Lawrence Yun

I am confident in saying Atlanta will continue to see growth over the next year. The Atlanta area is less sensitive to changes in the housing market right now.

A cut...won't affect the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at all. According to Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed rate was 6.8 percent last week, and we think it'll stay about the same. But another interest rate cut could mean a slight drop in the short-term one-year adjustable rate mortgage (ARM).

Sellers are stubborn. It takes a long time for sellers to adjust their expectations.

What we had in the past couple of years was an unprecedented frenzy of activity. That's what we're seeing A decline from a frenzied, unsustainable rate.

Prices have doubled in some Florida markets over the past four or five years, so the 10 percent increase we're forecasting for the state this year might seem kind of small compared to recent trends.

A typical household in the past two years saw about a 20,000 gain in equity. That's not an insignificant chunk. Homeowners see that wealth and use it to buy additional goods.

People have been saying that for 20 years. But in San Francisco, it's very difficult to build, so there's a supply constraint. Seattle is also encountering a supply-constraint situation.

People are moving out of these regions to the South and the West. They're putting more supply on the market at the same time there is less demand.

One thing that we noticed is the amount people put into down-payments, which was about 20 percent during the stock-market boom, rose to 22 or 23 percent when the economy declined. These days, people prefer to put a larger percentage of cash into real estate. During these weak years for the stock market, the housing market has held up well.

So long as the South remains affordable and the number of available jobs remains steady we forecast continued growth in Atlanta.

The market clearly has some legs left. Buyers who were sitting on the fence, hoping mortgage rates would decline, have decided to make the move now.

You need a strong job market with people in their 20s moving out of their parents' homes before rents recover.

Home-buying is not a snap decision -- people mentally prepare for it and search for homes, and this is a three-to-four-month process. Plus, even with the rise in mortgage rates, they're still below last year's figure and still close to 45-year lows.

Any time there's job creation, historically prices don't go down.

Our experience says prices do not go down when there's job creation in the local economy. In local markets where they are flat on jobs, they could see prices decline. But we're projecting 2.3 million new jobs this year. The job market is providing a buffer. It's a counter force to rising rates.

You're seeing two separate markets. One is in the coastal regions where you're seeing a substantial decline in home sales. The second is in the middle part of the country, in the affordable regions, where the job market is more important than interest rates.

It's not surprising that Arkansas is up for the first three months compared to last year for the same period . It is following the pattern of affordable regions doing better than the rest of the country.

In the Midwest, where homes are very affordable and where home prices have risen much slower than the national average, sales are more dependent on job growth in the overall economy.

I feel comfortable with that, although 40 percent would be in the upper end of possibility. As for the lower end, getting double-digit appreciation will be an easy task for Seattle.

The supply of homes is very tight for new and existing homes. We will continue to see healthy home-price appreciation. For non-home owners, that's bad news. But for home owners, that's building wealth.