A report from the Arizona Republic. "Three opportunistic home builders are jumping into metro Phoenix's new-home market, undeterred by the glut of unsold houses and high prices left over from the housing boom. Housing analysts say there is a risk in moving into a home-building market that is trying to get back on its feet after the excesses of a boom. An estimated 10,000 spec homes are on the market here. That is in addition to the more than 45,000 existing homes for sale."

The East Valley Tribune from Arizona. "With home sales still languishing, Valley developers are holding off on building thousands of houses, focusing instead on purging excess inventory and reevaluating the market."

"Plans for an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 homes have either been postponed or scrapped, and that’s a conservative estimate, said John Fioramonti with research firm Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. 'Most of these people have already written off 2007,' and are waiting to see what will happen in 2008, he said."

"Scottsdale-based Montalbano Homes decided to delay an 1,800-home development in the Queen Creek area until mid-2008. Montalbano already has a Queen Creek project called Estates at Skyline Ranch. That development still has 14 completed but unsold, or speculative, homes to offload."

"Starting another project in the same area would have the company competing with itself, risking price erosion, he said."

"Some builders are sitting on land they’ve already bought...others are walking away from options to buy properties. It’s happening mainly in outlying areas, such as Maricopa, Coolidge and the far West Valley, Fioramonti said."

"For national, publicly traded companies, holding onto properties that aren’t producing income can negatively impact financial statements for stockholders, he said. That’s been made worse by recent sales figures that have fallen far below projections, he said."

"'They’d rather lose the $150,000 or $200,000 they had in options rather than carry a larger inventory,' Fioramonti said. 'That’s been happening across the country.'"

"Meanwhile, some builders are moving forward with projects. Canada-based Mattamy Homes is about to break ground on two subdivisions, totalling nearly 250 homes, in the Queen Creek area as part of its expansion into Arizona."

"'There’s still demand for new homes at the right price and the right program,' said Mark McHone, president of the company’s Phoenix division."

The Verde Independent from Arizona. "The Arizona Governor's Housing Forum in last September showed that 'from 2000 to 2006, the median sales price of homes in Arizona increased by 74 percent, but during the same period median family income only increased by 15 percent.'"

"We have seen an even more dramatic trend in the Verde Valley with 128 percent increases in housing costs over five years in Camp Verde where the median price of a home is $289,000."

"With the failure of the sub-prime lending market after the bizarre lending frenzy of 2005, many homeowners, who received 100 percent loans, have been forced from those homes. Dan Mabery of Coldwell Banker says the foreclosures in the Verde Valley currently number one or two each week."

"'That is 10 times the average rate. Lenders got easy with money. Some people should not have had loans. They had adjustable rate mortgages or paid too much,' he said."

"He says the Cottonwood area already has one of the largest numbers of single family homes used as rental properties at 40 percent. Those numbers could be subject to change as well for the same reason: high purchase cost and evasive financing. In his newsletter, Mabery points out it is 'near impossible to cash flow a residential rental that justifies the purchase price.'"

"Right now the real estate market has a glut of properties, 'it's very high, with 10 months of inventory,' says Mabery. For Sedona the number is even higher."

The Salt Lake Tribune from Utah. "In the midst of tightening lending standards, borrowers with low credit scores probably will struggle to get a good deal. 'We are seeing a huge shift going on right now,' said Evan Jones of GMAC Mortgage in Salt Lake City."

"Just two weeks ago, Jones said, he could have provided a home equity loan to a borrower with a credit score of at least 580. Today the minimum is 620 to 680, depending on a borrower's circumstances."

"He said loans in which 100 percent of the purchase price can be financed are available generally only to people with credit scores of 680 and higher. 'Before, we could offer this to borrowers with a credit score as low as 560 to 580,' he said."

"For William and Ronda Starks of Syracuse, the recent turmoil in the nation's mortgage industry helped turn the process of refinancing their home into a financial nightmare. It's an ordeal that resulted in a two-day hospital stay for Ronda, whose high blood pressure and heart problems make her especially susceptible to any type of stress."

"'You can't imagine what it was like to go through something like this unless you go through it yourself,' her husband said."

"An estimated one in 10 home loans, about 52,000 mortgages in Utah, is considered subprime. About one in five new home loans being granted in Utah fall into the subprime category."

"William Starks said he and his wife decided to refinance because they needed to cash out on some of their equity. The whole process was supposed to take only a couple of weeks and provide them with a new fixed-rate loan with a higher balance in the low 6 percent range."

"But two weeks into the process, the Starkses began to watch helplessly as things went horribly wrong. The loan that appeared to be a certainty in January a month later had still not closed and no longer seemed to be a done deal. By March, they were getting desperate."

"'The rate kept going higher and higher,' William Starks said. 'We kept thinking, 'What the heck is going on?' It's not supposed to work this way.'"

"At one point, their mortgage lender said the best he could do was 9 percent, although by mid-March they were able to close their loan at 7 1/4 percent. And that fixed-rate loan they had hoped to get? All they could qualify for was an adjustable-rate loan that remains fixed for only two years. After that, their mortgage rate, and payment, could balloon."

"Undoubtedly, some buyers in Utah will watch their ability to buy or refinance shrink or disappear, and some sellers will be affected. Alan Brymer, of Provo, said he experienced this while recently trying to sell an investment property in another state to a borrower who fell into the subprime category."

"'The lending standards kept changing, and eventually they didn't qualify anymore,' he said. 'I think lenders are overanalyzing things to the point of being ridiculous.'"

"He eventually found another buyer who did qualify, but only after a frustrating delay of several months."

"Al Bingham, a senior loan officer for National City Mortgage in Salt Lake City, said if the secondary market will not accept a loan made to a certain borrower, in most cases it can't be made."

"'Credit scores are so critical right now that every point matters,' he said. 'Even if you are one point off [from a minimum], there are no exceptions.'"