Forbes.com (via Yahoo!) lists the top ten cities that are possibly experiencing a housing recovery. To determine the top cities they analyzed areas with high house sales growth rates in the last year but with relatively low foreclosure rates.

The top cities are:
10. San Jose, Calif.
9. Santa Barbara, Calif.
8. Redding, Calif.
7. Denver, Colo.
6. Bremerton, Wash.
5. San Luis Obispo, Calif.
4. Salem, Ore.
3. Colorado Springs, Colo.
2. Lincoln, Neb.
1. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

It looks like California has a strong showing with 4 of the top 10 spots. With real estate in a slump across most of the country, it’s probably a good time to buy a house. The only problem is if you have to sell your house as well. In my state it seems like the higher-priced houses have taken a bigger hit. I have one acquaintance who recently bought a house for about $400k that had previously sold for close to $1 Million before the crash. That’s a change in value of $600k. In contrast, the value of houses in my neighborhood, which are now selling in the $200-300k range, have gone down in value an average of $50k. This would seem to favor a strategy of selling a house in a lower price range (say $100-300k) and buying a house in the upper price range, but that has a much higher potential upswing in value once the economy recovers. Not that I would recommend such a strategy, but it seems to make sense.