In their paper Consumer City, Ed Glaeser, Jed Kolko, and Albert Saiz argue that cities lost their manufacturing bases when they lost the transportation cost advantage.

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While trends vary by region, buyer search activity generally peaks in March and April, while seller listings peak in July, says Jed Kolko, chief economist at real-estate website Trulia.com.

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Generally, beach areas see the most online traffic during the summer, and skiing areas see the most in the winter, says Jed Kolko, chief economist and head of analytics at Trulia.

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