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Call it a bump, a blip or a trend, but less than a week after President Barack Obama signed an economic stimulus package that included a tax credit for first-time home buyers, there was movement in Greater Des Moines real estate.

During their regular, kick-off-the-week meeting Feb. 23, agents at Iowa Realty Inc. reported a “marked increase” in real estate closings, spokesman Brennan Buckley said.

“There is no question, and we can compare it with anecdotal evidence, that we’ve got a lot of agents who are working with first-time home buyers,” Buckley said.

Though the final numbers were not yet available to Buckley, he said Iowa Realty had its busiest weekend of 2009 leading into that agents’ meeting.

“It was easily the biggest weekend we’ve had all year,” he said. “It was a pretty big jump. We feel confident in saying the first-time home buyer tax credit definitely played a part in that.”

The $8,000 tax credit is just that; it is not a no-interest loan packaged as a tax credit as had been presented in preliminary stimulus proposals.

“It can amount to a 10 percent discount off the price of a home,” Buckley said.

Kurt Schade, president of the Des Moines Area Association of Realtors, said a combination of “compelling pricing” and talk of a tax credit followed by passage of the legislation has stirred interest in the residential market.

Sales figures through Feb. 25 showed 167 closings at an average price of $126,380, pending sales of 65 homes in the $250,000 and below price range and 10 pending sales in the $250,000 and above range.

Those numbers could lag by two weeks the actual sales for the month, which will be tallied after the first week of March.

Final numbers for January showed 508 contracts were written and 331 deals were closed at an average price of $147,951.

Schade, who is an agent with Coldwell Banker Mid-America Group Realtors, said all of the offers turned in at his company’s sales meeting last week were from first-time buyers.

Price cuts are motivating buyers, too, he said. Schade recently sold a brownstone in West Des Moines after Hubbell Realty Co. dropped the price about $15,000.

“The price is what compelled my buyers,” Schade said.

Rather than price homes competitively, companies are dropping prices to a point that is difficult for buyers to ignore.

“Before the price drop, there were no sales; now we’re getting great sales,” Schade said.