New buyers hold the keys to recovery

It's Rainey and first-time home buyers like her who are helping to lift the Delaware residential real-estate market from its long, rocky slide, real-estate agents say.

Signs of renewed -- if restrained -- vigor in the housing market this spring have been spurred by first-timebuyers, many who have been waiting on the sidelines for months for prices to bottom out, credit markets to loosen up and job security to solidify.

Rainey finally pulled the trigger this week, closing on a home in Wilmington's Highlands, a step made possible for her and many others by an alignment of market-driving factors -- low interest rates, an $8,000 federal tax inventive for first-time buyers and the best housing prices in years.