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If your home will be for sale this winter, it is important to master certain seasonal issues that are less significant or even non-existent at other times of the year. Here are 10 bits of sage advice from RE/MAX agents that can help put a “Sold” sticker on that yard sign. Let Those Lights Shine: The best way to combat winter’s short and frequently cloudy days is to turn on your house lights. For a showing, every single light in the house must be on, even in the closets and utility/mechanical rooms, according to Marlene Granacki of RE/MAX Exclusive Properties, Chicago.

Pending home sales rose strongly in October and remain above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, surged 10.4 percent to 93.3 in October

Leaders of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals say the accelerated growth rate of Hispanic homeownership reported in the 2011 third quarter Census numbers are evidence of the potential purchase power of Latinos in the housing recovery.

When the Obama administration rolled out the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) in 2009, officials estimated 3 to 4 million borrowers would seek relief from their mortgages through the program amidst the worst recession and housing market collapse in decades. More than two years later, those projections have proven to be optimistic, to say the least. According to the Treasury Department, about 700,000 homeowners had sought aid from HAMP through the third quarter of 2011.

A national survey commissioned by Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate has found that baby boomers are part of a growing trend in which they are helping their children or grandchildren become home owners. According to the survey, one in five baby boomers has already gifted, loaned or co-signed a loan to support their children or grandchildren in purchasing a home, and more than two-thirds of boomers want to provide this type of support in the future.

If you’re like most Americans, you just celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with your loved ones. Chances are, you probably participated in the annual ritual of listing the things for which you’re grateful. For most of us, that includes our family, our friends, our homes, and our possessions, for example. We might also list our jobs—after all, they allow us to put food on the table. But does your organization inspire its employees to add anything else to that gratitude list? Are your people thankful for each other, for their leaders, and for the actual work they do? If not (and odds are, that’s the case), you’re also risking low morale, a negative culture, and less-than-optimal productivity.

Low home prices and strong demand for rental properties are causing a surge in investor buying, driving up the market share of homes purchased by investors.

Recent home buyers are staying well within their means with notably higher incomes and modestly higher down payments than buyers in the previous year, due to the restrictive mortgage credit environment, despite historically favorable housing affordability conditions, according to a study released at the 2011 REALTORS® Conference & Expo. The 2011 National Association of Realtors® Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers is the latest in a long-running series of large national NAR surveys evaluating demographics, preferences, marketing and experiences of recent home buyers and sellers.

The national delinquency rate for residential home loans fell to 7.99 percent in the third quarter—the lowest reading since the fourth quarter of 2008. This represents a decline of 45 basis points from the second quarter of this year, and a drop of 114 basis points from the third quarter of last year. The Mortgage Bankers Association reported recently that the 30-day delinquency rate reached its lowest level since the second quarter of 2007 at 3.19 percent. Cumulative default rates among U.S. residential mortgage loans continued to level off in third-quarter 2011, furthering improvements that began at the start of the year.

As the weather started to cool and kids went back to school, remodeling activity continued to soar in 2011. Recently, BuildFax unveiled its BuildFax Remodeling Index (BFRI) for September 2011, which shows that remodeling activity reached a record high during the month.

The Center for American Progress recently released a first-of-its-kind study that projects today’s immigrants’ integration patterns through the year 2030. The report, “Assimilation Tomorrow: How America’s Immigrants Will Integrate by 2030,” is authored by Dowell Myers, professor in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California, and John Pitkin, senior research associate in the USC Population Dynamics Research Group. Myers's report finds that at astonishingly high levels, immigrants are projected to learn English, buy homes, acquire citizenship, and attain solid economic footing in the United States.

The U.S. will not become a nation of renters; there are just too many benefits, both financial and otherwise, to own versus rent. That’s according to the combined findings of several recent studies presented during the “Buyer or Renter Nation?” session held during the 2011 REALTORS® Conference & Expo last week. An analysis over a 31-year period across 23 metropolitan areas compared the ownership benefits in terms of appreciation and interest deductibility and the costs homeowners incur with down payment, taxes, insurance and maintenance.

Between work, school, the kids and all your regular daily responsibilities, getting your home in order for the holidays can quickly become an overwhelming experience. Peggy Patenaude, a REALTOR® with Prudential Howe & Doherty in Andover, Mass. offers these great tips for getting the job done

The struggling housing market needs to be a priority on the nation's public policy agenda, because housing and homeownership issues affect all Americans. That was the message from speakers at the Legislative and Political Forum at the 2011 REALTORS® Conference & Expo last week. REALTORS® at the National Association of REALTORS® annual conference heard from Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and political media consultant Alex Castellanos, who both agreed the housing market is hurting and needs to be a top priority for the 2012 presidential candidates.

Mortgage applications increased 10.3 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 4, 2011.