by Blanche Evans

Realty Times predicted that home sales would rise in the spring, due to the retraction of prices, mortgage interest rates, gas prices, and inventory, and it’s good to be right so far.

National Sales of existing homes rose in January, reaching the highest level of transactions in seven months, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Total existing-home sales — including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops — increased 3.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.46 million units in January from an upwardly revised pace of 6.27 million in December.

Although Austin never saw a slump in sales over the past year…(to the contrary, it countered the norm by reaching record sales), Austin’s Buffington Mortgage President had this to say regarding the rest of the country: “Although we’re expecting existing-home sales to gradually rise this year, and buyers are responding to the price correction, some unusually warm weather helped boost sales in January,” he said. “On the flip side, the winter storms that disrupted so much of the country in February could negatively impact the housing market.” Having seen the ebb and flow of home sales over 20 years of lending business, this President, Gray Buffington, typically seems to get it right.

“Although the data is seasonally adjusted, these weather events are unusually large — many transaction closings were postponed in February, and home shopping was essentially shut down for about a week in many areas,” he said. “We shouldn’t be surprised to see a near-term sales dip, but that will be followed by a continuing recovery in home sales.”

The national median existing-home price for all housing types was $210,600 in January, down 3.1 percent from January 2006 when the median was $217,400.

NAR President Pat V. Combs, from Grand Rapids, Mich., and vice president of Coldwell Banker-AJS-Schmidt, said a broader view shows the housing market stabilizing. “The national market is trending up from its low last fall, and that is important in restoring confidence to buyers who’ve been on the sidelines,” said Combs. “Since buyers can find more favorable terms, and they are looking for a place to call home for some years to come, getting into the market now make sense because it’s a choice many didn’t have during the boom period of bidding wars in much of the country.”

In California, home sales decreased 12.6 percent in January, but the median price of an existing home increased 1.9 percent, said the California Association of Realtors.

The median price of an existing, single-family detached home in California during January 2007 was $559,640, a 1.9 percent increase over the revised $549,460 median for January 2006, C.A.R. reported. The January 2007 median price decreased 1.7 percent compared with December’s revised $569,560 median price.

“The unsold inventory of existing homes jumped to 9.1 months in January, after hovering around the long-run average of 7 months since mid-2006,” said C.A.R. Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young. “There was a slight increase in statewide listings last month, which is characteristic of the start of the year. However, listings remained near the long-run average. As such, the increase in the unsold inventory index–the ratio of listings to sales–was driven primarily by the sales decline.”

Rising inventories in California doesn’t bode well for the rest of the country — one in nine households is in California.

And, considering the stock market decline yesterday, real estate still looks to remain the one constant in increasing value for investors–regardless of a few dips here and there, it always tends to move upward.