The Arizona Republic reports on the Phoenix housing bubble. "Listings are up and houses are taking more time to sell as buyers regain the upper hand in the Valley's volatile resale market. Andre and Petrusia Bilyk are what's known in the housing market as motivated sellers.They put up their northeast Valley house for sale in November, hoping it would move quickly."

"But the couple got caught in the abrupt market swing that has drastically increased the number of houses for sale in metropolitan Phoenix. They've reduced the price twice; it now stands at $449,000, yet there were no takers. So they resorted to an old home-selling trick that's supposed to bring luck, burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down by the For Sale sign in their yard."

"'The four of us, we held hands, and my wife said a prayer to St. Joseph to put us in escrow,' Andre Bilyk said. 'We were having an open house the next day. You gotta do what you gotta do.'"

"Some homeowners who never considered selling couldn't pass up the opportunity to try to cash in at prices that are still near the market top. 'It's shifting to a buyers' market,' said Bob Rucker, head of the MLS. 'We are returning to a more normal market than we have had over the past year or so.'"

"The pressure is on real estate agents and sellers to get creative or cut prices to make their listings stand out in the growing crowd. 'The buyers are saying, 'Show me 10 more houses. They know there is a lot of inventory,' said Brett Barry, an agent who's listing the Bilyk house. 'If it doesn't pick up, sellers might have to mark down homes more than they expected to get the attention of the few buyers that are out there. The market moved 50 percent in one year. This could be the morning after.'"

"Jay Butler at Arizona State University, noted in a recent study that Valley resale homes have not been so difficult to afford since 1990. Incomes could hardly keep pace with price increases, and Butler said it could get worse. 'People reach a point where they say, 'I can't afford this,' Butler said. 'If prices and rates move up, we're in deep trouble.'"

"How quickly has the market changed? Bill Ryan, an agent in the East Valley, said that it June, he couldn't keep two or three active listings. Now, he has 35. 'Investors have basically gone away,' he said. 'Prices are so high, they can't make them economically pencil. They were about 30 percent of market early in '05. Take away 30 percent of the market and that's a big hit.'"

"The Bilyks say they won't panic and sell out at a bargain-basement price. They expect the market to perk up, and they won't move to the new house until the old one sells. 'I'm sitting on a lot of equity in this house,' Andre Bilyk said."