Survey Identifies the Best Cities
For Families Looking to Relocate

By LAUREN BAIER KIM
May 23, 2007

Here's a look at what's new in real-estate markets across the U.S. from around the Web. (Some links may require registration or subscriptions.)

Survey identifies best cities for relocation

Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Provo-Orem, Utah; placed as the No. 1 large, medium and small metropolitan areas to which to relocate, respectively, in the 2007 Best Cities for Relocating Families survey released by Worldwide ERC and Primacy Relocation, along with Bert Sperling of Sperling's BestPlaces. The report ranks U.S. cities according to factors that may determine how well a family resettles into a new community, such as a locale's cost of living, school quality, crime rate and cultural offerings. This year's survey also looked at real-estate variables such as housing prices, home affordability, home-price appreciation and property-tax rates. "The state of the housing market is having a huge impact on relocation decisions of both employers and the families who are being transferred," says Michelle Vallejo, president of Primacy, The Americas. To see all the metropolitan areas that made the list, visit Yahoo Finance.

All Broad Fraud Squad fights scammers

A group of three women from the Atlanta area -- who call themselves the "All-Broad Fraud Squad" -- has been working against mortgage scams for about a decade, says a New York Times article. The group got its start when the members noticed local homes sitting on the market for years and then getting purchased and resold a day later at grossly inflated prices. Eventually, their upper-middle-class neighborhoods were riddled with vacant houses, raucous parties and prostitutes, the Times says. The women's efforts led to the creation of the Georgia Real Estate Fraud Prevention and Awareness Coalition, and Georgia became the first state to implement legislation against mortgage fraud, the article says.

Investor interest in Syracuse

There's been a real-estate boom of sorts in the Northside of Syracuse, N.Y., according to WSYR-TV, a local television station. In that part of the city, out-of-town investors from across the U.S. have been buying homes for as low as $20,000 to $40,000, with the aim of fixing them up and reselling them, WSYR-TV says. Credited for the spark in interest in local real estate is the area's relatively low housing costs, the report says.

Vail buys home for employees

Vail, a ski town where home prices average approximately $2 million, recently purchased two condos for a combined sum of $750,000 to rent to "critical" employees like firefighters, emergency dispatchers and police officers, according to an article by the Associated Press. Faced with an affordable housing shortage, Vail aims to keep at least 30% of its employees living in town, the article says. Vail's high cost of living has made it difficult to recruit and retain teachers for the local school district, which had an average teacher-turnover rate of 18% between 2006 and 2007 and an average teacher salary of $45,406, according to a Vail Daily article.

Mass open house in Michigan

Talk about an open house. Last weekend, in Bloomfield Township, Mich., -- a Detroit suburb -- more than 300 people attended a showing of approximately 200 homes in an event spearheaded by area real-estate agents and township and school officials to boost the local housing market, says an article by the Detroit Free Press. The Bloomfield Hills School District helped to pass out maps to the event's open houses, in hopes of boosting home sales and increasing local school enrollment, the Press says. An earlier article by the Press estimated that asking prices for homes showcased in the event would range from $53,000 to $7.9 million. With auto makers Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and DaimlerChrysler laying off thousands of workers, the housing market in the general Detroit area has been severely hit, with homes sitting on the market for as long as a year, the Los Angeles Times says.