Milpitas North San Jose Berryessa Real Estate News

Slowly, a recovery seems to be taking hold.  "More jobs, rising rents, a rising stock market, and continuing high affordability conditions" are combining to get more people into the market, says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. 

With prices expected to rise slightly in both existing and new home sales in 2012, buyers may not get quite the same bargain they got last year.  Still, conditions remain favorable for buyers, and NAR is forecasting a 5 percent increase in existing-home sales over 2011.  Here are three pockets of opportunity.

1. International investment.  With U.S. real estate values down, a favorable currency exchange rate, and the promise of a stable place to invest while Europe deals with debt crises in Greece, Spain, Italy, and other countries, foreign buyers continue to stream steadily to the United States.

"People are trying to move their cash somewhere safer," says Brian Block, broker-associate with RE/MAX Allegiance in Arlington and McLean, Va.

Elaine Murphy Carlson, a broker-associate with RE/MAX Palos Verdes Realty in Palos Verdes Peninsula, Calif., says foreign investors who stayed away during the darkest days of the financial crisis are coming back.  Indeed, NAR's 2011 Profile of International Home Buying Activity shows foreign households bought $82 billion worth of residential real estate last year, up from $66 billion in 2010.

Block says the investors he works with are professionally successful individuals with cash available.  "They will buy when they see a good deal," he says.  He has gained investor business by demonstrating a solid knowledge of the market and finding networking opportunities, from local Chamber of Commerce meetings to regular real estate industry functions.