There's one bright spot in the area’s otherwise bleak home sales picture: Yates County.

Figures released late last week by the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors showed Yates sales were up 8.1 percent, with 213 homes sold between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30, compared to 197 in 2007. Of the 12 counties the report covered, Orleans was the only other one to see an increase — 9.4 percent.

"There are pockets in the area that are selling quite well," said Carol Bodine of Assist-2-Sell real estate in Penn Yan.

Seneca County was down 11.5 percent with 207 houses sold, Ontario County decreased 16.1 percent with 839, and Wayne County saw a 21.2 percent decline with 749 sold.

In November alone, homes sales across the 12 counties dropped to the lowest point of the year, with only 720 homes sold for the month — a 29 percent decrease from last November.

Area realtors had different opinions about Yates' increase, but all agreed that it has affordable housing, even along the picturesque lake.

Renee Owen, manager of the Penn Yan office of Prudential Ambrose Shoemaker, said some winery trail visitors are just discovering Yates County’s quality of life, low crime rates and beauty.

That's when they find out about the "very affordable housing" and look to live here or buy a second home, she said. Lake properties have driven the median price of homes up in Yates County, she said. But it’s the smaller Penn Yan village homes in the $85,000 to $90,000 range that are driving up sales there.

"Looking out my window, things don't look that bad," Bodine said, noting that three new homes are being built across from hers on Route 54 in Milo.

Bodine agreed that prices in the village remain affordable but said homes with more land elsewhere in the county have also done well. In lakefront homes, they have seen a slow down.

But Bodine and others remain optimistic about the region, although they acknowledge that sellers and buyers are nervous because of the national recession. Noting they also weren’t surprised by the figures released by the realtors association, it's a slow time of the year for home sales because of the holiday season.

Steve Davoli, who owns a Century 21 office in Geneva, acknowledged the economy's impact and said that sales have been down a little from the normally slow holiday season.

Realtor association officials, however, are encouraged that the median sales price for existing homes held at November 2007's $115,000. They expect things will stabilize here but said nearly 7 percent fewer homes were put up for sale last month, year over year.

Local realtors also said that other parts of the country that enjoyed the housing boom earlier this decade - Florida, Las Vegas and California - have been hit worse than this four-county area. The boom never reached the region, so the slide won't be as bad as in those parts of the country, they said.

Home loans, they emphasized, aren't as hard to come by as national media have reported. They advised calling local banks and the USDA if a large corporate bank rejects a loan application.

Davoli said Victor, in the western part of Ontario County, may see home sales climb because of the continued growth in the economic development sector and its proximity to Rochester. Waterloo realtor Pam Kirk has stayed busy she said, with 11 closings last month and two more coming this week. She credited the business's success to charging a flat fee instead of a 7 percent commission.

"Eleven closings, that's not bad for a small village," she said.

Area realtors who sell Wayne County real estate, too, said it doesn't have the quality of properties available in the other three counties, and that could account for its 21.2 percent decrease. Efforts to reach a realtor there were unsuccessful.

By CRAIG FOX / Finger Lakes Times