The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of the Treasury recently released the January edition of the Obama Administration's Housing Scorecard – a comprehensive report on the nation’s housing market. The latest data show progress among key indicators. In 2013, home sales had their strongest performance in several years, foreclosure starts were at their lowest annual level since 2005 and homeowners’ equity is up $3.4 trillion since the beginning of 2012. While this scorecard notes positive trends in the housing market, officials caution that the economy is still healing from the Great Recession. The full Housing Scorecard is available online at www.hud.gov/scorecard.

“The January Housing Scorecard shows that the Obama Administration’s efforts continue to have a positive effect on the housing market,” says HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs Kurt Usowski. “In 2013, the number of U.S. properties which started the foreclosure process was down 33 percent from 2012, while sales of previously owned homes rose by 9.1 percent. With foreclosures down, home sales up, and equity continuing to grow, the housing market continues to make slow, but steadily improving progress.”

“This month’s Housing Scorecard shows the continued need for and progress of the Making Home Affordable program,” says Treasury Acting Assistant Secretary Tim Bowler. “January’s Making Home Affordable (MHA) report shows a steady increase in the cumulative number of homeowners receiving permanent mortgage modifications, while more than 258,000 homeowners have found alternatives to foreclosure, participating in a short sale or deed-in-lieu through the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives Program (HAFA).”

Does the change of seasons have you itching to refresh a tired, lackluster room? Or maybe you're looking for some small ways to make a big impact on your home's style? Whatever the case, here are some of this season's most buzzed-about trends and how you can incorporate them into your next project.

* Wood is the new neutral. This season's strong trend toward wood textures pairs the warmth, richness and texture of real wood with limitless design flexibility. Think wood-textured textiles, tree-printed wallpapers and embossed soaps that look like wood. Installing engineered wood ceilings and wainscoting can bring the unique look of reclaimed wood into any environment - an easy do-it-yourself project with striking results. -

* Ode to the elements. Mother Nature is inspiring design in a big way this year and homeowners are finding unique ways to incorporate rocks, minerals and other natural elements into their home's design. Try replacing a common-place item like an alarm clock with one encased within a multi-colored agate. Bring this look to the kitchen with a stainless steel backsplash, or swap out run-of-the-mill hardware with mineral-inspired drawer pulls and knobs.-

* Shore thing. Homeowners, inspired by the calm, care-free attitude of coastal living are all about bringing the beach inside this season. Beach-inspired design elements are popping up throughout the home. Weathered and white-washed wood ceilings are a subtle but stunning on-trend addition - especially when finished with interior accents like decorative shells, drift wood furniture and marine-themed prints.

There’s one undeniable truth about vacation home renters: The early bird gets the worm—and she’s willing to pay top dollar for it! That’s why smart vacation rental owners set out to make their properties attractive to these oh-so-lucrative early birds, well, early. Yes, now is the time to start getting your ocean-view condo or woodsy cabin ready to stand out in the cyber lineup. And according to vacation home expert Christine Karpinski, that means one thing: It’s time to “amenity up.”

“Once your home is passed up, most people won’t go back to view it again,” warns Karpinski, author of How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner, 3rd Edition: The Complete Guide to Buy, Manage, Furnish, Rent, Maintain and Advertise Your Vacation Rental Investment. “If you want to secure that booking, you need to catch people’s attention the first time—and that means making sure their desired amenities are present and accounted for.”

In other words, you need to know what amenities renters tend to look for and make sure your home has them (or, at least, most of them). And—more to the point—you need to shine a brilliant spotlight on these amenities in your listing.

“No, I’m not suggesting you spend thousands of dollars building a tennis court in your backyard—unless, that is, you were thinking about doing it anyway,” says Karpinski. “But what you can do is let potential guests know that there’s one accessible to them just a block away. The idea is to give people what they are looking for in some form or fashion—and it doesn’t have to mean costly upgrades. It’s mostly about smart marketing.”

Read on for the top amenities that renters are looking for—and how you can make sure that yours are coming up in their searches:

A certificate of deposit will generate a cash flow based on the interest rate that it pays which is the only way it generates a return for the investor.

An investment in a stock that doesn’t pay dividends, would need to be worth more than you paid for it to earn a profit. On the other hand, a stock that paid dividends could make the investor a profit even if it sold for the same price that he paid for it.

Investors can profit four different ways with an investment in rental real estate.

1. Cash flows that result from having a surplus after collecting the rent and paying the expenses.

2. Equity build-up results from a portion of each monthly payment reducing the unpaid balance.

3. Tax benefits can result from the depreciation allowed on the property and the preferential long-term capital gains tax rate.

I wonder how much an average person spends on home improvements every year?

Thanks to some number crunching at HUD and the US Census Bureau, with some assistance from the National Association of Home Builders, we now have a good idea how much the average homeowner paid for improvements in the country's top five population zip codes last year.

According to NAHB and the HUD/Census stats, folks in the 94528 zip code in the San Francisco Bay area topped out the per-household home improvement payout at $5,653. At number five on the list is the 11765 zip in New York, where the per-household cost was $4,730 - putting the average at around 5,350.

While the high and low points of that price spread are not far apart, another breakout from the stats is very interesting.

The average home improvement in California's 94027 zip code saw 2,016 owner-occupied homes getting improvements costing an average of $4,752. While New York's 10004 zip saw only 435 projects - each totaling just a few dollars more per household at $4,766.

According to the NAHB, the estimates are based on a statistical model developed by NAHB, using data from the HUD/Census Bureau American Housing Survey.

