Grover Cleveland
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Prefabricated homes

Prefabricated homes include manufactured, modular, and pre-cut houses. Homes made all or partly in factories now account for nearly 40% of all new single family homes sold in the U.S. Prefab home building methods yield higher quality homes and a more efficient process for home building. Sears Roebuck was the first to sell factory-built homes in 1908.
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Licensed appraisers

Congress passed a bill in 1989 mandating all states to set up licensing programs for real estate appraisers. This bill was passed to help prevent the type of fraudulent and inflated loans that caused the $500 billion savings and loan debacle in the late 1980s. Licensed appraisers must adhere to a set of ethical and professional guidelines developed by the Appraisal Foundation.
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SAREC

The Senior Advantage Real Estate Council (SAREC) was established in 1997 to focus on the needs of property buyers and sellers fifty-years of age and older. SEREC offers the Senior Real Estate Specialist designation, which demonstrates knowledge and expertise of the financial and lifestyle transitions involved in relocating, refinancing, buying a home, and selling a home for seniors.
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Property taxes

At the beginning of the 20th century, property taxes provided forty-five percent of the general revenue received by state governments in the U.S. This percentage has steadily declined since then as states adopted sales and income taxes. Today, property taxes are a relatively insignificant source of state tax revenue.
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Sperling's Best Places

Sperling's Best Places at bestplaces.net is a free online resource for researching and comparing places to live in the United States. The website presents a wide array of comparative city and neighborhood data for categories such as people, economy, housing, health, crime, climate, education, and transportation.
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Donald Trump

Donald Trump is credited with being the first to break the $100 million price threshold when he offered his Palm Beach property at $125 million in May 2006. According to a Forbes.com survey, two other properties were listed for over $100 million later that same year, a home in Aspen, Colorado, and an estate in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
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Columbia, Maryland

The community of Columbia, Maryland was established in 1967 as one of the largest planned communities in the U.S. Columbia is located between Baltimore and Washington D.C. Its goal was to be a self-contained community with recreational and retail amenities, ethnic diversity, and various income levels living side-by-side. Columbia's final single-family residence was built in June 2002.
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Baby boomers

About 76 million baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964 in the U.S. This massive age group defined social, consumer, and cultural markets during the second half of the 20th century. As the baby boomers enter retirement age over the next twenty years, the supply of various types of retirement, empty nest and senior housing will increase in order to meet surging demand.
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Tallest residential building

The Q1 Tower in Gold Coast City, Australia is the world's tallest residential building at 1,058 feet. The Q1, short for "Queensland Number One", was completed in 2005. The glass-enclosed building has 78 floors, 527 apartments, and features a ten-story tropical sky garden.
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Tariff 400-M

Most major long-distance moving companies charge their customers according to a book called "Tariff 400-M". The Household Goods Carriers Bureau, located in Alexandria, Virginia, publishes the book annually. The book specifies a moving company's cost for packing and hauling x pounds for y miles.
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Mobile Americans

During the early twentieth century, when it was thought that automobiles would never catch on, Henry Ford applied standardization methods in manufacturing to develop America's first mass-produced automobile the Model T Ford. The resulting new generation of mobile people would forever change the landscape and fabric of America.
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Shelley v. Kraemer

The 1948 Supreme Court decision of Shelley v. Kraemer held that it is unconstitutional for the government to enforce restrictive covenants that exclude persons on the basis of race. The case was heard after the Shelley family was sued by neighbors to keep them from taking possession of a nearby property containing a restrictive covenant barring African-Americans and Asians from owning the property.
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Penthouse residences

Penthouse residences are typically the most exclusive and elaborate in terms of living features. Before the use of elevators, when getting to the top of a building was a stair-stepping chore, the structures at the top were used for laundry houses, washing lines, water towers, and servants' quarters. The first distinguished penthouse apartments appeared in New York City in the 1920s.
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Home landscaping

Home landscaping improves home appearance and provides the following positive impacts: lower noise levels, masks unpleasant views, reduces crime, lowers heating and cooling costs, optimizes the use of outdoor space, and is environmentally friendly.
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Pacific Heights

The 1990 psychological thriller movie "Pacific Heights" starred Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine, and Michael Keaton. San Francisco yuppies Patty Parker and Drake Goodman purchase and restore a costly Victorian. In need of a tenant to help pay the enormous mortgage, they rent the studio apartment to Carter Hayes, a landlord's worst nightmare.
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Home settling

Home settling occurs as the materials used in its construction shift or move while drying and curing. Ground settling occurs as the earth around and beneath a home shifts due to moisture. Pronounced signs of home settling include doors and windows out of square, sagging room floors, sinking beams, large cracks in the foundation, and water in the crawl space or basement.
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Google Street View

Google Street View is a perfect way to see a property without actually being there. Google Street View provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level. To use Street View, simply select the Street View button at the top of any Google Map.
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Metro moves

According to a recent American Moving and Storage Association study, the three most active U.S. metropolitan areas for inbound and outbound moves are Washington, DC, Phoenix/Mesa, Arizona, and Chicago, Illinois.
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The major appliance "repair-or-replace" rule of thumb

The major appliance "repair-or-replace" rule of thumb is this: if an appliance's repair estimate is fifty percent of the cost of a new replacement, and the appliance in need of repair is over seven years old, it makes good economic sense to replace it.
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Airpark communities

Airpark communities are neighborhoods that cater to airplane owners and long-distance commuters. These neighborhoods typically have extra-wide streets so planes and cars can share the road, garages that are hangers, and shorter mailboxes and outdoor fixtures so they do not get hit by plane wings. Over one hundred airpark communities have been established over the past several years.
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FindYourSpot.com

FindYourSpot.com offers a ten-minute online survey that provides a tailored list of desirable relocation areas based on personal tastes and interests. The relocation website also offers instant access to online reports about weather, schools, recreational activities, cost of living, and general quality of life for cities and towns across the U.S.
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Evening shade

Homebuyers should remember to consider sunlight direction when evaluating a home purchase. Back yard activities in evening shade are best enjoyed when the home's back yard faces east. Sunlight direction also affects the brightness factor of rooms in the house as well as tree and landscape selection and location.
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Urbanism and traditional development

Some new homebuilders are adopting new urbanism and traditional neighborhood development concepts into their subdivision plans. These development approaches incorporate design elements of old urban neighborhoods with traditional features, such as prominent front porches, sidewalks, backyard garages, multi-use buildings and housing clustered near recreation and commercial service areas.
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Home sale rule of thumb

Preparing a home and pricing it accordingly should result in a sale in a reasonable amount of time. The length of time a home stays on the market varies by neighborhood and season. A general rule of thumb for home sales is that forty home showings in twelve weeks should result in a sale.
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Decks

Decks became a popular home addition with the growth of the suburbs during the 1950s and 1960s. A deck adds value to a home and provides a focal point for gathering, dining, and enjoying the outdoors. There are many deck designs and styles. Designers agree that the size of a deck should be no larger than one-third the size of the home's footprint.
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Texas

U.S. Congress approved the annexation of the Republic of Texas in 1845, resulting in a declaration of war from Mexico. The Mexican-American war ended in February 1848 with Mexico ceding Texas, California, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and most of New Mexico and Arizona. The remainder of New Mexico and Arizona were acquired as part of the Gadsen purchase completed in 1852.
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