Suze Orman recently appeared on The Today Show and gave 5 minutes of practical money management advice.  Not everyone’s a fan of Ms. Orman, but this is an interview worth watching.

The segment’s theme is “What should you do first?“, pitting real-life financial scenarios against each other, including:

• Pay off credit card debt, or save for an emergency?
• Pay off student loan debt, or pay off credit card debt?
• Save for retirement, or save for a child’s college tuition?

The advice is practical and relevant to most homeowners’ lives and, although financial tips are never one-size-fits-all, there’s some real gems in the segment.

Watch the entire interview at The NBC Today Show website.

In choosing its 2009 lineup of Top 100 Places To Live In America, Relocate America focused on areas with stable local economies and in which the housing market has avoided precipitous price drops.It’s not a bad formula and topping the list of Top 100 Places To Live In America is Tulsa, Oklahoma, a city in which unemployment rates are 3 percent below the national average and the housing stock is, in general, considered affordable.

This was a common theme among the cities included, the Top 10 of which are:

1. Tulsa, Oklahoma
2. Dallas/Ft Worth, Texas
3. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
4. Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina
5. Huntsville, Alabama
6. Houston, Texas
7. Albuquerque, New Mexico
8. Lexington, Kentucky
9. Little Rock, Arkansas
10. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Relocate America notes that the cities on its 2009 list are poised to make a faster comeback from the economic recession than other U.S. cities, and few experienced the effects of the housing boom earlier this decade.

View the complete Top 100 Places To Live In America 2009 list at the Relocate America website.

The number of homes under contract to sell soared in April, climbing nearly 7 percent nationwide versus a month ago.It’s the third straight month in which the Pending Home Sales Index gained and the biggest monthly jump since October 2001, the month prior to the end of the Early 2000s Recession.

A “pending” home sale is one that’s under contract to close, but has yet to do so.

The Pending Home Sales Index is an imperfect statistic because not every home under contract makes it to closing, but the data can a reliable indicator of home buyer activity.

It’s not tough to understand why homes-under-contract are spiking:

1. There’s a $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers
2. Conforming and FHA mortgage rates are hovering near 5 percent
3. Home prices are still soft nationwide

These elements are combining to make homes more affordable than they’ve been in the recent past.  Indeed, in April, the Home Affordability Index posted its second highest reading since 1970.

We can’t know if home prices will rise or fall going forward, but if Pending Home Sales translate into closed home sales, values will be pressured to rise.  This is because each closed transaction takes a home “off the market”, reducing the supply of available properties.

If demand rises while supplies fall, sellers regain the upper-hand in negotiations and higher prices are the inevitable result.

An estimated 80 percent of all Pending Home Sales close within 2 months.

As this week’s signal that homebuyers are returning to the market, both Existing Home Sales and New Homes Sales posted improvement versus month-prior figures this April.

According to the National Association of REALTORS, the number of Existing Home Sales rose by 130,000 units in April.

New Home Sales rose by a modest 1,000 units in April.

As a twist in the story, however, although sales activity is rising, the available housing inventory is rising faster.

Versus March 2009, there were 300,000 more homes for sale in April — an increase of 9 percent.  In addition, the “housing supply” rose to 10.2 months, its highest level since October.

This is good news for home buyers, of course, because home prices are a product of Supply and Demand.  Depending on local conditions, buyers may find themselves in a position to demand lower sale prices or additional seller concessions.

The housing market has not fully rebounded but it continues to show signs of strength.  With a few more months like March and April, it’s reasonable to assume that homebuyers will lose some of their leverage for contract negotiation.

When that happens, expect home prices to rise.

Each month, researchers measure home values in 20 large U.S. cities, then compile their findings in a report called the Case-Shiller Index.  It’s a popular measurement of housing health across the country, but it’s far from perfect.

As 3 examples:

1. It gives more weight to expensive homes than inexpensive ones
2. Its sample set includes just 37 states of 50 states
3. Real estate isn’t a “national” market — it’s local

All that said, however, the data is still important.  The Case-Shiller Index helps identify broader trends in housing and it’s widely believed that the economy won’t recovery until the sector starts to stabilize.

We may be at that recovery point now.

Despite newspaper headlines blaring about 19 percent drops from March 2008, the month-to-month values appear to be stabilizing and the latter is the more important development.  15 of the 20 markets covered by Case-Shiller either improved, stayed flat, or declined by 0.2 percent or less.

Versus 2008, the rate of speed at which home values are falling is slowing.

