The July numbers are out for Arizona. "By now it's obvious the traditional surge of home sales in the summer isn't happening this year. Actually, it's worse than that. The latest numbers on housing resales Arizona State University show that sales of single-family homes throughout the Phoenix area in July were the weakest since July 1999."

"Broker Barry Kramer said the market is still correcting itself after last year's investor-driven wild ride. 'When the dust settles and after people take a deep breath, they will lose some appreciation. But we will still be better off than when we started,' he said. 'You have to realize that what goes up had to go down. We are in one of those cycles.'"

"The Southeast Valley has almost 17,000 homes on the market, according to the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service, and Realtors believe that is a record."

"Jay Butler, director of the real estate center, had been predicting several months ago that homes should start selling better in June and July but said now he can't predict when things will get normal. 'Now there is nothing hot and heavy except gas prices and your blood pressure,' he said. 'It's one negative thing after another. There is no real positive thing you can hang your hat on.'"

"Sellers are afraid they will sell their homes for too little, and buyers are afraid they will pay too much, he said. 'People just aren't as confident as they were. They don't want to stretch themselves,' Butler said."

"'We’re now beginning to see some drifting down of the median home prices not only at the county level but in some of the various localities, which..a lot of people have been waiting for,' said Butler."

"Median prices fell in July compared to June in every East Valley city tracked by the center except Mesa, where home sellers happily saw the median increase $2,300 to $249,900. The median price fell $60,000 in Scottsdale, $12,500 in Tempe, $5,500 in Chandler, $5,000 in Gilbert and $2,000 in Phoenix."

"There’s nothing unusual about Mesa compared with other cities, said (broker) Jan Montgomery. 'It could be distorted if there was a larger number of more expensive homes selling than the smaller homes,' she said. 'Affordable housing is a problem I know, and I can’t think of any reason that would happen (higher median price). I don’t know of any Realtors out there that are selling so great the values are going to go up.'"

"During the summer each year, the center sends people out to take a statistical sample of the number of vacant homes in Maricopa County. Based on that survey, the center reported a vacancy rate of 3 percent, or 30,200 single-family homes. Last year it was 2 percent, or 19,400 homes."