For many people who visit historic Norfolk, Virginia, the lure of the sea proves too much, and they find themselves looking to sell their Lucan real estate in favor of buying a new property in Norfolk. If you number yourself among this group, you'll probably find that the tourism guides and visitor information pamphlets that served you so well in planning your vacation are now inadequate to the task at hand. You need real estate market figures, neighborhood listings, averages, and trends to plan your move. We have them for you here in our Norfolk Real Estate Guide.

If you've been keeping up with the news, you know that after 2006, real estate values in North American, particularly in the United States, took a steep dive as a result of the one two punch landed by the sub prime mortgage crisis and the recession. Though the recession has not yet passed, real estate values in places like Norfolk and Scrivener Square in Toronto are back on the rise. In the last year alone, Norfolk's price per square foot jumped nearly 85% and the number of homes being sold increased by just over 13%.

What this means is that Norfolk is just coming out of being a buyer's market, in which conditions favor the buyer rather than the seller. Some cities still have buyer's markets, as you can see from looking at the Arlington, TX real estate listings, but this is the tail end of the paradigm in Norfolk, Virginia. Anyone looking to buy into the city should do so soon before the values reach pre-crisis levels. Any real estate bought in Norfolk has an excellent chance of appreciating in the next few years.

Just how well is Norfolk doing? The median, or middle, value for a home in the United States as of the last census was $119,600. As a whole, Virginia shows itself to be doing better than the average. Its median home value is $125,400. The city of Norfolk is doing even better than the Virginia average. As of late January 2010 the median sale price of a home was $173,000. However the average asking price is closer to $292,500, which is about on par with Acton real estate in Ontario. This gives us an average price per square foot of $271.

Obviously the amount of money it will cost you to buy into the Norfolk real estate market depends on which neighborhood you choose. Bayview Eglinton houses in Toronto are much more expensive than Jane Finch houses, and in Norfolk the more expensive homes are located in seaside areas like Willoughby Spit and Ocean View. Among the zip codes that are most popular with home buyers, asking prices range from $273,000 to $433,000.