Phoenix home market showing signs of stability

Phoenix Business Journal The single-family home market is showing signs stabilization, but the condo and townhouse markets continues their death spiral. That’s the latest assessment by Arizona State University professor Karl Guntermann, who pens the monthly ASU-Repeat Sales Index. Prices of single-family homes have declined as compared with a year ago, but the percentage of decline has been less severe for the past five months. Meanwhile, prices appear to be tanking again in the attached housing market, where median prices were $99,000 in August and are expected to be $90,000 in October. “After several months of relative stability in townhouse/condo median prices, the October decline is not a good sign,” Guntermann said. Median prices for single-family homes declined by 20 percent from October 2008 to October 2009. The drop was 23 percent in September, 25 percent in August, 28 percent in July and 31 percent in June. “Since the most rapid declines back in February and March, the index has been declining at a slower rate each month,” said Guntermann, Fred E. Taylor Professor of Real Estate at the W.P. Carey School of Business. “The local housing market is regaining some measure of stability.”

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