It’s no secret that the housing market is showing signs of life, so much so that local real estate companies have resumed hiring brokers and some developers are working on new single-family construction.

Now we see that homes are on the market for shorter periods of time, according to data from Information Real Estate Services, and real estate agents are even getting multiple offers on homes, something that hasn’t happened regularly in a long time, according to Lauren Hansen, CEO of IRES.

“After the dry spell, this is welcome news,” she said.

The dry spell, of course, refers to the years following the 2008 housing bubble burst. In 2009, the number of homes sold decreased in each of the three major cities in Northern Colorado, by 5 percent in Loveland, 6 percent in Fort Collins and 13 percent in Greeley.

In the same year, median home prices slid as inventory increased and real estates agents struggled to find buyers while new-home construction screeched to a halt.

In January 2011, at the Business Report’s Economic Forecast, Mark Snead, vice president and branch executive at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Denver branch, declared the recession