Real estate sales gained momentum as 2009 progressed.  Looking at a 12-month rolling calendar, we went from the number of Residential and Attached Dwelling sales being off by nearly 30% at the end of March 2009 to finishing down 14.4% in Residential and 11% in Attached Dwelling.  At the same time, inventories declined by 8.6% for Residential and 10.6% for Attached Dwelling, helping to protect home values.  This decline in inventory put us at a level not seen since the year 2000 for a lack of available homes on the market.

Looking at property values, it is interesting to visit http://www.FHFA.gov , the website for the Federal Housing Finance Agency.  FHFA computes the Housing Price Index (HPI).  “The HPI is a weighted, repeat-sales index, meaning that it

I ran across some interested statistics recently on first time homebuyers complied by the National Association of Realtors. In 2009, they comprised an unprecedented 47% of the market, probably due to the tax credit and record low interest rates. Economists predict that 2010 will be an even bigger year.  NAR surveyed more than 9,000 consumers who had recently completed a real estate transaction and this is what they found.

•  49% of the first time homebuyers are married, with single females comprising a quarter of the group.  Single males accounted for only 12%.
   
• They are a relatively young group, with more than half, 53%, being between the ages of 24 and 34, and 12% are younger than 24.
   
• They are a diverse bunch with 22%

In 1973, Dave Liniger was fairly fresh out of the U.S. Air Force and not too far removed from his rural Indiana boyhood. He had found his niche selling real estate, energized by the gratitude he received from the families he helped. But as he learned more about his profession, he realized, "There's a better way to do this." Unable to find an office ready for his ideas, he started RE/MAX as a one-agent office in Denver. His dream was pretty big: create a real estate organization that any buyer or seller could approach anywhere in the world knowing that only experienced, career-minded professionals worked there.

No part-timers. No dabblers. No wheeler-dealers.

The concept, strikingly simple in hindsight, caught on; and the competition never caught up.