Last Updated:March 25. 2008 10:40PM
Published: March 26. 2008 3:30AM

Home sales in February in the Shoals and statewide showed signs of stability that coupled with new federal lending limits may mean it's becoming a buyer's market.

Although 13.6 percent fewer homes were sold last month statewide than a year ago February, the number of homes sold last month was 20 percent higher than in January 2008, the Alabama Center for Real Estate said Monday.

ACRE executive director Grayson Glaze said in context the 4,092 homes sold in February 2007 were the second highest month on record.

The five-year sold average for 2002-07 is 3,767 homes a month, only 6 percent better than February's 3,537 homes sold statewide. A total of 2,957 were sold statewide in January. The average sales price statewide in February was only $80 less than a year before but it was 8 percent, or $11,000, more than in January. Regional markets showed different results.

The number of all homes sold last month in the Shoals was 117, down 7 percent from a year ago when 126 homes were sold. But it was 33 percent more than the 88 homes sold in January, ACRE said.

The average sales price dropped but was way up from a year ago.

In February the average Shoals selling price was $119,049, down 22 percent from the $151,693 average sales price in January. In February 2007, the average selling price was $98,552 in the Shoals.

Shoals real estate businesswoman Joy Long, president of the Muscle Shoals Area Board of Realtors, said homes are moving.

"The interest rates are great and that would be my idea why more people bought," Long said. She said available mortgage interest rates for those who qualify are in the low 5 percent range.

Listing prices are not being lowered but sellers may be willing to accept lower prices. "We have really just stayed basically right in the middle price-wise and selling-wise," she said.

Sherry Dinges, president of state Realtors association, said housing markets are local and the picture in Alabama isn't what it is in some other depressed areas.

She said new FHA lending requirements should start opening up more money for qualified home buyers who believe the mortgage market has dried up due to the subprime mortgage meltdown.

Dinges said the FHA temporarily is approving loans up to $270,000 with 3 percent down, an increase from the previous ceiling of about $200,000. In some markets the ceiling is lower, she said.

"I have never seen a buyer's market like I see now," she said. "Probably the mortgage market is best it's been in 40 years."

The National Association of Realtors said the number of existing homes that were sold nationwide increased 2.9 percent in February from a year ago.