The share of new single-family home sales purchased using conventional mortgage financing is rising, as the share of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) backed mortgages fell during 2013.

According to data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing, the onset of the housing crisis in 2007 led to a decline in the share of new home sales due to conventional mortgage financing and increases in the shares due to mortgages backed by the FHA and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA), as well as cash purchases.

For the fourth quarter of 2013, the share of cash purchases fell slightly to 6 percent from 7 percent during the prior quarter. The high point for cash purchases occurred in the third quarter of 2011 when the market share was almost 8 percent of sales. Thus, the cash share of new single-family home sales is down from post-recession peaks but remains elevated compared to more normal periods (e.g. approximately 4 percent share during 2002-2003).

In contrast, cash purchases constitute a considerably larger share of the existing home market – 32 percent of sales in December 2013 for example.

New home sales due to FHA-backed loans fell to 13 percent of the market during the final quarter of the year. This is down from 27.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010 but above the 10 percent 2002-2003 average. As the conventional mortgage financing share has risen, the share of new single-family home sales due to FHA-backed mortgages has declined. Falling FHA loan limits will likely place additional downward pressure on this share in 2014.

Ongoing improvements show economic stabilization, with 87 markets reaching full recovery and housing market price gains nearing 2005 records

Homes.com, a leading online real estate destination and a division of Dominion Enterprises, has released its November Local Market Index, a price performance summary of repeat sales of U.S. properties. Utilizing home pricing data, the Index shows year-over-year gains for single-family properties in all 300 top U.S. markets.

To provide insight into local sector housing trends across the country, Homes.com publishes the Local Market Index for the Top 100 markets and the companion Midsize Markets Report for defined areas ranked from 101-300. Month-over-month increases in index values were seen in 235 of the top 300 markets, down from 253 the previous month. This downtrend is likely due to both seasonal trends and the state of recovery for these markets.

As a complement to the Local Market Index, Homes.com publishes an exclusive Rebound Report, highlighting how the housing recovery process is unfolding across the country. It measures each market’s peak-to-trough decline in index value, which had been attributed to the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble.

While the number of top 100 markets achieving a full recovery is up two from the previous month, to 28, there is also noticeable improvement in the number of midsize markets seeing full recovery. This month, 59 of the top 200 midsize markets have fully recovered their loss in home prices due to the housing bubble burst. These advancements bring the total markets that have seen a full recovery to 87 (29%), up one from the previous month’s 86.

You’ll need to earn $2.00 for every $1.00 you want to spend assuming you pay 50% of your earnings on income tax, social security and Medicare. On the other hand, you get to keep 100% of every dollar you save on your personal expenses because the taxes have already been paid.

Periodically, review your expenditures with the diligence of an exuberant IRS agent on commission. It’s an exercise that most people don’t feel they have time to do but the rewards make it entirely worthwhile.

• Get comparative quotes on insurance – car, home, other
• Review and compare utility providers
• Review plans on cell phones
• Review plans on cable TV, satellite for unused channels and packages or receivers
• Review available discounts on property taxes
• Consider refinancing home – lower rate, shorter term or cash out to payoff higher rate loans
• Consider refinancing cars

The home remodeling market should see strong growth in 2014, according to Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The double-digit gains in annual home improvement spending projected for the first half of the year should moderate some to just under 10 percent by the third quarter.

“The ongoing growth that we’ve seen in home prices, housing starts, and existing home sales is also being reflected in home improvement activity,” says Eric S. Belsky, managing director of the Joint Center. “As owners gain more confidence in the housing market, they are likely to undertake home improvements that they have deferred.”

“However, the strong growth for this cycle may start to ebb a bit beginning around midyear,” says Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center. “By that time, we’ll be approaching the pre-recessionary levels of spending, and with borrowing costs starting to creep back up, growth rates are likely to slow some.”

The Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) is designed to estimate national homeowner spending on improvements for the current quarter and subsequent three quarters. The indicator, measured as an annual rate-of-change of its components, provides a short-term outlook of homeowner remodeling activity and is intended to help identify future turning points in the business cycle of the home improvement industry. The development of the LIRA is detailed in “Developing a Leading Indicator for the Remodeling Industry” (JCHS Research Note N07-1). In July 2008, the LIRA was re-benchmarked due to changes in the underlying reference series. These changes are explained in “Addendum to Research Note N07-1: Re-Benchmarking the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity” (JCHS Research Note N08-1). The LIRA is released by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University in the third week after each quarter’s closing. The next LIRA release date is April 17, 2014.

Sales of newly built, single-family homes fell 7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 414,000 units in December, according to newly released figures from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. Despite the monthly drop, home sales in 2013 were up 16.4 percent over the previous year.

“December’s decline in new-home sales follows elevated levels in the previous two months and means the fourth quarter was still much stronger than the third,” says Rick Judson, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Charlotte, N.C. “While we expect sales to gain strength in 2014, builders still face considerable constraints, including tight credit conditions for home buyers, and a limited supply of labor and buildable lots.”

“Consumers are getting used to more realistic mortgage rates, which still remain favorable on a historical basis,” says NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe. “As household formations and pent-up demand continue to emerge, we anticipate that 2014 will be a strong year for housing.”

Regionally, new-home sales activity fell 36.4 percent in the weather-battered Northeast, 7.3 percent in the South and 8.8 percent in the West. The Midwest posted a gain of 17.6 percent.

The inventory of new homes fell to 171,000 units in February, which is a five-month supply at the current sales pace. Although this is an increase over the previous month, it is due to the slower sales pace in December.

For more information, visit www.nahb.org.