A pair of reports from the East Valley Tribune in Arizona. "Home buyers have the upper hand in the Valley’s real estate market for the first time since the record run-up in prices began two years ago, but industry-watchers say most are waiting to see when values will bottom out."

"'There’s a lot of negative information coming at them about the bubble bursting and the market falling,' said Jan Montgomery, a realtor in Mesa. 'Everything is all negative and they’re taking that on themselves, thinking 'Maybe I shouldn’t do anything. I should just wait until it settles.'"

"The number of realty signs that continue to linger in neighborhoods shows the market is in transition. In the past few months, home builders are finally beginning to respond by lowering prices to get rid of inventory. Some sellers are finally starting to realize their asking prices are too high and are cutting them."

"The numbers show buyers are indeed in the driver’s seat. 'If you define a buyer’s market where there’s a lot of available inventory, this would be a buyer’s market,' said Bob Rucker, CEO of Arizona Regional MLS. 'We have 45,000 active listings now.' Rucker’s data also shows prices are declining."

"Most builders are doing whatever it takes to discount inventory left over when buyers cancelled as the the market began to cool and moving up to a larger home was no longer an option. In many cases, the opposite reaction is happening on the existing home market, said Valley housing analyst RL Brown."

"'The opposite thing is happening because the sellers are not organized and the sellers..have a basic distrust of their realtor in the sense the seller says 'That guy is just telling me I need to lower my price because he wants an easy sale.' Even though he’s hired this professional to market his house, he’s not following the professional’s advice. At the same time, you’ve got some of those professionals that are afraid, just plain afraid, to tell a seller the real story about the value of his house today.'"

"'Some of them are in denial because they’ve refinanced..they took out equity loans and bought the boat, the cabin, the new car for the wife and now they’re basically upside down,' Brown said. 'Those guys can’t sell now. The best advice you can give to the seller of a resale home is now is the worst time you could sell unless you have to.'"

"Those that can stand pat are better off waiting until a price floor is reached, he said. 'I don’t think we’re there yet in the resale market,' Brown said. 'We’ve got a lot of overpriced properties out there.'"

"Dawn McLaren, research economist at Arizona State University, says creeping interest rates won’t cool home sales."

"'It’s not going to stifle sales as much as it’s going to cause people with these creative financial instruments to either go bankrupt or foreclose,' she said. 'We’re already seeing an increase in foreclosures and an increase in bankruptcies. People with no money down, people who bought as investments who aren’t living in the house who at a certain point may say I’m just going to walk away from this. And just like back in the 1980s, it’s the banks that end up having to deal with these creative financial instruments and the losses from them.'"

"In the hot and heavy real estate run-up, many buyers weren’t thinking, McLaren said. 'They thought the house value was going to take care of whatever interest they paid so they didn’t think about it. So now it’s time to pay the piper,' she said."