KINGSPORT -- As the second half of 2009 begins, talk about the worst housing recession since the Great Depression is shifting to the past tense.

Carla Dunn, president of the Northeast Tennessee Association of Realtors (NETAR), said this week in an association press release that there are increasing signs pointing to a turnaround on the local and national housing markets.

Sales of existing homes in Greeneville and Greene County during the first half of this year are 42.7 percent below the same period in 2007, according to the release.

Average home sales prices during that time declined by three percent, while residential housing construction has also slumped.

But during the first two quarters of this year residential housing construction began coming back, the release continued. There were 53 Greene County housing starts for the quarter, which ended June 30, and the existing home sales rate of decline began easing.

During the first half of 2009, existing home sales were 17 percent below the sales volume during the first half of 2008.

To see anything positive about that figure, the NETAR release explained, requires looking at where the sales volume was for the same period in 2008 compared to 2007 -- down 31 percent.

"This is one of those instances when the decrease is encouraging news. It's a sign the free fall is easing," Dunn said.

If the current pace can be maintained, the year will be closed out ahead of last year's sales volume, the release added.

The home-value metrics used by the real estate Web site Zillow show that the Greeneville housing market had a July decline of 6.3 percent in 2009 vs. 2008 month-to-month measurements, but an increase of 1.4 percent on the quarter-to-quarter measure.

The Greeneville Metro Area index shows a 6.4 percent decline on the monthly home-value measure and a quarter-to-quarter decline of 6.7 percent.

The difference can be attributed to the difficulties of the Mosheim area market, where the July decreases on the monthly and quarterly indexes were in double digits.

Zillow's data put the median asking price for an existing home in Greeneville in mid-July at $149,000, and $139,900 for the Greeneville Metro area. But it was only $124,900 in Mosheim.

According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index, home sales prices -- computed for all transactions including refinancing -- dropped in the Greeneville-Greene County region by 1.35 percent during the first quarter of 2009.

The estimate for the April-to-May period was a 0.9 percent increase nationwide, which watchers hope will translate to a second-quarter price appreciation. The index lists the 5-year local appreciation at 35.87 percent.

Some of the softness in the average existing home sales prices is the slump in the market itself, but part of it is also due to foreclosures, according to the NETAR release.

While the Greeneville area has not suffered as much as areas where the housing boom inflated prices greatly, it is a factor, the release said.

According to RealtyTrac, there were 115 bank-owned properties in the Greeneville-Greene County area during the last week of June. That represents 17 percent of the existing homes listed for sale.

If there's a bright side to that number, according to Dunn, it is the fact that the downward pressure on prices is making housing more affordable.

Also, the federal incentive for first-time buyers has been a significant factor in sales this year.

Dunn says housing has traditionally led economies out of hard times and there's no reason to think the recovery from "the Great Recession" will be any different.

Unfortunately, however, that recovery might be sluggish.

Many economists think the housing market will bump along the bottom during the second half of 2009 as potential buyers watch for signs that the biggest lagging economic indicator -- employment -- is improving.

As of mid-June, the Greeneville area's home-for-sale supply -- calculated by dividing the inventory of homes for sale by a 12-month average number of sales -- was 17.8 months.

A "rule-of-thumb" in the real estate field is that, when supply exceeds six months, the press release said, the market is considered to favor buyers. When it's less than five months, the market is said to favor sellers.