The federal home buyer tax credit did not seem to have a lasting, positive impact on the local housing market.  While the federal home buyer tax credit (timeframe shown in green above) did cause the pace of home sales to increase, it was not lasting -- sales declined again after the tax credit expired.

We're now roughly a year out from the expiration of the tax credit, so we are now getting close to being able to analyze the local housing market without a backwards reference to the (long) period of time with government intervention as an influencing external variable.
 
It's great, thus, that the real estate market seems to finally be improving as of mid-August.