The Wall Street Journal reports five factors influencing rising home prices: housing affordability, with price-to-rent and price-to-income ratios favoring home ownership in many markets; increased household formation; rising rents; a decrease in distressed sales; and record low inventories. The Fed’s recent Beige Book reported improving markets for single-family homes in 10 of the 12 Federal Reserve districts across the country. But one of the two exceptions still showed declining inventories and the other had been hurt by Hurricane Sandy.

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.