Colorado's college towns braved the nation's real estate collapse relatively well. Home values hung tough and didn't experience the dramatic drops that many of the nation's other locales did. It was the number of home sales that took a dive. But now even that's beginning to improve.

There were 752 houses sold in Boulder between Nov. 1, 2011, and Oct. 31, 2012 — a 23 percent increase compared to the same period the year prior, according to a report the Boulder Area Realtor Association released Wednesday. Homes in Boulder have sat on the market for an average of 75 days over the last year compared to an average of 91 days the year before.