Buying or selling a home in 2012? Here’s what you need to know.

View Photo Gallery — How does your city stack up?: The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index offers a monthly assessment of how home prices are faring from city to city. In the most recent report, only one city saw an increase in prices for the month.

By Amanda Abrams,

Matthew Branch and his wife Rachel Sayre decided to finally put down roots in Washington. After several months of searching for a house, the couple just made an offer on a detached home in the Northwest neighborhood of Takoma. Branch, 32, doesn’t seem particularly anxious about diving headfirst into the area’s housing market. “I think it’ll probably appreciate, but it’s anybody’s game,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”

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