With 11 months of data reported, 2012 will clearly go down as a record year for favorable housing affordability conditions, and a great year for buyers who could get a mortgage, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Real estate-related searches on Google.com have grown 253 percent over the past four years, according to a joint study from the National Association of Realtors and Google.

In the latest sign of a burgeoning recovery in U.S. housing markets, the number of metropolitan areas on the National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI) rose for a fifth consecutive month to 242 in January.

Contracts for U.S. home resales hit a 2-1/2-year high in November and factory activity in the Midwest expanded this month, suggesting some strength in the economy despite the threat of tighter fiscal policy.

While the risks can be large, sometimes the biggest paydays on Wall Street come from making a contrarian bet on the most hated sector on the planet.

Pending home sales increased in November for the third straight month and reached the highest level in two-and-a-half years, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Upward trends in recent months among a number of housing indicators point to a slow and steady growth in the nation's housing market in 2013, but several challenges remain, according to the latest economic and housing forecast by David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

Following an above-trend rate of production in October, nationwide housing starts slipped 3.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 861,000 units in November, according to newly released data from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau.