For the past five years, I've had to answer the question of "so, how's the real estate market" with responses such as "well, not so great" or "well, it could be worse."  Now, the answer is a bit different, more along the lines of....

While we're not out of the wood yet, there are many positive indicators in our local housing market that seem to show a modest and slow start to market recovery.

As shown above, above:

• sales are up in July compared to last year
  
• sales are up in Aug 1 - 15 compared to last year
• sales slowed only marginally (-2%) comparing year-to-date data
• contracts are significantly higher (+19%) this year compared to last year

Stay tuned -- I believe we'll continue to see an improvement throughout the balance of the year.