Where to find a new house: Blaine

It used to be that if you wanted a new house you'd have to drive 45 minutes to the boondocks where developers were transforming vast swaths of farmland into massive subdivisions. Today, most new construction is happening in first- and second-ring suburbs on smaller in-fill parcels of raw land that didn't get chewed up during the housing boom. Blaine, for example, has one of the highest ratios of new houses to existing ones on the market. In fact, 20 percent of the 280 listings on the market last year were brand new compared with only one in 10 for a metro-wide average.