May 28, 2009 Obama paints rosy economic picture Play video

(NECN/ABC) - On the day his $787 billion stimulus plan turned 100 days old, President Obama detailed a positive economic outlook before a group of major donors in Beverly Hills, California.

"When you look at the economy right now I think it's safe to say that we have stepped back from the brink, that there is some calm that didn't exist before," Mr. Obama said.

Earlier in the day, the president was at a solar-energy installation in Nevada, touting sustained economic growth through investments in alternative energy.

"We can't return to a bubble-and-bust, borrow-and-spend economy based on maxed-out credit cards, over-leveraged banks, and financial profits that were only real on paper," President Obama said.

There are some hard numbers to back up the president's claim that things are finally turning around. Sales of existing homes rose by 2.9 percent in April, led by first-time buyers.

"People are coming out because they feel they can get a good deal for the first time in quite a long time," real estate agent Phil Faranda said.

There is no secret behind the trend: lower prices combined with lower interest rates.

"After about six or seven years where home prices weren't affordable for most people unless they took out a risky mortgage, now they are," Thomas Lawler of Lawler Economic and Housing Consulting said.

Realtors estimate homes in foreclosure accounted for a whopping 45-percent of sales in April.

ABC's