I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a lending broker, Tristian Yankoski, owner of Elite Financial in Sandy Springs, GA. 

During the conversation she was telling me that she's closing on four houses. 

• Two of the houses are in the early $200s (one's in Pennsylvania and the second is in Alpharetta).  The one in Alpharetta is a refinance, where the person has a large amount of the equity in the house (around $320). 
• The other two houses are in Sandy Springs and South Fulton.  They are both in the early $100s and they refinances. 

That had me thinking and I am starting to realize that people are taking advantage of the mortgage rates and refinancing their homes.  Now, that doesn’t directly help me since I’m in the business of helping people sell their homes, but it made me realize that there is some activity. 

The historically low interest rates are being used, by someone. 

She couldn’t tell me when the market would get better, but she agreed that the lending criteria will last until the end of the year, but will defiantly start to improve by the 2010.