A report from the Arizona Republic. "A family of four would fit easily into the 2,800 square-foot house near Chandler's Sanborn Elementary School, but the owner and Phoenix real estate investor Jessie Ogle hasn't received any acceptable offers on the $425,000 house. Despite its appeal, leasing the two-story house hasn't worked. Ogle had two tenants and tried seeking a third, but it sat empty for months. No one wanted to pay $2,000 a month in rent."

"The expense of maintaining the house, yard and pool is too much. In Ogle's mind, the 10-year-old home is no longer an investment but a money vacuum. A young arsonist's visit in May burned a bigger hole in his pocket, costing him hundreds of dollars."

"'For me, it's been enough of a nightmare,' said Ogle, who put the house back on the market in June. Now, almost four months later 'I'm looking for somebody who has something I'd rather have.'"

"That's right. Ogle says he is willing to swap, even if it means getting a house that's worth less than his and needs fixing up, as long as it's in a good rental location."

"Donna Parnham and her husband are having trouble selling their house, which spans 3,390 square feet, about 2 miles southeast of Gilbert."

"All that space has overwhelmed the Parnhams, who are looking for a smaller house in the same vicinity. They had hoped to sell theirs for $529,000 when they first listed it in May, but there were no takers."

"They've installed new stainless steel appliances, have a tile floo, sculptured carpeting, a courtyard and Tuscan lighting in the foyer. The couple also dropped the price to $458,000. Still nothing."

"'The market is so slow. Even as Realtors, we can't even get our house sold,' Parnham said. 'We decided we would try to be a buyer for a smaller home who wants to jump up to a newer home.'"

"The Parnhams turned to craigslist.com to make their match. A look at the site's house swap listings shows Phoenix has plenty of pitches."

"Real estate broker Jason Roggensee at Gilbert's Property Sales and Management is leery of swaps. The situation is complicated when an owner or both owners have mortgages, a common situation. 'Unless you pay it off, there's really no way around it,' he said. 'I don't see any real legal way to make it happen.'"

"Home building permits across metropolitan Phoenix fell to a 14 1/2-year-low to 1,309 in September, according to RL Brown's latest Phoenix Housing Market Letter. New home construction figures for the Valley haven't been this low since February 1993."

"Valley builders also are dropping prices in many subdivions, which is helping new-home sales. Price decreases are replacing hefty incentives on many new home models."

The East Valley Tribune from Arizona. "Some 2,991 new homes were sold in September, a 34.18 percent drop from the same month last year, according to Brown. Year-to-date, 28,666 sales have been recorded, compared with 37,128 last year."

"Area builders are also finding success in selling their homes by dropping prices. D.R. Horton was one of the first to seriously reprice their products, he said."

"'This last month, we saw pretty much even the laggards get on the wagon,' he said. 'I think that’s encouraging. It’s obvious that the pricing surge of 2005 was not sustainable.'"

"The larger the incentives and price reductions, however, the more builders can weaken the existing home market because regular home owners aren’t able to compete, he said. And that can end up hurting builders in the long run because a potential new home buyer can’t make the deal if he can’t sell his current home, said John Fioramonti, at Meyers Builder Advisors in Scottsdale."

The Wall Street Journal on Arizona. "Some forecasters now warn that home prices are unlikely to start rising in most of the country before 2009 or 2010. A year ago, many home builders and lenders still thought that the housing boom would end with a gentle landing. Now those hopes are dead."

"'Everybody's kind of at a stalemate now, waiting to see what happens next,'" says Donna Butera, who has a business in Phoenix 'staging' homes for sale."

"Ms. Butera and her husband are trying to sell six homes in Phoenix and Scottsdale. They bought the properties as investments over the past few years, but now find that the rents they collect don't cover mortgage payments that are resetting to higher levels after initial low-cost periods of a year or two."

The Review Journal from Nevada. "Home sales continued to plummet in September to their lowest levels in years, and median prices for both new and existing homes edged downward from a year ago, Las Vegas housing analysts reported Tuesday."

"'Our September numbers are in and they're not pretty,' Home Builders Research President Dennis Smith said."

"He counted 1,399 new home sales, the lowest monthly total since January 2000. The year-to-date total of 15,475 is down 44.3 percent from a year ago. Larry Murphy of SalesTraq showed 1,328 new home closings during the month, a 52 percent decline from the same month a year ago."

"Existing home sales were down 50 percent to 1,466 in September and existing median home prices declined 8.9 percent to $263,075."

"Murphy said his minister on Sunday invited real estate agents, mortgage brokers, residential construction workers and anyone else affected by the housing downturn to a night of free hamburgers at the church."

"'That's the perception of the public, and perception is reality,' Murphy said."

