Back to Arizona, this time in the East Valley. "(Realtor) Trent Powell is stuck among a for sale sign, an unrealistic seller and a leery buyer. In the lucrative game of home sales, he is checkmated in East Valley real estate. What a difference six months makes."

"While the market clearly cooled with the weather, it has done nothing to change the perception that home prices are still soaring through the the roof and into outer space. Sellers still want top dollar, so houses are staying on the market longer."

"'This has got to change. Otherwise the market is never going to change,' says Powell. 'You can’t just put a sign in front and sell your home. It’s not like that now. Buyers are gone, investors are gone. It’s just normal people in Arizona buying homes.'"

"The bubble is gnawing at affordability. 'It would be hard from an economic standpoint to sustain the kinds of growth rates we’ve seen for the last year and a half given our income levels,' Jay Butler said."

"The softening in sales is classic economics at work, said R.L. Brown. 'Nothing changed except prices reached a point beyond where consumers are willing to pay it,' he said. 'Those that have to sell will become more and more realistic about their prices. At a point in time when they have reached market reality, their properties will sell. Until they do, they won’t sell.'"

"The growth in the median home prices, especially in previously owned homes, has disappeared, Butler said. 'We’ve been running pretty close to $260,000 for several months now,' he said. 'It peaked at $263,000 in September and was $257,000 in January.' Sales activity has also slowed for the last several months. The high was 10,700 homes sold in Maricopa County in August, Butler said. The number was down to 5,260 in January. To make matters worse, more houses than normal hit the market in the new year."

"Brown said it will be anywhere from hours to days, weeks, months before some sellers realize that they’re not in tune with the consumers. 'Those sellers that have no real reason to move, no real reason to sell, they’re just trying to cash in and make a profit..will probably try to hold their prices,' he said. 'That’s a common thing that occurs in a real estate market, especially a market that has seen rising prices over a period of time. The seller will list his house at an unrealistic price and say ‘Well, when the market gets there, then I’ll sell it.’ We’ve got that going on right now.'"

"That’s one of the reasons why Powell is frustrated. Just like last year, sellers wanting to cash out are listing their homes for higher prices than comparable homes on their blocks. He tells them what an appraiser would give them before suggesting a sales price. 'Most of the people say ‘No, we want to start here,' he says.'They’re starting $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000 above.' In a month or two, they want to know why their home hasn’t sold. When Powell reminds them the price is too high, there’s resistance."

"The market will force a new way of thinking in the industry, Brown said. 'It’s been a seller’s market for so long, you could say there’s 20,000 new real estate agents who have never been involved in a buyer’s market,' he said. 'Those folks could think that real estate in general is always a seller’s market, the seller calls the shots. Well, the reality is most of the time the real estate is indeed a buyer’s market or certainly the optimal market is a balanced market between buyer and seller, but it’s incumbent on the seller to come to the balance point.'"

"Houses under construction will likely become available at a discount because buyers who haven’t closed yet will back out of contracts because they can’t sell their current homes, Brown said. Builders began softening price increases using discounts and incentives in May when buyers began to resist prices, Brown said."

"'There are buyers out there,' Butler said. 'The concern is you get the hypernegative market where you start suddenly seeing sales going down, more and more signs in the neighborhood, People sort of push the quasipanic button, then you can have some serious issues.'"