The national housing malaise continues, there's no doubt about that. And there are plenty of "for sale" signs planted in yards of both new and existing Atlanta homes.

It'll likely be a year or more before we again see a booming residential real estate market in this country. But compared with the nation as a whole, things don't look quite as dire in Atlanta and the South, at least by one measure reported recently.

Thanks for that, in part, go to a relatively healthy local economy that's still creating jobs and luring newcomers to this region.

Nationally, sales of new homes slammed downward in March to lows not seen in more than 16 years. The national median home price in March was 13.3 percent lower than it was a year ago. And this is at the start of the traditionally hot spring sales season.

In the Northeast, where the market had been boiling hot only a couple of years ago, prices declined 19.4 percent compared with March 2007. That gives new, and painful, meaning to the term "market correction."

By comparison, the South saw the smallest dip in March new-home sales —- 4.6 percent.

Generally, lower home prices and the lack of big price run-ups in past years surely played a role in the South's relatively good showing. Local real estate watchers say the Atlanta market is gradually reconciling the supply of homes with demand, which should help things recover. It was a rough but necessary market adjustment as home builders cut construction schedules and sellers of existing homes dropped prices.

Fewer homes on the market will match up more closely with the number of potential buyers.

Eugene James, Atlanta division director for Metrostudy, which surveys the housing industry, expects to see sales pick up coming out of the historically slow winter months.

He says local home builders are starting to report more prospective buyers looking around subdivisions.

And more "under contract" stickers are being slapped on "for sale" signs, Realtors say. "Contracts are starting to happen as we'd hoped they would happen," said James.

Realistically, we're a long way from the hot housing market to which we'd grown accustomed. Still, Atlanta should count itself lucky that the region's still packing in home buyers moving here to fill the jobs we continue to create.

—- Andre Jackson, for the editorial board (aajackson@ajc.com)