Whether you want to believe it or not, more indicators pop up each week that point to improvements in the housing market. Either we're at the bottom now, or we will be soon.

Of course, I just bought my first ever home in September of 2009 (a short-sale in Montgomery County, Md.) so perhaps I'm biased. But even in the worst markets there are signs of life in housing that should encourage investors and homebuyers alike.

Here are three top signs that the housing market has bottomed out.

The race is on for first-time home buyers to close their contracts before April 30. That is when the $8,000 first-time home buyers credit ends. Buyers who are selling a home and buying a new home are eligible for $6,500.

This last minute rush has bumped up the National Association of Realtor's Pending Home Sales Index 8.2% to 97.6, from 90.2 in January. The index is 17.3% higher than February 2009.

The so-called cruelest month has begun. And this coming week's economic calendar for the U.S. starts off with the ISM nonmanufacturer's survey results for April and NAR's pending home sales for February on Monday morning. This glimpse at the service and housing sectors will be followed by March's consumer credit numbers Monday afternoon. Then things are pretty quiet until Friday's release of factory orders and wholesale trade numbers for February.

Between the Monday and Friday economic numbers will come the release on Tuesday of the minutes of the March 16 FOMC meeting, a record of the Fed's most recent thinking on monetary policy.

According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), resales of U.S. homes and condominiums slipped 7.2% during January. This drop brought the seasonally adjusted annual rate to 5.05 million, which was the lowest in seven months. January's drop marks the second-straight month of drops, following up December's record plunge of 16.2%.

A spokesman for NAR noted that this is "not good news. ... There is rising concern about the strength of the housing recovery." The group is holding out hope that the Spring will be better, as the latest tax break will expire and potential job growth could help push home sales higher. The good news is that the pace of sales in January outpaced those from a year earlier by 11.5%. The current inventory of unsold homes stands at a nearly 8-month supply at the current sales pace.

Almost lost among the in-line 1% December rise in pending homes sales, as compiled by the National Association of Realtors, was an observation by NAR Chief Economist Lawence Yun.

Yun said he expects existing home sales to rise to 5.6 million in 2010, up 8.5% from 5.16 million in 2009, aided by the the extended home buyer tax credit. Yun also sees 2.4 million households taking advantage of the home buyer credit in 2010.

From the "How friggin' stupid can people possibly be??!?!?" file comes this item: The National Association of Realtors hired Alan Greenspan to speak at its Washington D.C. conference on Tuesday.

Greenspan explained that "We are finally beginning to see the seeds of a bottoming" in the housing industry. The New York Post's John Crudele reports:

We all know that the real estate market is in trouble, and another sign of just how bad things are came out today as the National Association of Realtors announced another steep drop in home prices during the fourth quarter.

The NAR started keeping comprehensive data on home sales back in 1979, and in that time period there has not been another quarter that saw home prices drop as much as they did in the fourth quarter of last year. So just how much did values drop? A massive 12.4%.

Are U.S. homes undervalued? A new survey suggests they are, but don't confuse that fact with 'a good time to buy a home.'

U.S. home prices fell at a 6.9% annual pace in Q3, and are down 6.5% from their 2007 peak, with prices falling in 241 of 330 metropolitan markets, a survey by IHS Global Insight shows, marketwatch.com reported. Further, compared to their long-term fundamental values, U.S. homes are now 3.8% undervalued.

Undervalued homes? Yes, but...

Undervalued, yes. But does undervalued mean U.S. home prices are not likely to fall further? BloggingStocks asked economist Peter Dawson for an assessment.

"Home prices most certainly can fall further, and will continue to do so in most markets over the next year," Dawson said. "Potential home buyers have to keep in mind that just because a home in, say, Miami was $725,000 last year and is priced at $600,000 this year, and is 'undervalued,' that doesn't mean it can't fall to $500,000 or less by next year. And the price trend in most markets remains down. Home buyers need to keep sight of that."

People buying a home for the first time are usually young. They are probably at the beginning of their careers, which means that they do not have much money. In a recession, they would seem to be poor credit risks. For these people, getting a home mortgage should be nearly impossible.

But, a recession does strange things and turns some assumptions on their heads. It turns out the the lower end of the real estate market is getting so cheap that buyers can pick and choose an incredibly large inventory which, in many cases, sellers have to dump at any price.

According to the AP, "First-time buyers are much more flexible in entering the market because they aren't concerned about selling an existing home," National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. Good point. Most people can't sell their current homes. They won't be in the market for a new one at all. Because of that, dynamic first-time buyers represented 41% of all real estate transactions in 2007.

