Virginia's housing market is a buyer's market, according to the Virginia Association of Realtors.  The number of new and existing homes listed for sale statewide jumped 19 percent in March compared with February, the group said yesterday.  And homes statewide stayed on the market longer -- an average 122 days in March, up from 106 a year ago.

"The market is starting to pick back up, and buyers are taking advantage of higher inventories and continued low interest rates," said association President Melanie Thompson of Fredericksburg.  For instance, the group said the number of closings last month in Virginia rose 52 percent compared with February.  Even so, home sales statewide fell 12 percent in March versus the same month in 2006.

For the first three months of 2007, home sales in Virginia dropped 6.21 percent from the same period last year, the association said. 

A bright spot was the Richmond area, where sales rose 1.4 percent last month versus March 2006 and increased 5.3 percent in the first three months of 2007 compared with last year, the Richmond Association of Realtors reported.

Richmond area houses were on the market an average of 57 days, fewer than any of the 24 areas reporting March figures, the association said. A year ago, it took an average of 41 days to sell a house here