Go to Buffalo! Or Peoria! Or Amarillo!

As sales volume reaches new lows, inventory remains historically high, and home prices continue to fall nationally, the NAR (National Association of Realtors) recommends heading to Buffalo, Peoria, or Amarillo if you're looking for rising home prices.
As part of the monthly release on existing home sales, NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun noted that buyers remain content bench warmers, largely unwilling to get off the sidelines and pay prices that remain artificially high due to subprime loans and other risky mortgage products of recent years:

“Subprime loans and other risky mortgage products have virtually disappeared from the marketplace, and over the past five months, this has been reflected in soft but fairly stable home sales. As the increased limits for FHA and conventional loans are implemented, more buyers will have access to safer FHA loans and lower interest rate loans in high-cost areas, which could lead to steadily higher home sales later in the year.”

Yeah, and, paraphrasing Madonna from a memorable appearance on Saturday Night Live some years ago, "monkeys could fly out of my butt."

In this CNN/Money article, Northern Trust chief economist Paul Kasriel had a much more pragmatic assessment of the most recent sales data:

"This is more doom and gloom. The mind set for buyers now is, 'if prices are falling, why do I want to buy an asset that's going down in price?'"

Good question. There's always Buffalo, Peoria, and Amarillo.