Potential buyers now have something they haven't had in a long time: urgency (save for a few months when the government was paying people to buy homes with a first-time home-buyer tax credit). This next year will be the first time since 2006 where prices ended the previous year in positive territory. Surveys already show that buyers' expectations of future home prices have improved throughout the past year. Read more: http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2012/12/18/2013-how-rising-prices-could-boost-housing-demand/