The harsh winter months are starting to become a memory and some agents are hoping the housing slump is too.

With the tax breaks, lower prices and huge amounts of inventory, buyers in the Nation’s Capital are starting to come out of the wood works even with the rash of foreclosure still fresh in the air. The lower end of the market is doing particularly well, as one might predict.

In Washington D.C., preliminary March figures show the volume of pending sales is up 11% from March 2008 and there are reports of multiple offer situations again.

But this new excitement is unlikely to spread to the upper markets because of $729,750 cap on loans from the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But we’ll be on the lookout for the bottom end of the market to see if it can carry the region into the summer months.