If the real estate market has hit bottom on the East coast, then there’s nowhere to go but up. The Wall Street Journal reports that cost-conscious buyers are not just surfacing in and around New York suburbs. They’re “storming” the market.

In Westchester County, the number of buyers in contract for homes has dramatically increased. Contracted houses priced under $500,000 at the close of 2011 went up by almost 40% from the same time in 2010. New Jersey shows a similar trend, where properties in contract priced under $400,000 rose by 11.3% from a year earlier. Some analysts believe the worst is over.

At least in regions of New York and New Jersey, houses on the market for close to or below $500,000 are doing better than those priced above that price point. Chris Meyers, chief operating officer of the largest residential brokerage in Westchester, says that history typically shows that “the strong markets get healthy from the bottom up.” For Claudia Ruggiero and her husband, who are both teachers in White Plains, NY, and commute at least 45 minutes one way to work, the market had shifted in their favor. They found a three-bedroom Dutch colonial for just the right price in Armonk, a neighborhood she couldn’t previously afford.