The rise in home buying rates is expected to increase when home buyers come out from hibernation this Spring. This season usually a busy time for the residential real estate industry and real estate agents are expecting a turnaround in the housing slump as prospective home buyers emerge from hibernation.

This early you can already observe an increase in real estate activities including dropping of home prices, increasing numbers of open houses and a building inventory. Round Hill Patterns co-founder and managing director Renee Gallagher said the dark times may be over and the activity out there shows that people are finally thinking that it is a wonderful time to buy for value. Gallagher said this attitude has not been seen in the past eight or nine years.

Prudential Connecticut Realty inventory shows a nearly 20% increase in the number of single-family homes in the market. This can be translated to almost 665 available houses compared to last year. Most of the available houses are in the vicinity of $600,000 and under.