Financing is no longer automatic, family budgets are tight, and buyers are cautious, but veteran real estate brokers remain bullish.

“Is it a bad market? No, it’s not a bad market,” says Perrin Cornell, a veteran of more than 20 years selling and financing real estate. “Essentially, the market is the market. “At any price, some people will need to buy and some will need to sell. That’s a fact. You just work with that.”

With supply up and the median sale price falling 13 percent in the greater Wenatchee area over the past year, it’s a buyer’s market.

Lending requirements, which lapsed during the housing boom, are back with more restrictions, especially for large loans.

This has turned some buyers’ focus away from luxury and more toward entry- or mid-level homes priced at about $250,000 and under.

“It has to be in the $200,000 and under range to get a lot of looks,” says Jerry Paine, real estate broker and spokesman for the North Central Washington Association of Realtors. “Our sales are off just slightly — about 10 percent — from last year. We’re seeing a good number of sales, but at lower prices.”

Once commonplace, multiple competing offers on the same piece of property are rare today, and federal first-time buyer incentives have lapsed.

Cornell says that in 2005 sales involving multiple offers made up about 50 percent of his business.

Typically, homes spend about four to six months on the market these days, both agents say. But with interest rates below 4.5 percent on home loans, they say now’s a goood time to buy, if you can get a loan.

“Qualification for loans has gotten tougher and tougher,” Cornell said. “People who may have qualified for a higher-priced loan, may not now.”

Federal Housing Authority and U.S. Department of Agriculture loans are making up more of the lending market now, he said. They’re easier to qualify for and require a smaller down payment but will only be approved for amounts smaller than many bank loans, he said.

Citing statistics from Wenatchee’s “Multiple Listing System” website, Cornell said that these government loans financed 85 of the 276 homes sold through mid June.

That’s up from just a smattering during the home-sales heyday of just a few years ago, he said.

Another 116 of the 276 sales were financed with conventional loans, and 47 — about 17 percent — were cash sales.

“Most buyers going into it have some nervous anticipation — ‘Can we even qualify?’” he said. “Part of my job is to help them address those fears, so they can qualify. Or maybe they should save for a couple of years so they can buy.”

That doesn’t mean financing is impossible to get.

“I have not had any problem getting financeable people financed,” Paine said. “The buyers have to be creditworthy and have the right downpayment. That’s how it should have been all the time.”

The greater Wenatchee market currently has about 400 homes priced in the $300,000 and below catetory — a good assortment, Cornell said.

Larger, luxury homes are sitting on the market longer, but do sell slowly both agents say.

“The ones that are still on the market were priced too high to begin with and are chasing the market down,” Paine said.

Buyers are demanding in this kind of market. Competition for sales can be fierce today, both agents say.

Successful sellers need to make sure their homes are clean, tidy and ready for market, inside and out.

“I tell people that if you’re not prepared to be the best property in the market in your price range and style, it’s gonna take you more time,” Cornell said. “Because number three won’t sell, and number two won’t sell.”

That could mean an investment in new paint or carpet, cleaning trash and clutter from the yard, making sure the house looks good from the street and looks and smells good inside.

“Adjust the price, or fix the property,” Cornell says.

Home ownership remains the goal, he says, despite the burst housing bubble and lending crash.

“People started thinking of a home as an investment, and you don’t live in an investment,” he said. “You live in a house. From a long-term standpoint, you will have appreciation... If you buy a house today at 4.5-percent interest, in four years, you’ll be glad you did.”