rentals

National housing prices showed modest increases in 17 cities tracked by The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index, according to its Tuesday news release. A look at the top 20 markets shows that home prices in Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis rose by 2.5 percent in June, just ahead of the 1 percent national average increase, while Las Vegas was the only city to show a decline. Phoenix and Seattle were both flat.

Although housing prices appear to have rebounded from critical lows, other recent housing indicators, such as the expiration of tax credits, homeowners with conventional loans sliding toward foreclosure, and the influx of past homeowners now renting and likelihood of underwater homes to increase show that the housing crisis is not yet behind us.

Google may know where you live, but if you're in the market for low-income housing, they also might hold the keys. The all-seeing search behemoth is revving up its philanthropic efforts to create an $86-million Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) fund. The fund will subsidize the construction and operation of 480 affordable rental units in seven communities in the West and Midwest. Many of the complexes being built will include apartments with up to four bedrooms, which have a shared laundry room and community area. The fund will be managed by U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp., a division of U.S. Bank. Google recently invested in two other low-income housing projects for seniors in the San Francisco Bay area and Inglewood in Los Angeles County. It's only a matter of time before renters can Google their Google-owned Googleplex.

The days of New York City apartment dwellers pocketing a few extra bucks by renting out their pads to strangers for a few days may be coming to an end. A proposed law currently being debated by the New York State legislature would make it illegal to sublet an apartment for less than one month.

The sponsors of bill A10008B hope to crack down on landlords who use apartments as illegal hotel rooms. That practice allegedly results in apartments being used as short-term rentals -- disturbing tenants and denying those apartments to middle-income renters.

The U.S. has a real estate problem. It appears we don't have enough homes to put a roof over everyone's heads.

Say what?

That's the warning from housing economist David Crowe, who projects that the number of homes now being built – on pace toward 591,000 homes and 87,000 rental apartments in 2010 -- isn't enough to keep up with an ever-rising American population. He says that the nation will need to build 16 million new homes over the next decade, or more than twice as many as are coming online now, to keep up with demand. Crowe hints that he's not alone in his concern: "Economists are beginning to sound the warning that today's extremely low levels of new residential production could lead to significant housing shortages."

Now, take this with a grain of salt. David Crowe is the chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, so part of his job is to inspire fear in the hearts of Congress and government officials across the land to do what's necessary to support residential construction, including propping up the comatose Wall Street market in real estate finance.

Super Bowl week is a boon for South Florida businesses, but a bust for its real estate market.

But that's not necessarily a sign of bad times.

"Other than weekly rentals, the Super Bowl is not big for us," said Miami Real Estate broker and blogger Riley Smith. "But it doesn't matter because this is our biggest time of the year anyway."