Despite the housing market crash in many states, there are markets which are holding up well. A few of these markets are not only strong but are actually projected to show an increase in home values in 2009, as per a report by Housing Predictor, an independent real estate markets forecasting site.

The Top 25 Housing Markets for  2009 are:

Source: http://www.HousingPredictor.com

The above table shows that the states of Montana and North Dakota dominate the list with Montana holding five positions and North Dakota with four positions. Both these states have relatively low unemployment rates in the 5% to 6% range. In addition,banks in these states were very conservative in their lending during the housing bubble times and did not offer many of the risky loans such as Alt-A mortgages.

According to the report, Billings,MT has one of the strongest job markets in the country followed by Fargo,ND. Not surprisingly none of the cities from the bubble markets of  California, Nevada, Florida, etc. made it to the rankings.