In what has been perceived to be a down real estate market, a record amount of new buyers have purchased a home in 2009 according to year end statistics taken from the Fresno Multiple Listing Service. In fact the total number of Fresno County homes sold topped the “red hot” boom year of 2005, which has been considered the top of the market. Listed below are the last 5 year totals taken from the Fresno MLS. 

2009	9,328
2008	6,781
2007	4,865
2006	6,503
2005	8,997

This seems peculiar since we have heard about the housing slump for the last few years. A fact that makes it even more impressive is that in 2005 many buyers were sellers also as they sold one to move up to a bigger home. So, one family made two sales in many cases in 2005. With the 2009 market dominated by first time home buyers a family would have only accounted for one sale. So we can truly say a record amount of new families took advantage of the opportunities that the market presented. The combination of lower prices, low fixed rate mortgages in the 5% range and the tax credits caused many families to get off the fence. Another big factor had to be the pent up demand. Having a home to live in is a basic need of people, so there will always be a demand for housing.
 
Certainly not all is well in the housing industry. Some homeowners owe more on their mortgage than what their home could sale for at this time. Some homeowners are straddled with tough terms on their mortgage such as balloon payments or upward adjusting interest rates and payments while income is decreasing or staying the same. Many potential homebuyers are having difficulty buying as the number of available homes for sale in the later part of 2009 was almost half of the number of homes for sale in the beginning of 2009. This is causing multiple offers on many homes. The sad part of multiple offers is that one family gets the home and several others are turned away.
 
The sale of foreclosures also dropped from 74% of the total sales in February 2009 to 43% in December 2009. The number of closed short sales has risen from 9% in February to a high of 15% in December 2009. The monthly median sold price has been in the $150,000-$156,700 range for the last six months after hitting a low of $127,500 in February 2009. The fact that February keeps popping up says that may have been the bottom of the market.
 
A further sign that our market is stabilizing is the quarterly breakdown of solds for Fresno County for 2009. The first and fourth quarters were close to the same with a slight upswing during the spring and summer. Those numbers were as follows:  

First Quarter	2,155
Second Quarter	2,557
Third Quarter	2,388
Fourth Quarter	2,228

So after viewing these numbers, the question is, have we returned to a good market with a record amount of sales, or are we still in a housing slump as prices are down from previous highs? This actually becomes a matter of perspective.
 
An individual seller who has the equity in their home to sell at today’s prices might be the opportunists of 2010.