Like Northern Plains settlers stepping outof their cabins after a snowbound winter, consumers are treatingthe first signs of spring in the economy as an occasion for drivingto stores and prying their wallets open just a little wider thanthey had since the depths of the recession. "Everyone has come tothe realization that the worst is over," says Tom Swieca, an SVPwith Voit Real Estate Services in Ontario, CA. "Consumer confidenceis improving from the depths of what it was in 2008." Given thatconsumer spending comprises about 70% of the economy, it bodes wellthat shoppers are now more willing to shop.

Swieca's bailiwick, the Inland Empire, provides an especiallyclear vantage point of the valley in which consumer confidence haddescended. "That area was hit exceptionally hard because we had somuch unprecedented residential growth," he tells Real Estate Forum.Amid the rapid appreciation in home prices in the mid-2000s,"people pulled money out of their homes to buy a Mercedes, put in aswimming pool or start their own businesses. Then when the marketcrashed, it crashed hard."

Gerald Mason, New York City-based executive managing directorwith Savills US, similarly sees encouraging news on the consumerfront. He cites the differences in the relative economic health ofthe US and Europe as a key factor. "When you look at the euro zone,it's pretty bad," he says. "They're in another recession, they'regoing backwards, there's no job creation." By contrast to Europeanbanks, which the International Monetary Fund now says may be forcedto sell off $3.8 trillion in assets over the next 18 months, USlenders are mainly on the upswing. Mason says general economicgrowth here has been "in lockstep" with that trend. Consumerspending is no exception.