Millions of households are looking to real estate not as an investment but as a place to live, and that, in turn, is making real estate a safe haven for their funds. The housing sector remains a pillar of strength for a struggling U.S. economy.

The industry is now operating in an environment scarred by the events of Sept. 11 and weakened by the slowing economy, so home sales will certainly ease. The pace of business innovation may also slow. But the outlook for sales remains remarkably upbeat.

Residential sales, after years of soaring, finally started coming down in the second half of this year--nudged in major part by the September 11 terrorist attacks. But don't expect that slowdown to last long.

To its credit, the Federal Reserve Board “just did it,” lowering the federal funds rate by a half percentage point to 4 percent. It was a stellar shot that won the applause of both Wall Street and Main Street the Fed’s chair ignored the inflation mongers who, like Chicken Little, warned that the sky was falling.

The Bush administration promises to drive change through the economic landscape by shuffling our nation’s fiscal priorities toward a more conservative agenda than that of the Clinton administration. Is that the right course for keeping the economy pointed in a healthy direction?

The dizzying ascent in world oil prices threatens to turn the good times into bad for the U.S. economy--and our housing markets could get caught in the middle as policy bodies attempt to keep the oil situation in check.

Practitioners must complete the transformation from information providers to knowledge providers they began when the Internet arrived. Otherwise, they’ll be competing with the Internet rather than capitalizing on it, David Lereah told REALTOR® Magazine in a recent interview.

With interest rates rising and other key indicators such as gas prices moving upward, you’d think the residential real estate market would be due for a rough ride in the year ahead. But pieces remain in place to keep sales going at a relatively robust clip.

Thanks to the economy, advances in credit scoring, and the Community Reinvestment Act, the rate of homebuying by low- and moderate-income households is shattering the record books. But with economists talking about an eventual slowdown in growth, there’s concern that some of these new homeowners may be in over their heads.

The stock market today has swollen to $14 trillion dollars, double what it was five years ago. With the market at this height, analysts aren’t ruling out a "correction"--a major drop in the value of the stock market. So would real estate be hurt if the stock market were to take a nosedive?