There is a bit of hidden good news in the NAR analysis. First-time home buyers have a "plentiful" supply of unusually inexpensive homes and an unprecedented opportunity to negotiate on price. As the "retail value" mid-priced and higher-priced homes continues to drop, buyers will come back into those markets as well. Some of the opportunities will just be too good to resist.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

According to the The National Association of Realtors the current housing slump is only going to get worse. The NAR came out and lowered their forecast for home sales today, the ninth time this year it has done so.

The group stated today that it is now expecting to see a 8.6 percent drop in existing home sales. Its previous estimate, made last month, was that 2007 would witness a 6.8 percent decline. It is also predicting that the decline is not going to end anytime soon, and that we should expect to see further decay in the housing market into 2008.

New home sales are also going through rough times this year, and the NAR is predicting that 2007 will end with a 24 percent decline in sales. This follows a tough 2006 which saw new home sales fall off by 18 percent. It is now expecting that new home sales are not going to hit bottom until sometime in the first quarter of next year, not the end of this year as it had previously estimated.

The forecast that prices will start to climb again next year is not being universally accepted by industry analysts. Alex Barron, an analyst with Agency Trading Group Inc. thinks the group is being a bit optimistic in its 2008 forecast. Mr. Barron has stated that "you have to wonder what the NAR is thinking," and that "we're going to see a drop in volume and prices.''

Let's hope that the NAR is right, and there is a turnaround coming in the not too distant future for the struggling housing market.

[Thanks to D'Arcy Norman for the photo]

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

A recent study showed that home sales fell in 41 different states during the April to June period. According to the National Association of Realtors, one-third of the metropolitan areas that the group follows saw lower home prices as well during the quarter.

This really should not be too surprising to our readers. Not only have we covered the weak real estate market pretty extensively, every news media out there has been pushing the news in front of its readers over the past several months. Yes, last year there was still some debate as to whether or not a housing crunch was coming, but even the die hards who said the housing bubble would never burst have been forced to admit the troubles the sector has been seeing lately.

But even myself, someone who has been bearish on housing for the past couple years, is seeing some signs that we may be about to see things turn around. Don't get me wrong, I still see some more downside lasting through the end of this year, but I think things are, at least minimally, starting to balance out.

It is like everything else in the world (except maybe Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) which seems to defy gravity), what goes up must come down, and housing was no different. Low interest rates fueled one heck of a housing boom, so strong of a boom, that a burst was, in my mind, inevitable. And that is exactly what was happened. But is this really a bad thing?

Some economists, including ones cited in a recent story by the New York Times and the authors of "Freakonomics," don't have much use for realtors.

Research cited by the Times showed that people who sold their homes through realtors didn't get a higher price than those who sold it themselves, although agents sold homes faster. Though the researchers caution against extrapolating their data to a nationwide trend, it's likely going to happen. Of course, the National Association of Realtors has its own studies showing the exact opposite conclusion.

The growth of sale-by-owner homes would seem to be an inevitable consequence of the housing slump since people are going to try and squeeze every last dollar of profit from the sale of what is likely their most valuable asset. But realtors don't seem to be suffering.

In fact, they are making higher commissions, according to writer Kenneth Hamey of the Washington Post Writers Group, writing for Realtors Magazine Online.

Properties simply need more marketing muscle to sell, which means that real estate practitioners must work harder and spend more money in order to help the sellers get top dollar," he writes. "Some agents also are adding services, such as staging or professional photography, to get the listings noticed in markets where inventory is supple."

Maybe there are different methodologies in the studies done by economists and the industry. Regardless, I don't think the job of the realtor will ever go away completely. Buying a home is pretty scary, particularly if it's your first time, and it can be comforting to have someone guide you through the process. Plus, there are thousands of details that are too much bother for many people.

Even so, I'll sell my home myself if my wife and I ever decide to move. The economics are just too compelling to ignore.

We see some more weakness in the housing market again today, indicating that the rough times are still not close to coming to an end anytime soon. The National Association of Realtors announced today that existing home sales fell by more than expected during the month of April.

According to today's report, existing home sales fell by 2.6%, which puts us at the lowest annual sales rate in the last four years at 5.99 million units. In reaction to the fall in home sales, we are also given data that the average price for home sales dropped in the month. This represents the ninth straight month that home prices have dropped.

Earlier this month I wrote about a release from the NAR that predicted that 2007 had the possibility of being the first year in history to show a drop in home prices. I would have to agree that we are well on our way for the first annual drop in prices. The current nine month streak of falling prices is the longest streak in history and right now no one is expecting to see this trend reverse in the near future.

April's median home price fell to $220,900 which is down 0.8% from the same month last year. According to the report earlier this month from the NAR, they are expecting that the average price for homes sold to fall down to $219,800 by the close of this year.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor'sObserver.