www.REHPI.com

Our primary indicator of where prices are going in a particular market…

At Adamsworth LLC we make money buying apartments. We buy them in emerging markets - areas of the country that are starting to grow.

We have researched more than 275 metropolitan areas to find the next emerging market. One of the six primary indicators we use is the weighted resale housing price index (HPI).

The weighted index is considered very accurate because it eliminates inconsistencies between the types of houses that sell in up markets and the kinds that sell in down markets. In an up market, expensive houses sell more quickly, pushing the average price higher and making the market look as if it appreciated more than it did. The weighted index compares the price changes on two sales of the same house.

We take the HPI and graph it for each metro area with price on the Y axis and time on the X axis. We then show the market momentum by graphing a two-year moving average. When the market momentum moves from positive to negative, it signals a reversal in the direction of market.prices.

Recently, someone started selling this information to real estate investors and real estate professionals for $500, plus $50 a month for access and updated data. So we decided to put our version out on the web for free. You’ll have access to the graphs for all 275 metropolitan statistical areas, updated quarterly, and we’ll email you a link when they are revised. What’s the catch? We’ll occasionally e-mail you information about opportunities to do business with us.

Are you an investor, real estate professional, data junkie or just someone who is curious about where your market is? You can sign up at www.rehpi.com. Enjoy!

300 million and the changing demographics of the United States

Straining the stork with 300 millionth

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published October 15, 2006

The U.S. Census Bureau says it expects the nation's population to reach 300 million on Tuesday, 39 years after the 200 million mark was reached and 91 years after the county's population hit 100 million.

The 300 millionth person will enter a country that's much different than it was in 1967, when Life magazine designated the birth of Robert "Bobby" Ken Woo Jr. as a population milestone, naming him the nation's 200-millionth resident.

"In 1970, immigrants constituted less than 5 percent of the U.S. population," said William Frey, a demographer at the University of Michigan and the Brookings Institution, adding that today, they are 12.1 percent...

As Housing Market Slows, Rental Market Heats Up | WSJ

As Housing Market Slows, Rental Market Heats Up

By Christine Haughney From The Wall Street Journal Online

Bidding wars, once waged by prospective home buyers in a red-hot housing market, may be moving to a new front: rental apartments.

As rising interest rates and flattening home values have made renting more attractive, renters are beginning to resort to the same one-upmanship tactics to secure a choice apartment.

In Washington, D.C., the owner of the Ellington, a 190-unit rental building on U Street, has a 12-person waiting list, and nearly a half dozen renters are paying rent two to three months before their move-in dates. San Francisco renters are showing up early to open houses and racing to fill out applications before other applicants. In Manhattan, some renters are offering landlords more money than asking rents, while others are paying the equivalent of the entire year's rent upfront in cash...

Popularity of 1031 Exchanges Surges With Market Decline | WSJ

Popularity of 1031 Exchanges Surges With Market Decline

By Tara Siegel Bernard
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Investors who want to cash in their chips on real estate bought as an investment -- but defer the tax bill, in some cases forever -- can do so by trading into another piece of property.

This strategy isn't new, but it's enjoying a resurgence in popularity now because many investors believe that real-estate values have peaked in some markets. They want to lock in their gains and shift into other holdings without a big payment to Uncle Sam.

The stratagem is called a 1031 exchange, but it doesn't actually require you to swap property with another real-estate investor. You sell one property and buy another, carefully abiding by certain restrictions and time limits.

A section of the tax code known as 1031 allows investors to make a "like kind" exchange of investment properties and thereby defer, and in some cases avoid, capital-gains taxes. (The maximum federal long-term capital-gains rate is currently 15%, while some states impose an additional tax.)

You can swap just about any kind of investment property for another -- such as an apartment house for land, or a house for a store. Investors can keep exchanging into new properties of equal or greater value, while deferring the tax hit. If you hold property until death, the capital gain is erased altogether because your heirs inherit the property at its market value, making this a popular estate-planning technique as well.

'Best-Kept Tax Secret'

"It's the best-kept tax secret," says Stephen A. Wayner, first vice president at Bayview Financial Exchange Services LLC, a unit of Bayview Financial, a Miami real-estate investment, development and mortgage-finance company. "There are so many people that should be doing it. They just don't know about it."

The tax savings can be substantial...