Housing starts may have slowed in October, but the news isn’t all bad on the housing market front. Indeed, existing home sales are heading higher, surging in October to levels not seen since February 2007 — before the mortgage market collapse began. CNN Money reports on existing home sales in October:

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales rose 10.1% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.1 million units, up from the downwardly revised rate of 5.54 million in September.

The sales beat forecasts of 5.7 million annual units, according to a consensus estimate of analysts compiled by Briefing.com, and were 23.5% above the 4.94 million-unit pace of 12 months ago.

Clearly, there are home buyers out there who are interested in finding great deals on distressed homes and homes in foreclosure. Additionally, these great deals receive even greater weight with the extension of the first time home buyer tax credit.