June home sales are highest in Seattles King County since Oct. 2007

A new report provides the strongest evidence yet that buyers are starting to return to the local real-estate market.

The number of closed sales of single-family homes in King County in June was up 4 percent over June 2008 — the first year-over-year increase since the market peaked nearly two years ago, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service said Monday.

The county hasn’t recorded that many sales in a month since October 2007.

The statistics also suggest — and agents in the field confirm — that the new buyers aren’t just first-timers searching for homes at the lowest end of the price spectrum.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/realestate/2009426109_homesales07.html

Recovery

Recovery is creeping its head in a few metros according to The Brookings Institute:
McAllen, Texas is the only metropolitan area that saw growth in both employment and output during the first quarter of 2009.

Employment rose in New Haven, Conn. and Baton Rouge, while output also increased in Seattle, Austin, Virginia Beach, Washington, Richmond, San Jose, and Riverside.

Some 38 of the top 100 metro stopped declining in home prices over the past year. Many of these metros might attribute the stalled declines because of below-average employment declines, and lie in the less-affected parts of Pennsylvania and upstate New York and Sun Belt in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. They also exhibit below-average shares of REOs status due to bank foreclosure.

In other good news, Southern California home sales rose for the 11th consecutive month in May as sales of $500,000-plus homes started to come back.