Home sales' uphill climb

Aaron Jacobs' home search spanned a year and involved exhaustive research, dozens of tours and a lot of second-guessing. "We did a lot of looking into whether the market would improve, whether prices would continue to drop," he said. "We finally determined that the bottom line is you really can't tell. It's a gamble." Jacobs and his girlfriend recently gave up their quest to time the market, snapped up their first-time buyer federal tax credit and bought a home in Carrollwood. They join thousands of others who are driving up Bay area home sales, contributing to signs that the worst real estate slump since the Great Depression is turning a corner. No doubt 2009 was a tough year for the economy, and real estate in particular. Potential homebuyers and economists are trying to gauge what the market will do this year. Experts agree that 2010 will be hard on some fronts, namely unemployment. But positive signs are mounting for real estate, and many expect a slow recovery, with more improvement later this year.

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