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Inventory down, prices up

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Inventory down, prices up

By Prashant Gopal

Could the states where the housing bust started be where it starts to end? California's housing market is finally showing some signs of bottoming out, despite rising foreclosures, growing unemployment, and falling home prices. Nobody is ready to say that California or any other state is out of the woods yet, but home sales are really picking up as first-time buyers and investors move in to grab deeply discounted homes. Month-over-month prices have increased for March and April—the first improvement since August 2007. But the most promising sign is that the inventory of unsold homes has fallen to below-average levels. Statewide, the Supply of unsold homes at the current sales pace fell to 4.6 months in April, compared to 9.8 months a year ago. (The long-term average for the state is about 7 months.) Read on to see which California markets are seeing inventories drop as demand picks up.

Source: California Association of Realtors

Editor's Note: We've ranked 10 of the largest counties based on inventory, but the counties listed aren't necessarily those with the tightest supply of unsold homes. The California Association of Realtors has inventory data only for about a dozen counties.