Small businesses in housing industry see recovery

 The small businesses that drive the housing market are reporting signs the industry may be experiencing a real comeback.

At the beginning of the spring selling season, real estate agents and home builders were optimistic about the growing number of prospective buyers showing up at open houses and calling to inquire about listings. Now, it appears that interest has translated into sales.
"We had a terrific March, better April, and May is going to be the best closing month since 2006," said Mark Prather, whose real estate agency, ERA Buy America Real Estate Services is in La Palma, Calif., on the border of Los Angeles and Orange counties. Closings are up 50 percent this year from the same period of 2011.
It's a similar story across the country. Business is being driven by pent-up demand — many people had put off buying since before the recession. Prices are lower after plunging during the housing crisis. Rising rents are making buying more attractive. On top of all of that, financing is cheap. Mortgage rates are at record lows — 3.75 percent for a 30-year fixed mortgage as of last week. In some areas, people are even saying it's becoming a sellers' market.
Industry and government figures confirm that housing is recovering. The National Association of Realtors says more than 1.3 million previously occupied homes were sold from January through April, up 7 percent from more than 1.2 million a year earlier. The Commerce Department says 117,000 new homes were sold during the first four months of the year, up nearly 15 percent from 102,000 a year ago.
But the sales recovery isn't uniform. Although home prices have started to rise in many parts of the country, they're still falling in places like Detroit, Chicago and Atlanta, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index for March.
The numbers reflect an improvement from a weak spring in 2011, but isn't yet what you could be considered robust. A Realtors' index that measures the number of home sales contracts fell in April. The spring selling season got an early start because unusually warm weather in January and February encouraged many people to start looking at houses, and that may have taken away some sales from April. But the drop also coincided with signs the job market was slowing and a decline in the stock market. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell nearly 1 percent in April, its first month with a loss since November. That may have led some potential buyers to pause. Another wrinkle: fiscal and banking crises in Europe and their potential effect on the global economy.

Source : http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120611/APC03/306110051/Small-businesses-housing-industry-see-recovery?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s