For Daniel Goldstein, the fight has finally paid off.

Shortly after paying $590,000 for his Brooklyn condo in 2003, he learned that it was doomed for demolition when developer and NBA Nets owner Bruce Ratner announced plans to replace it and the surrounding land with a 16-tower project along with a new arena for the Nets called Atlantic Yards.

But instead of quietly moving out in exchange for about $1 million like the remaining 29 condo owners in his building, Goldstein stayed, starting the nonprofit group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn to wage his battle against the $4.9 billion project.

• Goldstein isn't the only solo condo-dweller

After more than a half-decade living solo in the building, he has agreed to move out -- for $3 million.

Maybe all the homebuyers were waiting for was those for-sale signs to thaw out a little.

After three straight months of declines, home resales finally reversed their trend in March, rising 6.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.35 million units, up from February's downwardly revised annual rate of 5.01 million, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Sales of existing homes also were up 16.1% from March 2009, when the annual rate was 4.61 million units, amounting to the ninth straight month that sales have been higher than year-ago levels.

• Is the housing market healing?

It appears the spring surge has finally sprung.

Have you ever wanted to just get rid of everything and start all over again?

Well, unfortunately, not many of us can afford such luxuries -- but then, not many of us have a house that is even close to being valued at $100 million.

That was the price billionaire Patricia Kluge originally was asking for her 45-room estate in Albemarle County, Va., making it one of the world's most expensive homes on the market last year.

But like many of the other priciest homes in America, the 300-acre estate also suffered a dramatic price drop when, after the property spent a year on the market, Kluge reduced the asking price to $48 million.

• Foreclosure wave is crashing on the super rich

So with the slow-moving market for high-end homes not doing its sale any favors and Kluge ready to move on to the next part of her life, she's leaving it up to Sotheby's to sell not only the property, but also the mansion's extravagant contents, which she has collected over the past three decades.

So maybe prices in the Sun Belt still are well below their peaks, but it appears the wheels of the real-estate industry there are at least back in motion.

• Housing market shows signs of healing

In the Phoenix suburbs, builders betting that new-home sales will rise again are fighting over and causing price spikes for land, according to The Wall Street Journal, while in Miami, empty condos are finally starting to fill as sales pick up again, says The New York Times.

And what a bargain those condo buyers are getting. At the 103-unit Caribbean, shown, with high-end amenities and views of the Atlantic, almost all the condos have sold, at an average of $600 a square foot, compared with the original $1,100 per square foot. No wonder all but 14 walked away last year when Miami's condo market seemed doomed for good.

The suburbs might be losing their luster for some families, but it turns out they're becoming an increasingly attractive option for single first-time homebuyers.

After Coldwell Banker Real Estate said its agents noticed a growing number of new single homeowners, it decided to dig into the details of the trend by conducting a survey of 1,000 single homeowners.

The results showed that despite the allure of city life, the majority of these single homeowners, at 52%, actually bought homes in the suburbs.

• Is your suburb the next slum?

Considering that 21% of last year's home sales went to single women and 10% went to single men, according to The Wall Street Journal, suburbia could be staging a comeback.

If you thought the Obama administration was onto something when it began offering unemployed homeowners reduced payments while they're looking for a job, that's nothing compared with Bank of America's new plan for the jobless.

Instead of lower payments, the bank wants to offer unemployed homeowners no payments for up to nine months, according to The Charlotte Observer. And at the end, if they still are unable to find a new job, they can simply hand over the keys in exchange for $2,000 in moving expenses.

• Moving? 20 tips to avoid scams

Obviously, it's not a perfect plan for everybody, especially those with a lot of equity in their homes that they wouldn't want to simply give up.

But for underwater homeowners facing poor job prospects, it's a nine-month opportunity to dump money into a savings account instead of a home that they could end up losing anyway.

If you've missed your opportunity to cash in on the $8,000 first-time-homebuyer tax credit or the $6,500 move-up credit, all is not lost.

The extended tax credit gives you until April 30 to be in contract for a home to participate, but Move.com warns that if you haven't already made an offer on a home, you're probably too late to the game.

• Homeownership is still the American dream

And although MarketWatch says it's unlikely the credit will be extended again, the Los Angeles Times says there still are plenty of other incentives to get you to buy.

The multitude of home-improvement and other home-oriented TV shows you can tune into around the clock is surely evidence that reality TV really can be as much of an escape as the scripted shows that once were the norm.

When the housing market starts to get you down, just flip on HGTV or Bravo and start dreaming. Consider it instant housing therapy.

And don't worry about the housing downturn slowing the plethora of home-improvement shows; Bravo just added a new docu-series called "9 by Design."

• Read about '9 by Design' on MSN TV

The eight-episode show, which premiered last week and can be seen Tuesdays at 10/9c, follows self-taught husband-and-wife team Bob and Cortney Novogratz as they design six large-scale projects in six months while raising their seven kids in New York.