The push is on to turn single-family rental homes into an asset class that can be bought and sold on Wall Street. Last week, the Journal reported that publicly traded home-builder Beazer Homes had teamed up with buyout firm KKR & Co. to launch a real-estate investment trust to manage its small portfolio of single-family homes as rentals. Beazer’s REIT is still private, for the moment, but has plans for an IPO to take the company...

(Reuters) – When Brent Moreland and his wife, Amanda, put their first home on the market last fall, they tried everything to make the Knoxville, Tennessee, two-bedroom townhouse look good to buyers. They took impressive photos with the help of a professional photographer friend, went online for furniture staging ideas and even created a blog to help get the word out through social networks. Almost six months later, they are still at...

Once gun-shy home sellers may be feeling more confident as they set listing prices these days, which could translate into higher sales prices down the road, according to areport released Thursday. The asking prices for homes on the market climbed 1.4% nationally in the first quarter compared with the prior quarter, said Jed Kolko, chief economist for home-listings company Trulia. The report, which tracks asking prices for Trulia’s...

Improving economic data and government-policy developments have led Bank of America/Merrill Lynch to call for the long-awaited bottom in housing prices this year. The firm tweaked its forecast from November, when it expected home prices to fall 3.5% in 2012. Now, it expects a modest gain of 0.5%, a good sign for the sector that continues limping through its worst downturn in generations. Still, “along with the earlier bottom is a slower...

According to The National Association of Realtors existing home sales are predicted to jump 7 to 10 percent in 2012. If this happens, which we’re all hoping it will, that level of home sales will be the highest in 5 years. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said “we’re seeing the continuation of an uneven but higher sales pattern” so far in 2012. “The spring home buying season looks bright because of an elevated level of contract...