Badly burdened with foreclosures and overbuilding, the metro Atlanta housing market has slowly and painfully started crawling out of the ditch, according to a real estate data firm.

Yet the gap between top and bottom is huge: Values in some areas are appreciating nicely, some are still in free fall.

Seattle-based Zillow tabulates sales data but also makes calculations based on homes that have not been on the market. But the firm’s conclusions for Atlanta are consistent with the much-watched Case-Shiller index , which tracks sales and has shown several months of modestly rising prices in Atlanta.

Full story is available on Atlanta Journal Constitution