"Home builders are offering substantial incentives ranging from bonus commissions for Realtors to $50,000 to $100,000 in free upgrades and custom options, he said."

"A number of builders have slashed prices. Lennar Homes dropped prices by 25 percent in about 30 new home subdivisions and Pulte was advertising a 15 percent cut in prices over the weekend."

"Tom McCormick, president of Las Vegas-based Astoria Homes, said he sold 30 new homes during the weekend of Oct. 12-14 after discounting prices by 10 percent to 27 percent in eight neighborhoods." "The effects of these price reductions will be reflected in the coming months, Murphy said."

"'We have not yet reached the bottom of this market in either new homes or existing homes,' he said. 'The short-term outlook for this market is not good. It will take another 12 to 18 months before we will see any significant improvement, in my opinion.'"

"He noted that the resale inventory is at an all-time high of 27,000 homes and nearly half of them are sitting vacant. Looking at the dismal 1,065 closings on the MLS, Murphy calculates an inventory of nearly two years."

"Foreclosures are four times higher this year compared with 2006. As the banks take back these properties, they will be added to the already swelling inventory."

"Rick Waltjen is one of those buyers who's waiting for the housing market to bottom out. He's been watching it closely for two years, specifically inventory levels that have risen almost weekly for the past six months."

"'There is absolutely no sign of the market bottoming out yet,' Waltjen said. 'Everyday there are more price reductions. The inventory continues to climb.'"

"'I think that a key piece that people conveniently ignore when telling us that we are at the bottom or close to it is that we have never been in a market where 40 percent of the homes are vacant,' said broker Bob Reeve. 'Just drive around. Why would any buyer buy a boarded-up mess with a dead yard?'"

"The experts talk about burning off the oversupply of resale inventory, but a huge portion of that vacant inventory is going to be permanent, Reeve said."

"The so-called 'short sale' of a home can be a viable alternative to foreclosure and will become more prevalent as millions of adjustable-rate mortgages reset over the next 18 months, real estate industry observers say."

"Arthur Marvin, broker in Las Vegas and class instructor on foreclosures, said there are 3,350 homes listed as short sales in Las Vegas, more than double the number from four months ago, and 1,450 of them are vacant. That's a good indicator that many of the short sales are investor-owned, Marvin said."

"'That's a lot of homes that are short sales and every one of them is overencumbered,' he said. 'It's grown exponentially since last year and it's going to keep on going. Just a reminder; there is an epidemic going on in Las Vegas and they're called foreclosures. Foreclosures are causing another epidemic called short sales.'"

"'What they want upfront is a hardship letter from the seller, a contract between the buyer and seller and an estimated settlement statement,' said Realtor Robin Camacho. 'They may counteroffer and you continue to negotiate. They're a lot more negotiable than they were six weeks ago.'"

"She has five short-sale listings, including one in the Sunrise Mountain area of east Las Vegas that's in escrow for $182,000. It was purchased for $200,000 two years ago and refinanced for about $232,000. She's waiting for a response from the lender."

"Camacho said she's also waiting to hear if an offer will be accepted for a short sale on a 6,600-square-foot 'fixer upper' home that will probably sell for 60 percent less than a similar home across the street."

The Deseret News from Utah. "The number of homes with lingering 'For Sale' signs in Salt Lake City's Avenues neighborhood mirrors the situation in many areas along the Wasatch Front and nationwide, and while homes are still finding buyers, some sellers are having to adjust their expectations on price."

"'There are more homes available. Therefore, buyers are able to be a little more choosy,' Gary Johnson with ReMax Associates."

"Johnson said some homes may be sitting longer because they are not being priced competitively, as sellers attempt to get higher prices based on those obtained during the boom period rather than what is realistic in the current market."

"Kevin Blalock put his 3,100-square-foot, recently renovated home in the Avenues on the market about two weeks ago and) is optimistic. After looking at comparable properties in his neighborhood, he said he believes his asking price of $721,000 is reasonable for the current market."

"'I think Utah's economy — and Salt Lake especially — is incredibly strong,' Blalock said. 'Our house is priced right for area and the newness of it.'"

"According to a report this month from the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, the number of homes sold in the third quarter of 2007 in Salt Lake and Utah counties was down almost 34 percent compared to the same period last year."

"Along the Wasatch Front, housing prices have remained fairly steady over the past several months, although the selling prices of homes in the Avenues dropped nearly 14 percent."

"Blalock acknowledged that he put his home on the market at 'the dead wrong time of the year,' and although he said he is not pressed to sell, he hopes to find a buyer by early December. If not, he would be willing to take it off the market and then try again to sell it sometime next spring, or maybe not sell at all."

"'We've priced (our house) at what we believe is fair market value for what you get,' he said, and whether he is right or not is up to the market to decide."