The good news keeps rolling in about the small but important turnaround underway in the home real estate market.

Last week's headliner was the second straight monthly gain in pending home sales -- up nearly 11 percent in the Northeast, 15 percent in the Midwest, and 4.4 percent in the Southern states. Only the Western region saw a decline at 13.5 percent.

On top of that, the ability of consumers to buy a house, as measured by the National Association of Realtors' Affordability Index, hit a record new high last month thanks to declining home prices and record-low mortgage rates.

To put it bluntly: Median priced houses haven't been more affordable to more households in decades!

Mortgage rates continued to drop last week -- even from the record lows the week before, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Thirty year rates now average just 4.6 percent and 15-year fixed loans average 4.45 percent with about a point.

Not surprisingly, applications for new mortgages to buy houses and condos jumped again for the third straight week -- up about 1.4 percent for FHA loans and one percent for conventional mortgages.

Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, agreed that the pending home sales and affordability numbers are promising, but he said the market still has a ways to go before it's really at rebound stage.

He also noted reports by realty firms of higher numbers of shoppers visiting open houses, checking online listings and following up with agents. Those "recent increases in shopping activity," he said, "are hopeful indicators that we'll see some additional sales gains" in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, there were other positive economic signs popping up like spring daffodils. For example, both the major indexes that measure consumer confidence, which is a key driver of home buying, were up slightly in the last month. The University of Michigan's survey and the Conference Board's index both registered small gains. Both, however, remain at low levels in comparison to non-recession periods in past years.

And consumer spending registered a small increase, up by seven tenths of a percent in the last month. Personal income was up slightly as well.

All in all not a bad set of reports in the middle of an economic recession and financial crisis.

That doesn't mean happy days are here again, but they do point to much better days for real estate as we proceed through the year.

Published: April 7, 2009

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Kenneth R. Harney writes an award-winning, nationally-syndicated column on housing and real estate from Washington, D.C. He is also managing director of the National Real Estate Development Center, a professional education company. He is a past member of the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council, a committee that by federal statute reviews all Fed actions on home mortgage, consmer credit and banking industry regulation. He served as a member of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Working Group on Computerized Loan Origination (CLO) systems, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Fannie Mae Foundation's journal, Housing Policy Debate. He is the author of two books on mortgage finance and real estate.