Money Magazine lists two real estate itemsb among the six best ideas for 2007.

Tip #2:  Real estate in 2006 turned a corner - and not a good one. In the past year, home prices have dropped 2.2%. In this kind of a market, once you've found the house you want, start the bidding at least 15% below the asking price…

Well bidding at 15% below asking price is advice that won’t fly in some markets (yet?)  In some areas prices are still holding up, and in undervalued markets like Houston low-end properties still fetch full asking price and go pretty quickly.  But overall stories like this show that the popular media is getting behind the idea of a buyer’s market.  Call it info-tainment, but when CNN gets behind an idea dealing with consumer confidence in a particular sector a self fulfilling prophecy can ensue. 

Tip #3:  The reason so many people are stuck with a house they can't sell is that they haven't priced it right. Most of us grow attached to our home, and good memories and ego distort how much we think it's worth.

Summary:  Buyers,  buy cheap; Sellers, sell cheap.

This comes at a time when investors are continuing to renew their confidence in the stock market, with the S&P 500 closing at a 6 year high and the Nasdaq continuing to make back ground lost when the dot.coms blew up.  This could cut either way for the national real estate market – either consumers feel less jumpy because their 401k plans are starting to look a bit fatter (soft landing?) or the appearance of a healthy low-risk alternative on Wall St. causes investors to hasten their departure from speculative real estate investments (not so soft landing).