The Sacramento, California, real estate market has taken off this year with a vengeance. The pending sales for November 2008, were up 61 percent compared to a year ago, though prices have slashed nearly in half by 40 percent, according to information from regional resources.

The SacramentoRealEstateVoice.com reports the sales numbers by community. It's latest numbers this month have demonstrated that the foreclosures are leading the way out of the housing slump.

Even though the capital city added 1,000 jobs in the last employment reporting period in October, the unemployment rate is at 7.9 percent -- below the state rate of 8.5 percent -- both of which are higher than the national rate of 6.7 percent.

The state Employment Development Department's "Diane Patterson, a labor market consultant, said the labor force grew twice as fast as usual, and not everyone could find jobs. That explained the higher unemployment rate," according to an article in the Sacramento Bee, the daily newspaper for the area.

AOL's real estate section shows an interactive chart demonstrating that Sacramento may have hit the bottom on sales in September 2007 at 466 home sales that month. Since then, the monthly sales have increased, topping out at 1,395 sales in October 2008.

Another glimmer of positive news also came from the U.S. Commerce Department on housing starts in October, showing an increase of 7.5 percent in the West, while all other regions dipped.