March Home Sales in Cache County did pretty good compared with the last eight months. The 76 residential homes sold was the highest single month we've seen since June of last year. Compared with February, home sales were up by a whopping 44%.

Compared with a year ago, March home sales were actually down slightly. We have to remember that a year ago at this time the home buyer tax credit was just about to expire, so those numbers were artificially high. Overall these home signs are a good sign for the Logan Real Estate market.

While home sales are up, the number of home for sale are as well. The total number of Cache Valley MLS listings has risen to 754 homes for sale, up from 711 last month. At March's sales pace, this gives Cache County a total of 9.92 months of inventory. The good news is that this inventory is down substantially from a year ago when there were 818 residential listings. Inventory is still high, but if home sales continue to increase throughout the summer we will see a decrease in real estate values dropping.

A closer look at the Logan Real Estate stats reveals that inventory looks to be on line with 2009. While this is an improvement from a year ago, its still pretty bad, and unless home sales substantially rise, will mean that prices will continually fall.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) for the fourth quarter 2010, reveals that 73.9 percent of all new and existing homes sold were affordable to families earning the national median income of $64,400.

That record-setting level beat the last record high of 72.5 percent set during the first quarter of 2009. It was also the eighth consecutive quarter that the index has been above 70 percent. Until 2009, the HOI rarely topped 65 percent and never reached 70 percent.

"Today's report shows that housing affordability at the end of 2010 was at its highest level since we started computing the HOI," said Bob Nielsen, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

Unfortunately, tight money makes it tough to take advantage of low prices, likely to get even lower.

This is some excellent news for anyone planning on buying or investing in Utah Real Estate. Home prices are at their lowest levels in years, are affordable for most people, and the homes to day offer more "utility" than other times in history.