More than one-third of all online homebuyer and renter searches in the U.S. cross state lines, according to Trulia.com housing search data for U.S. metropolitan areas between October and December 2011. And just about everyone wants to head to Florida.

Of the top 10 markets with more outsiders looking to move in than locals looking to leave, seven are in the Sunshine State. In fact the Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titsuville region, which claimed the top spot on the list, has nearly nine times as many people looking to move to the region as it does people looking to leave.  [more]

From the South Florida website: The New York metro area has the nation’s second-highest level of
interest in Miami real estate after Fort Lauderdale, according to
Trulia’s Metro Mover Index. While more Miamians are looking to move out
of the city, New Yorkers have their hearts set on the Magic City,
according to data on Trulia.com page views. Fort Lauderdale is the top
search destination on Trulia.com for people living in Miami. [Miami
New Times] [more]

Purchasing a home is now cheaper than renting in most U.S. cities, thanks to drops in home prices, rock-bottom interest rates and increased demand for rental properties, CNN reported.

Buying made more economic sense than renting in 74 percent of the country’s 50 largest cities in July, according to data from Trulia.com, with renting winning out in only 12 percent of cities, including New York. In the remaining 14 percent of cities, the costs of buying and renting were similar.

“It’s a personal decision, of course. But if you have a steady job and you are planning to stay for seven years or more and have enough cash to put 20 percent down and enough left over for seven or eight months of expenses, you’re better off buying in most places,” said Daisy Kong, a spokesperson for Trulia.com. [more]

Click to go to the interactive version

The average home in Chelsea’s 10011 zip code spends 77 days on the market before its first price reduction, at which point an average of 5 percent is chopped off the listing price (the nationwide average is 79 days). The probability of another price cut after that is 41 percent. But in zip code 10018, most of which is considered Hell’s Kitchen, the price-chopping happens much more quickly. Just 55 days pass, on average, before a listing there sees the first cut to its asking price, which averages around 6 percent. Trulia.com has mapped out data on price cuts for every zip code in the country in an effort to educate buyers and sellers. Click here to find yours on the interactive map. TRD

A screenshot of the application

New York City residential brokerage Citi Habitats unveiled its new iPhone application today, allowing users to browse all the firm’s listings from their mobile device. The announcement comes on the heels of Trulia.com’s new iPad application, which it announced via Twitter today. Citi Habitats’ free application includes a built-in location finder, which displays both apartment listings and dining and nightlife options nearby. TRD [more]

Buying a home is cheaper than renting one in 72 percent of the largest U.S. cities, led by Miami and Las Vegas, due to an increase in foreclosures boosting demand for apartments, according to Trulia’s latest Rent vs. Buy Index, released today. However, New York is one of four cities that Trulia tracks in which renting is less expensive than buying, Bloomberg News reported. “Many former homeowners have flooded the rental market,” said Pete Flint, Trulia’s CEO. [more]

What’s next for the housing market? According to Pete Flint, founder and CEO of real estate website Trulia, it’s poised for a comeback. In this video from CNBC, Flint said that traffic at his site over the last 10 days has been up 66 percent from the previous year, an indication that more browsers may be taking an interest in real estate. “We’ve seen some incredible growth over the last 12 months,” Flint said. “The overall market is coming back and looking to engage with real estate agents.” Real estate analyst Diana Olick concurred, noting that it “may be time to get back in” the real estate game.

Despite the recent bleak housing news following the expiration of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, pending home sales are showing some stability, according to a National Association of Realtors report released today. The NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, which calculates the number of signed contracts nationwide, climbed 5.2 percent to 79.4 percent in July, compared to June. Still, July’s index reading was 19.1 percent below the same month a year earlier, leading Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, to believe that a full recovery may be a long way off. “The recovery looks to be a long process,” Yun said. “For those who bought at or near the peak several years ago… it may take over a decade to fully recover lost equity.” See Yun discuss the housing market above. TRD

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The summer’s downturn in U.S. home sales is often attributed to the expiration of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which inflated demand prior to its deadline for signed contracts at the end of April. But according to CNBC’s Diana Olick, that’s not the whole story. She cites a sharp drop in home sales in San Francisco during the month of July — to their lowest level in 15 years — as evidence that the tax credit’s expiration could not possibly account for the lull altogether. The median price of a home in that region is $402,000, and most buyers in that price range wouldn’t even have qualified for the tax credit, she notes. The heart of the problem, she argues, is “a startling lack of confidence.” A recent report from Zillow.com said that one-third of all U.S. homeowners don’t believe the housing market has bottomed yet, and another from Trulia.com revealed that fewer renters than ever are planning to become homeowners. [CNBC] 

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The summer’s downturn in U.S. home sales is often attributed to the expiration of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, which inflated demand prior to its deadline for signed contracts at the end of April. But according to CNBC’s Diana Olick, that’s not the whole story. She cites a sharp drop in home sales in San Francisco during the month of July — to their lowest level in 15 years — as evidence that the tax credit’s expiration could not possibly account for the lull altogether. The median price of a home in that region is $402,000, and most buyers in that price range wouldn’t even have qualified for the tax credit, she notes. The heart of the problem, she argues, is “a startling lack of confidence.” A recent report from Zillow.com said that one-third of all U.S. homeowners don’t believe the housing market has bottomed yet, and another from Trulia.com revealed that fewer renters than ever are planning to become homeowners. [CNBC] 

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