The National Association of Realtors reported this week that existing home sales rose again in January and now sits 5.3% above the January 2010 mark.

Meanwhile, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment survey came in on Friday at the highest levels since January of 2008. It should come as no surprise that the two are in line with one another. Buying a home is about the biggest purchase people make and requires a lot of confidence in doing so.

Digging deeper into the consumer sentiment survey we see that "gains in confidence of households with incomes above $75,000 accounted for all the month's jump." This is particularly pleasing since the value of homes in our area often call for household incomes in that range or higher.

There has also been news out about the veracity of the NAR statistics over the past few years, so I'd like to offer what we're seeing from our vantage point. In the past 3-6 months we have been noticing a growing trend of active buyers in the market. That being said, a lot of the homes selling are the "good deals" (often times foreclosure sales) buyers are seeking out, and this has affected the values reported in the news.

Overall, confidence and activity are promising as we continue to make progress in our recovery. We still have hurdles and speed bumps in our road to full recovery, but the aforementioned reports as well as yesterday's news about Boeing winning the $35 billion KC-46A tanker military contract, is music to my ears.

- Robert E. Wasser - Seattle and Bellevue real estate blog, news, and market trends