Some 18 months ago, national headlines screamed of a housing industry buckling under the crushing weight of the recession.

When we checked with our local Realtors then, we found a real estate market that still had a pulse, home sales were down but so were prices and it was a good time to buy if you could get the financing.

Now with the recession in retreat, Realtors are anxious to dust off the welcome mats.

"The indicators are from the region and probably into local that we're going to be with this a little while longer," explains Real Estate Consultant, Bryan Flaherty.

Local Appraiser and Real Estate Consultant, Bryan Flaherty, keeps track of the numbers that make up Missoula's housing market, "our sales were down this year, 10% from last year but compared to other parts of the country, our overall sales volume is good."

So far in 2009, sold signs popped up in the front yards of 643 homes, the majority with price tags of $200,000 to $275,000. Sales in that range in Missoula are outpacing sales in other parts of the country.

"We have an active sales market as compared to a lot of areas that don't. Buyers are aggressive but hesitant, sellers are anxious trying to get property sold. A lot of transition in our market, we're experiencing the recession just like everyone else," adds Flaherty. 

Some will experience it longer than others by paying the price of looser lending rules of the past that got them in homes they really couldn't afford ahead of an unforgiving economy.

Through October of this year, banks actually took possession of 97 homes in Missoula County, with 395 families in default on their homes. Missoula County is about to face it's highest foreclosure rate in years.

But an encouraging sign is that home values are holding steady in Western Montana unlike other parts of the country where many owe much more than their home is worth. This market never took that plunge.

"We have soft values. They aren't rising like they were in a slow market like they once did but the values are holding steady, and now mortgage lenders are in better shape than they are in other parts of the country" explained Center for the Rocky Mountain West, Larry Swanson.

Montana sits shoulder to shoulder with an economically stronger Intermountain West whose economies felt the recession later than most and is already recovering.

"One of the things holding us up, we didn't overbuilt so we don't have a huge housing inventory and we have all these amenity values which reflect themselves in home values" added Swanson. In some ways, you almost couldn't be in a better place in this slow down."