There’s roulette and there’s skydiving. Then there’s investing in Detroit and Cleveland real estate. That’s especially risky because those markets are in freefall. Lenders have fled, foreclosures are on the rise, homes aren’t selling and local economies have stalled.

Given the state of the country’s housing market, it wasn’t hard to find others like them. To do so, Forbes.com looked at the country’s 40 largest metros and combined data on foreclosures, from RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service.

* Full Story: Available on Forbes

Valley realtors and homeowners trying to sell a house may now be looking to a new high-tech way to sell a home for free! An Arizona realtor has come up with a clever way of selling a home. He’s created a video of the property for sale and posted it on the popular web site YouTube.

This way a customer can easily take a look at the house without actually having to waste time seeing the house in person.

* Full Story: Available on KGBT 4

Frustrated as her house languished on the market for three straight summers, J.J. Rodgers is trying a new sales tactic: giving the two-story home away in an essay contest.

Already, she’s received more than 500 entries — each essay requires a $100 entry fee — for her four-bedroom home in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. She’s hoping for a minimum of 2,000 entries, or $200,000 in fees, by the May 25 deadline to pay off the mortgage, cover closing costs and have a little left over. Rodgers last listed the property at $169,000 after cutting the price three times.

* Full Story: Available on Business Week

Home Auction Live is a quick and easy way to sell homes. Basically, buyers see a property they like and bid on it. Some prices started as low as $25,000.

Realtors say with foreclosures rates at an all time high, home auctions are a good way to sell homes in a market undergoing changes.

* Full Story: Available on Austin News

With headlines reading “Home prices to post another decline in ‘08,” residential home sellers are between a rock and a hard place. In order to set their home apart from the 235 houses on the market in their price range in the Boca Raton, Florida area, Tara and Daniel Biller devised a “green home” incentive plan for potential buyers. They are offering buyers a slew of environmentally friendly upgrades and products including a solar water heater system.

* Full Story: Available on eMediaWire

Some research suggests that sales tanked by 26 percent in 2007 — the worst sales year on record.

And existing home sales are struggling too.

Those numbers plummeted 13 percent last year the biggest drop in 25 years.

All of this comes as analysts predict even more trouble in 2008.

Full Story: Available on NBC17

Sales of existing homes in the U.S. fell last month to the lowest level in at least nine years, signaling the housing slump is deepening and will weigh on growth in 2008.

Resales declined 0.4 percent, less than forecast, to an annual rate of 4.89 million from a revised 4.91 million in December that was higher than previously reported, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The group began record-keeping for this measure in 1999.

Full story: Available on Bloomberg

So, you need to get rid of your house and you need to do it quick. Perhaps you have an adjustable rate loan that is about to skyrocket, or maybe you just got a job in another city. Whatever the reason, don’t panic. This may not seem like the best time to dump your house, but if you follow my advice, it’s possible.

Below are the five biggest mistakes struggling homeowners make when selling their home. I’ll also show you some foolproof home-selling tactics that will get you the highest sticker price for your house.

* Full story: Available on MSNBC

Heading into 2008, the market just isn’t turning around as so many predicted. The industry, it seems, has been caught up in a game of “projecting,” to use a psycho-speak term. Meanwhile, this pesky subprime headache lingers on as we start to draw a clearer picture of how recklessly this shaky housing-market foundation was laid. It’s a hangover that will last well beyond New Year’s Day. In contrast to the billions in risky ARM loans that were advanced to questionable borrowers toward the end of the boom years, many credit-worthy buyers are now getting a different kind of arm — a straight-arm — when they seek out mortgages amidst a backdrop of spiraling foreclosures and plummeting prices.

* Full story: Available on Fox Business

The general rule for selling your house during the holidays has been: Don’t decorate too much because it could be a turnoff to buyers who don’t share your faith or can’t see past the decorations to appreciate the house’s attributes.

Some real estate agents might even advise you to take your house off the market over the holidays. And if you must keep it listed, then please don’t put a huge inflatable Santa on your front lawn.

* Full story: Available on GoErie