Despite the fact that November is generally a slow month in the local housing market, agents closed 61 single-family residential sales last month. That was one more than the number agents closed in November of last year.

It marks the eighth month this year that the 2012 sales exceeded the same month of the previous year.

“November numbers were about what I expected,” said Jason Free, president of the Greater Rome Board of Realtors. “People tend to put house hunting on hold and focus on holiday planning.”

Free, an agent with Keller Williams Realty, said the particularly encouraging signs from the November report is that the closed value for November sales of $7.5 million and the average sales price of $123,952 were both up better than 60 percent from the same month a year ago.

The November average sales price was down nearly $18,500 in October, however, one large sale in October caused those numbers to spike somewhat.

The value of homes in the Rome area is continuing to climb at a slow, yet steady pace.

“If you are a buyer, the best time to buy a home was 10 months ago,” Free said. “If someone is planning to buy a home during the next 12 months, a sooner rather than later strategy would be wise.”

Cindy Green, a real estate agent at Toles, Temple & Wright, said she is getting a lot more calls nowadays.

“I think people are more confident about purchasing and taking loans, but we are still seeing a lot of cash transactions still,” Green said. “We’re seeing so many jobs coming in, that’s what I’m so excited about, between the new Lowe’s and several other plants.”

Bill Summer, an agent with Hardy Realty, said he certainly sees the local market picking up.

“It’s not leaps and bounds and back to where it was by any stretch,” Summer said. “There are still a lot of foreclosures. Those depress the prices and individuals who are selling are competing with depressed prices, but overall, I see the inventory shrinking and prices are beginning to try to pick up.”

At the end of November, 739 homes were being listed on the local market, down 15.7 percent from the listings at the end of November a year ago.