By News staff
PROVIDENCE -- As the spring real estate market kicks into high gear, it appears that 2013 may be the year that Rhode Island's long-battered real estate market begins to recover.
In the last quarter of 2012, and in the first months of 2013, median house prices have been stabilizing in many cities and towns, and distressed properties are playing a smaller, if still significant, role in the market.
In January and February, Rhode Island's median house price increased by nearly 5 percent, to $180,000, and the number of houses sold increased by more than 2 percent, to 916 houses for the two months.
The number of distressed house sales (foreclosures or short sales) fell from 34 percent of sales a year ago to just under 27 percent of the market.