To put it lightly, home prices tanked during the financial crisis. The S&P Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index fell from from more than 200 to as low as 140, a decline of about 30 percent, and the 10-City index fell by about 33.4 percent. In a just a few years, home prices had lost pretty much every dollar of value they had added during a meteoric rise in the first half of the decade.

Odds are, if you own your home, the idea of a sale in recent years has been unattractive to you for exactly these reasons. The last thing you want to do during an economic recession or an anemic recovery is sell your home for a loss, so if they could, many people held on to their homes, hoping that prices and the market would recover.

The S&P Case-Shiller indexes haven’t yet recovered to their pre-crisis levels, but at 165.8 for the 20-City and 180.15 for the 10-City, they are each sitting at about 80 percent of their pre-crisis peaks. This is healing — if not outright health — in most major real estate markets, although at 79 percent of its pre-crisis peak, the national-level index is slightly weaker.

The time may be right to sell, and to hopefully sell at a gain instead of a loss. If this is the case, you can expect a fiscally weary Uncle Sam to reach out his hand and ask for a cut of the proceeds. Fortunately, there are a few provisions in the tax code that can help you pocket your profits and build your life wherever it is you move next. Click through to see a few tips to minimize capital gains taxes on the sale of your home.

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-news/selling-your-home-here-are-3-tips-to-minimize-capital-gains-taxes-2.html/?ref=YF

Black Knight, formerly LPS Financial Services, reports that 2013 marked the fourth consecutive year of significant, sustained improvement in the nation’s inventory of delinquent mortgages, and the second consecutive year of significant improvement for those in foreclosure. Delinquencies were just 1.5 times their pre-crisis average, with foreclosures down to 4.6 times their pre-crisis levels (declining from more than eight times the historical norm).

“In many ways, 2013 marked an abatement to crisis conditions in the U.S. mortgage market,” said Herb Blecher, senior vice president of Black Knight Financial Services’ Data & Analytics division. “Delinquencies neared pre-crisis levels, foreclosure inventory declined 30 percent over the year, new problem loan rates improved in both judicial and non-judicial foreclosure states, and foreclosure starts ended the year at the lowest level since April 2007. Despite a recent drop off, 2013 was also the best year for property sales since 2007, with totals through November outnumbering the full year totals for each of the prior three years. In addition, as we’ve noted before, due to stricter underwriting, 2013 originations have proven to be the best-performing loans on record.

“However, at the same time, higher interest rates and seasonality pushed monthly originations to the lowest level since 2008, and the current interest rate environment seems to have also brought an end to the refinancing wave we’ve observed for the last several years. In fact, refinance activity has remained low despite year-end declines in interest rates. With continued tapering anticipated by the market, opportunities for new originations will likely come from looser underwriting and/or home equity lending (which has shown a sizable increase in volume since last year).

http://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/2014/02/mortgage-delinquencies-now-1-5-times-pre-crisis-levels/