Housing Market Shows More Of A Pulse...

Valley's housing market shows more of a pulse, from the Arizona Republic, reports that according to some housing experts, the Valley's housing market is showing signs of a rebound. Home building permits across metro Phoenix climbed to a five-month high in January, according to local housing analyst RL Brown. The chart on his Phoenix Housing Market Letter is still "code red", but he is considering changing it to "yellow", signaling caution. Brown still estimates 12,000 to 14,000 spec homes Valley-wide, but builders are dropping prices and drawing buyers back to the fringe areas. There were almost 16,000 new listings for Valley homes in January, down a couple of hundred from December 2006. From national housing analyst Tim Sullivan's newsletter sent out Feb 22: "Many of our home-builder clients in the Southwest report a notable uptick in sales in the last four weeks. None of our clients are going so far to say that the market has been corrected, but the general sense in that the last month or so has been better that in any in the last six to eight months. Now if builders can continue to pay attention to sales prices, the market might find some equilibrium."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/0304biz-catherine0304.html