A report from the Arizona Daily Sun. "Laura Fenbert and her husband Richard bought a townhouse in Lower Greenlaw two years ago for $140,000 to help their daughter, an NAU sophomore at the time, escape dorm life. The couple also bought the home as an investment, hoping to save thousands in dorm fees as well as make a small profit. The couple came close to making that tidy profit last year, receiving unsolicited offers hovering around $260,000."

"This year, prospective homebuyers regularly tour the three-bedroom, two-bath townhouse but no one has made any offers in four months. The family has poured thousands of dollars into the home this year...to help attract buyers, Fenbert said."

"They have also cut their asking price from $249,000 to $244,000, but prospective buyers have slowed to a trickle as they try to compete with eight similar three-bed, two bath townhomes also for sale nearby."

"Most likely, those homebuyers touring the Fenbert home made offers on the condo-conversions in Flagstaff. The former apartment complexes flooded the market this year with hundreds of condos, tempting buyers with incentives. Totaling approximately 900 units, the projects are offering attractive incentives that the Fenbert family cannot hope to match."

"'The condo-conversions have cannibalized the townhome resale market,' said Realtor Stephen Brighton."

"As their daughter prepares to graduate in December, Fenbert says there is still some room to attract buyers. She says she could offer a serious buyer some incentives if it helped close the sale."

"The ups and downs in the sale of her home has also been a teachable moment, said Fenbert. 'My daughter has been given a wonderful learning experience about the housing market,' Fenbert said."

Newszap reports from Arizona. "Like the outside temperature, Surprise’s once red-hot housing market has started to cool."

"'In 2004 we saw an incredible amount of activity in the housing market. This phenomenon lasted for another 1 1/2 years to the end of 2005,' explained Associate Broker Rowdy Dawson. 'Unfortunately, we won’t see this again in our lifetime.'"

"Mr. Dawson said during this explosive time, out-of-state buyers saw an opportunity to buy inexpensive homes in the Northwest Valley while making a profit."

"'The housing industry at that time became a ball of fire that most thought would continue to burn,' Mr. Dawson added. 'As soon as a sign went up, the listing agent had 2-3 offers minimum. But now, the problem is the housing market is parallel to affordability of a client. Now the clients are not able to buy these homes because of the prices.'"

"According to the real estate broker, an 1,800-1,900-square-foot house in Surprise in early 2004 was closing at approximately $162,000. By the end of 2005, the same size home cost an average of $280,000."

"'That’s a 43 percent increase in less than two years,' Mr. Dawson said. 'Did your salary increase 43 percent in that time -- I know mine didn’t. That’s what is making the market so stagnant.'"

"There are approximately 2,200 single-family home listings now available in Surprise, up by approximately 200 over the previous month. Additionally, city data indicates at least 1,000 Surprise homes involved in foreclosure or pre-foreclosure actions."

The Arizona Republic. "Florida-based TOUSA Inc., the parent company of Arizona builder Engle Homes has hired a Wall Street firm for advice and stopped offering earnings guidance in response to worsening market conditions."

"Its Western operations accounted for the largest share of losses. For its second quarter ended June 30, TOUSA lost $132 million on a 10 percent drop in revenues to $577 million. Net home sales fell 15 percent year over year."

"Its operations in Arizona, Colorado and Nevada accounted for $47 million in red ink from continuing operations."

"Morningstar analyst Eric Landry indicated the lack of guidance signals management's inability to deliver on prior predictions of positive cash flow for the second half of 2007."

"'The fact that it's no longer confident of its cash-generation abilities indicates that a crucial element of its deleveraging strategy is probably now gone,' Landry wrote recently. 'It's likely TOUSA will now have to turn more heavily toward asset sales in an effort to stave off a restructuring, a strategy we think has little chance of success.'"

Reuters reports on Nevada. "Dana Fillmore was like many of the thousands arriving to the casino capital every month when she moved from Minnesota in 2004. With no money down, she landed a house with a pool for a $2,100 monthly mortgage."

"But her marriage collapsed soon after, and her husband, who works in real estate development, had trouble with support payments as his industry slumped, she said, so she is now trying to sell her house."

"Fillmore bought the place in Henderson next to Las Vegas for $329,000 in July 2005, around the peak of the boom. Since listing the house at $317,000 a few months ago, she has dropped the price to $289,000 and is still hoping for her luck to change as she cannot afford to pay the mortgage on an annual salary of $42,000."

