A report from the Arizona Republic. "Pat Thomas is a longtime West Valley Realtor. Question: What is your advice to current renters thinking about purchasing a property? Answer: 'It's a great time to buy because home prices are coming down and there are a lot of homes to choose from.'"

"Q: What is your best advice for potential clients looking to sell their properties right now? A: 'Since there is a record number of about 53,000 homes listed for sale on the Arizona MLS, and since only 10 percent of these properties are currently selling, my advice would be that if they do not have to sell their home right now, don't put it on the market.'"

"'But if they do have to sell, their house must be in 'parade-ready' condition. And it must be the most attractively priced property among comparable homes in the area. Plus, they need a Realtor who will pull out the stops when it comes to marketing their home...Otherwise, the chances of the home selling in this market are remote.'"

"Q: What housing/real estate trends do you foresee in 2007 for the West Valley? A: 'No one has a crystal ball...There's about a $40,000 gap Valleywide between the price of homes being listed and what they end up actually selling for. I believe this gap is going to have to narrow before sales pick up, which means that home prices will have to come down even more than they already have.'"

"In metro Phoenix, there are 52,000-plus listings. And that figure doesn't include the 10,000 to 20,000 spec homes sitting built and unsold. So the listing figure is lower than the actual supply of homes in the Valley."

"Valley home prices are down about 5 percent from a year ago. But some home builders are offering incentives of as much as $100,000 to sell spec homes."

"Sergio Arellanes and other undocumented immigrants spent the day contemplating their fate in Arizona after the governor signed a bill that could put companies out of businesses for hiring them."

"'A lot of people are planning to leave,' said Elias Bermudez, president of the group Immigrants Without Borders. 'A lot of businesses are in danger of shutting down.'"

"Many long-time illegal residents own their own homes. If they decide to sell and move on, their houses will add to the record 52,000 existing homes for sale Valley-wide."

"Based on a normal monthly resale pace of about 5,000, metro Phoenix now has 12-month supply of homes for sale. A healthy housing market has a four- to six-month supply."

"If even 1 percent of Arizona's undocumented workers owned homes and then tried to sell them, it would add at least another month to the housing market's oversupply of homes for sale and extend the slowdown by at least that much."

"Northeast Phoenix has some of the most expensive homes in town, with some regularly selling for more than $1 million."

"85028, from Dreamy Draw north to Cactus, and from Cave Creek west to Tatum. The number of sales in the area during the month of April - 40 - was equal to the previous year, and the median price was down to $333,000, compared with $377,000 a year ago."

"85254, from Shea north to Union Hills on the eastern side of Tatum. The number of sales during April was up, to 147 from 136, and the median price was down, to $420,000 from $455,000."

The Arizona Daily Star. "A program to step up enforcement on dangerous, dilapidated housing in unincorporated areas has been shut down indefinitely because there's not enough money to pay for it. Two years ago, the Pima County Board of Supervisors unanimously ordered the creation of a Distressed Properties Task Force that was supposed to develop an enforcement program and recommend changes to county law."

"The program never really got off the ground, apparently a victim of the slowdown in the housing market. Stepped-up enforcement was supposed to be paid for with building-permit fees, which have fallen off precipitously."