Furthermore, because the Case-Shiller Index is on a 2-month delay, it doesn’t account for all of this year’s Spring Buyers, or first-timers taking the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit.

Two months don’t make a trend, but if Case-Shiller Index continues to report similar data for April and May, it could be the signal that housing finally bottomed.

A “housing start” is a new home on which construction has started and, for the fourth straight month, single-family home construction remained flat in April.For the battered housing market, this is the latest in a series of signals that a long-awaited turnaround is coming.

• The number of homes under contract to sell are rising
• The national housing inventory is down by nearly 1 million from March 2009
• Home values are rising, according to a government report

The current plateau in Housing Starts may indicate that builders are more confident in the economy, and that Americans are, too.  Especially in light of the freefall over the past few years.

Single-Family Housing Starts have hugged the 360,000 mark since January 2009.

However, there is a footnote to the story.

As noted by the Commerce Department in its official report, the April Housing Starts conclusion is suspect because of the data’s large Margin of Error.  Had the government’s sample set included a different series of data, in other words, it may have concluded that housing starts had fallen instead of staying flat.  Or risen.

We won’t know the final results of the report until 3 months from now but if the initial figures hold, it will fortify the argument that the housing market has, indeed, found its bottom.

According to the American Resort Development Association, there are more than 4 million timeshare owners across the United States.  There are ample buying opportunities, but what if you want to sell your timeshare?

In this 4-minute piece with NBC’s The Today Show, Barbara Corcoran talks about the difficulties today’s timeshare sellers face with respect to a down economy, revealing sales strategies in the meanwhile.

Among the advice:

• Know what your share’s worth, then lower it by 20%
• Don’t overlook obvious marketing techniques
• Consider auction sites to sell a timeshare
• Donating to charity open up tax breaks

Selling timeshares is always more difficult than selling a “regular” home; and today’s recessionary economy doesn’t make it any easier.  Watch the complete clip for more tips on selling timeshares at MSNBC.com.

For the second month in a row, the country’s foreclosure activity was dominated by a small number of states.As shown by the latest stats from RealtyTrac.com, more than half of the country’s foreclosure actions from April were concentrated in just 3 states:

1. California
2. Florida
3. Nevada

Those 3 states are home to but 19 percent of the U.S. population.

No matter in which state you live, however, it’s important to understand the far-reaching ramifications of foreclosures.

Although real estate is local, mortgage lending is not.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac insure loans in all 50 states and when those mortgages go into default, the government entities often take losses.

This is the primary reason both Fannie and Freddie asked for government aid to the tune of $19 billion and $6 billion, respectively, last week.  It’s also the reason why loan fees have increased over the last 12 months — another way to shore up balance sheets is to raise consumer charges.

Furthermore, downpayment requirements are larger than before foreclosures proliferated and private mortgage insurance is more expensive, too.

These are important changes to homeowners in all states — not just the 3 named above.  In some cases, they can be the difference between a home loan approval and an underwriting turndown.

Search the complete April 2009 foreclosure report for yourself on RealtyTrac’s website.

Both mortgage guidelines and the economy have tightened since 2006, bringing more attention to “joint homeowners” — non-spousal partners that buy and share a home as roommates.

The practice is not new, but, anecdotally, co-purchasing is becoming more common.

In the video above – filmed two years ago but still on-target today – real estate expert Barbara Corcoran provides good advice for co-purchasing partners.  Like any business relationship, it’s important to plan ahead.

• Hire an attorney to draft contracts and agreements
• Have a plan for when one or both parties wants to move or sell
• Consider life insurance policies on each other

The over-riding theme for co-purchasing arrangements is to be prepared.  Done right, however, they can create two proud homeowners where there would have otherwise been none.

For the second consecutive month, the number of homes under contract to sell increased — further evidence that housing markets may have already bottomed.As reported by an industry trade association, the Pending Home Sales Index rose by 3-plus percent last month.

A “pending” home is one that’s under contract but has yet to close.  This is one reason why the Pending Home Sales Index is an imperfect statistic.

Just because a home is under contract doesn’t mean it will actually sell.  A lot can go wrong between the date of agreement and the date of closing.  Deals fall apart all the time.  But, when the number of pending contracts rises, we can infer that buy-side demand for homes is strong.

It’s likely that the number of homes under contract is being influenced by a combination of low mortgage rates, relatively inexpensive homes, and various tax credits for certain homebuyers.  Overall, it’s spurring demand and that’s part of what’s captured by the Pending Home Sales Index.

So long as the demand for homes outpaces its supply, home prices are expected to rise.