Sacramento-area home prices increased in February, giving some hope that the hard-hit housing market may be on the road to recovery.  The four-county region’s median home price — meaning half the homes sold for more, the other half for less — improved about 7 percent to $180,000 from a year ago. That’s a slight improvement from the so-called bottom of the market in April.

 

Sacramento remains a bargain — with the current home prices about $100,000 less than the statewide average, which is greatly skewed by the Bay Area and Southern California markets.  But homes sales, which were improving in recent months in Sacramento, tumbled 27 percent from a year ago, causing some concern that there are fewer home shoppers for the abundance of homes available, especially those foreclosed on by lender.