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The Housing Comeback - Connecticut & New Jersey

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - All this week WCBS 880 is looking at what is happening in the housing market. Today, Ginny Kosola reports on progress in Connecticut and New Jersey.

"I believe we have reached a bottom," Mary Ann Hebert, President of the Connecticut Association of Realtors, told Kosola. "I think people have finally been watching the market for a long time recognized this perfect storm of low prices and low interest rates is not going to last forever."

Hebert said people living in Connecticut condominiums have to be able to sell them to move up in order to get the rest of the market going.

The Housing Comeback - What's Happening In Connecticut And New Jersey?

"Many of the condominiums have lost their FHA approval. Many of them have gotten re-approved FHA, but also the banks now are willing to finance condos again," she said.

Some condo buyers are also ready to make the long commute to New York to get a bargain, Kosola reported.

"There are still condominiums in the Waterbury area for somewhere around $100,000 and in New Haven County you will definitely see that," Hebert said.

Hebert said she's optimistic about the housing market and said that after the tough years of the housing crisis, people really do want to own their own homes.

"There was a long discussion about whether or not people were really interested in home ownership anymore. I'm finding young families, young college grads, they really do want to own their own home," she said.

In New Jersey, Tina Banasiak, President of the New Jersey Association of Realtors, said real estate is recovering better than the national average.

"The mortgage financing has resolved a lot of their issues. There is money there for people to purchase a home if they're financially capable," she said.

Banasiak says buyers have to brace themselves for bank scrutiny.

"It seems like the banks are asking them for more, more and more information, and asking a lot of times for the same information over and over again," she said.

But, buyers are back, she said.

"You do see people bidding on homes again. You have multiple offers. And you do have things selling over asking [prices]," said Banasiak. "The Wayne area is a very popular area, probably because of the transportation into Manhattan," she said.

Banasiak said some areas are doing better than others, but she believes New Jersey has seen the bottom.

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