Construction has been one of the hardest hit sectors in the economic downturn, but there are signs that the beleaguered industry is clawing its way back to health.

Kern County had 3,000 more construction jobs in May of this year than it did the same month last year, according to California Employment Development Department figures released Friday.

Leaders of state and local Realtor organizations joined Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green on Tuesday to offer advice for avoiding home loan modification fraud and announce the formation of a new mortgage fraud task force.

The effort is part of an initiative the California Association of Realtors has launched to replicate statewide a program begun about six years ago by the Ventura County Coastal Association of Realtors.

The median sale price of an existing single-family home in the Bakersfield area in May was $137,000, down 5.6 percent from April but up 1.4 percent from May 2011.

That's according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly guage of the local housing market prepared by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.

The foreclosure rate in the Bakersfield-Delano area was 3.02 percent in March, down slightly from 3.82 percent a year earlier and lower than the national foreclosure rate of 3.41 percent, according to newly released figures from real estate data firm CoreLogic.

The report counted properties in any stage of the foreclosure process.

The median sale price of an existing single family home in the Bakersfield area rose to $145,000 in April, a 9.5 percent increase from March and up 14.3 percent from a year ago.

That's according to The Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly gauge of the local housing market produced by Gary Crabtree of Affiliated Appraisers.

Home shopper Dian Schneider was four houses in on a whirlwind tour of local homes for sale Friday when her real estate agent issued her a warning.

"Now if you like this one you'll need to move today because there are already two offers on it, and they're both above list price," said Anna Hernandez of McKinzie Nielsen Real Estate. "They're not crazy high, but you'll have to go in high, too, if you're serious about it."

Lori Blattenberg didn't expect to find herself looking for an apartment on her own again.

But because she and her husband are separating, she was at a downtown property management office Friday morning, looking through the listings.

Homeowners in the northwest Bakersfield subdivision of North Pointe have resorted to erecting signs on their lawns to protest what they say is a change in neighborhood building standards that allegedly are lowering the value of their houses.

When Jennifer Yester bought her four-bedroom, three-bathroom house in North Pointe, the sales agent assured her the community would be upscale.

As investors in and outside Kern County continue to scoop up foreclosed houses at deep discounts, some worry that a decline in owner-occupied homes is changing the character of the region's neighborhoods.

Although there appear to be more owner-occupied homes in the county than in 2000, the percentage of home ownership is dropping.

Proving once more that the Bakersfield housing market is anything but predictable, home prices in the Bakersfield area fell last month even as supply contracted and demand surged.

The price of an existing single-family home in the Bakersfield area was $119,975 in February, according to the Preliminary Crabtree Report, a monthly guage of the local real estate market produced by Affiliated Appraisers. That's down 7.7 percent from January and down 4 percent from a year earlier.