Best Cities For Home Sellers by Forbes

Behind The Numbers
To find the other cities on our list, we looked at the country’s 40 largest metro areas and assessed how friendly conditions are expected to be for sellers this year. Each city was ranked by its 2007 unsold vacancy rate, calculated by the U.S. Census American Housing Survey, and how much the market had tightened or loosened when compared with 2006 conditions.

Then we looked at construction starts, as tracked by the National Association of Home Builders, to see if building starts would compound or alleviate vacancy woes. Next was job creation, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as a way to measure the local economy’s ability to absorb or offset housing losses.

Last, we factored in the degree to which new conforming loan limits from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will improve each market’s lending conditions. When Freddie and Fannie get more involved, lenders get the implicit backing of the Federal Government, something that softens the risks that have slowed lending elsewhere, as jumbo, or nonconforming loans, can be expensive losses.

1. San Jose, Calif.

2. San Francisco, Calif.

3. Salt Lake City, Utah

4. Austin, Texas

5. Kansas City, Mo.

6. San Antonio, Texas

7. Denver, Colo.

8. Providence, R.I.

9. Charlotte, N.C.

10. Seattle, Wash.

Read the entire article “Best Cities For Home Sellers” written by Matt Woolsey at Forbes.com