After a period of more or less stable real estate prices at the beginning of the 21st century, the prices have shown a sharp rise since around 2007 especially in Vienna, the other federal capitals and its surroundings, whereas in the rural areas in the periphery prices even declined. In this paper special attention is paid to alpine and touristic regions. The main differences of these compared to the other regions will be elaborated. Moreover the variables explaining the prices and developments will be identified. Results will be presented for single family houses and for owner occupied appartments. The underlying models use nonlinear hedonic regression methods. The price observations and the attributes of the single real estates stem from different data bases including purchase and offer prices. The neighborhood covariates come mainly from the spatial information system IRIS, which has been developed for all Austrian communities at the institute of regional science of Vienna University of Technology.