Did you happen to catch the article on cnn.money.com yesterday about our housing market? The article shares some insights that show we may be getting close or at the bottom and that's a bit of optimism for our industry. It appears to me that most of the markets that are picking up in sales have large numbers of foreclosures and prices that have corrected a lot.

Here on Kauai, and also on Maui and the Big Island, the number of properties listed are NOT dominated by foreclosures and short sales, but the numbers of foreclosures are rising. And as I said in my prior post, the REOs and foreclosures are gaining market share in terms of percentage of closed sales.

Additionally, sounds like interest rates may stay in the 4's for a while and if the lenders really do free up their cash once the toxic assets are off their books, we could be turning this situation around.

National trends tend to come to the islands later sort of drifting west six to twelve months later. So, the article about the housing recovery is hopefully coming to an island near you very soon. I welcome the recovery in our Kauai real estate market.

Read the entire article on cnn.money.com

With mortgage rates at a 52 year low, stocks have been rallying for the past few weeks. But homebuilders have done even better than the broader market. The homebuilders stocks are in blue as compared to the S&P 500.