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Buying a home in Albuquerque last year was often a race against time. But the market, locally and nationally, reversed itself this fall, realtors and economists said.

The number of existing homes on the market in Albuquerque - 4,695 as of September - has more than doubled from the 2,319 a year earlier.

The anxiety has transferred from the buyers to the sellers, most of whom are now waiting between a month and two months before their homes are sold, according to data from the Albuquerque Metropolitan Board of Realtors.

While the talk nationally is of drooping housing prices and fears that the market could lead to an economic recession, local real estate experts say the Albuquerque market is merely leveling from its once-frenetic pace.

"There's a clear deceleration in the market. You are having a build-up in the inventory of existing homes. That's all true," said Lee Reynis, director of the University of New Mexico's Bureau of Business and Economic Research. "But compared to other areas, we're still doing really well."

The market's rise in recent years is attributed, in part, to mortgage rates that made it easier for more people to buy homes by providing lower monthly payments, Reynis said.

Meanwhile, outside investors saw their chance to make money by buying up properties in hot markets like Albuquerque and quickly reselling them for a profit.

"It was hard for buyers last year," said Sandra Creek who, in partnership with her husband, Fred, is a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker Legacy in Albuquerque. "You couldn't move fast enough."

Both of those phenomena have diminished, Reynis said.

The interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 5.84 percent in October 2004, according to data from HSH Associates, a New Jersey mortgage information company.

Last month, the rate was 6.47 percent, according to the company, though there has been some reprieve for borrowers as the Federal Reserve holds firm on interest rates after a string of increases.

Real estate investors, seeing that a souring market means less profit, have moved on to safer investments, Reynis said.

"In the housing market, there isn't the expectation there might have been a year or two ago that housing prices will continue to go up," Reynis said.

Those prices in several regions of the country - most notably Florida, California and parts of the Northeast - are projected to drop. A forecast by Moody's Economy.com last month projected that 133 of the nation's 279 metropolitan areas would see home price declines.

Albuquerque area home prices, though, continue to rise - a sign some local real estate agents see as a positive for area homeowners.

The metro area hasn't seen the economic hit on home values because prices here didn't skyrocket like they did elsewhere, said Cathy Colvin, who chairs the Albuquerque Metropolitan Board of Realtors.

"Other parts of the country went from being relatively slow to where the prices increased double digits in a quarter," said Colvin, who is also a realtor with Vista Encantada Realtors LLC, in Albuquerque. "We increased at a very gradual pace."

According to data from the National Association of Realtors, the median home price in Albuquerque - the point where half of the homes sold for more, half for less - rose 34 percent between 2003 and the second quarter of this year, from $138,400 to $185,400.

Over that same period, median home prices rose by 62 percent in the Los Angeles area, 78 percent in Phoenix and Las Vegas, Nev., and 87 percent in Orlando, Fla., the data shows.

While the continued gradual rise in sale prices might be good for homeowners looking to bolster the value of their home, some buyers may be priced out of the market, Creek said.

"If you're a buyer looking for something $100,000 or $150,000, it's tough," Creek said. "There was a time we could say, `We'll find you something cute out on the West Side or Rio Rancho.' That part of the market is tough now."

With the inventory of unsold homes so high in Albuquerque, some sellers have been forced to reduce their prices just to compete, she said.

"Some sellers are willing to negotiate a little more or have already dropped prices," Creek said. "That's helpful, but it's still a good market. Things are still selling. Things just take longer, and, as a buyer, you have many more choices."

The rising inventory of homes appears to be taking its toll on the construction industry as well.

The number of building permits for single-family homes dropped to 319 in September. That's a 52 percent drop from the 670 permits issued the same month a year earlier and a 67 percent drop from the year's high of 964 permits issued in March, according to figures from DataTraq, which analyzes regional housing market data.

As of September, building permits for single-family homes nationwide were down 14 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the National Association of Home Builders.

New Mexico's 10,280 single-family building permits through September, a 3 percent drop from a year earlier, put the state in a better situation than some of its neighbors. Arizona is down 26 percent and Nevada is down 21 percent, according to NAHD data.

Jim Folkman, executive director of the Home Builders Association of Central New Mexico, said while builders may be slowing - a likely result of the rising inventory of existing homes and the rapid rise in construction costs - the future remains rosy for the industry.

For starters, the price of land in Albuquerque is still relatively low thanks to an abundance of areas in which to build, he said.

And Folkman looks toward developments on the horizon and assumes building will remain steady. Mesa del Sol, a master-planned development south of Albuquerque International Sunport, is projected to add more than 30,000 homes to the city's southeast quadrant.

Also, shareholders of 55,000 acres of West Side land that was once part of the Atrisco land grant last week voted on whether the land should be sold to a California development company.

Folkman estimates that the land - if shareholders approved of the sale - could yield up to 100,000 residential lots.

The developer, SunCal Corp., has said shareholders did approve the sale, though no official vote tally has been announced.

Beyond that projected growth, Folkman and his counterparts in the real estate business are also encouraged by a local economy that's been bolstered both by promotions in national magazines such as Forbes and the growth of companies like Eclipse Aviation. Eclipse, which is expected to add employees as it begins large-scale manufacturing of its jets, is also projected to be a magnet to lure ancillary aviation companies that would service the company's operation.

From Colvin's perspective, today's market - while not ideal for sellers - is much easier to manage.

"I personally hated the market we were in last year, even though it was so good," Colvin said. "Buyers didn't have the opportunity to think about it or sleep on it. I'm one of those `Let's sleep on it' kind of people. You had to show people the property and had to ask them right in the driveway. You knew the next day it might not be there.

"Now they can look in a neighborhood and visit them all."