"'It's always been a dream of a lot of people in the northern states to move to a southern state,' she said wistfully. 'I wish now that I never moved.'"

"'Say they paid half a million. They might be able to sell in the low $400,000s, maybe,' said Rita DeSimone, a broker working with Fillmore. DeSimone said her income is down by half from last year. 'Come May, the phone just stopped ringing,' she said."

"Joy Gillen has had her home on the market for nearly a year and a half. She initially listed the home at $597,000 then $539,900 and since refused to budge, even though she paid only $291,000 for it five years ago."

"'I never thought it would ever take so long to sell my house here -- the market was so hot,' she said. 'I could sell for a cheaper price, but I would shoot myself (financially).'"

"Thousands of signs in front of single- and two-story homes illustrate a glut of available properties, many of which are now vacant. Along one stretch of six homes on Edgeworth Place in south Las Vegas, four show 'for sale' signs."

"After more than half a year on the market, one house is in the process of being sold after the owner dropped the price from $324,000 to $250,000, broker Doug Helen said: 'They literally wanted to get rid of it.'"

From KLAS TV. "The prices of new and existing homes have been steadily dropping in Las Vegas since mid-2006 and likely will continue to plummet...according to several professional traders and national economists monitoring the valley's real estate market."

"Last month, the world's leading Century 21 realtor filed for bankruptcy in Las Vegas."

"Kelly Kuntz bought a real estate business last year as the housing market was starting to crash. He calls the situation dreadful. He says although he has plenty of work, he won't make any money this year. "

"'What happens is this doesn't become a slow market, I am swamped.' He is swamped with sellers, many of whom are desperate to sell."

"'They believe that through some miracle somebody is going to come to their home and the chances are very very remote,' Kuntz said."

The Pahrump Valley Times from Nevada. "Pahrump has been affected by the high rate of foreclosures and a slowdown in the real estate industry affecting the rest of the country, statistics show. Some of the figures weren't as alarming in Nye County, however."

"Andrew Alberti Jr., a local real estate broker helping people avoid foreclosure, said almost all of the property owners he's working with defaulted on loans taken out from 2003 to 2006. They got a good initial interest rate after signing the loan for a couple years before the adjustable interest rate began to rise."

"But he said in one case an individual bought vacant land in January and defaulted by March."

"'If your income dropped by 60 percent, how long would you be able to stay in the line of business you were in?' asked Norma Jean Opatik a realty agent...who represents the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors in Pahrump. 'The media drove this market to make it boom the way it did. Now I think it's the media once again doing it. If we could get those prognosticators to stop this doomsday thing the market would rebound much quicker than it's doing.'"

"Lenders are now questioning appraisers of property, Opatik said. 'Our appraisers know our market. Even the appraisers who come out from Las Vegas, they know our market, and yet they're questioned all the time, and that's totally beyond the scope of what a lender should be doing,' she said."

"'Now people can no longer afford the home because of the adjustment their loan took. Now again, that's the mortgage industry. When this boom happened they would lend to many people that probably shouldn't have been lent to. They call it creative financing,' she said."

"Opatik thinks investors will step in to scoop up the bargains. A home that may have been on the market for $300,000 to $350,000 might be selling for $250,000 to $280,000 now, she said."

The Salt Lake Tribune from Utah. "At first, it looked as though Utah's homebuilders would be able to avoid the sharp downturn in new-home construction that followed the nation's subprime-lending debacle."

"But by July, it became painfully apparent that even Utah's hot economy couldn't prevent residential construction along the Wasatch Front from plummeting to 10-year lows. Builders have been forced to make substantial layoffs and offer thousands of dollars in incentives."

"'This is going to be a tough year for builders,' said Jim Wood, director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research."

"By summer demand for new homes had dropped sharply, with homebuilding activity in August the worst in years."

"Lenders nationally and in Utah have imposed tighter lending standards in recent months that have made it more difficult for people to qualify for a home loan. And several years' worth of home-price increases from Ogden to Provo, in many cases vastly outpacing wage gains, have put homeownership out of the reach of many Utah families."

"Richmond American Homes has run ads touting free options and upgrades of as much as $35,000, and up to $3,500 in down-payment assistance. Not to mention the drawing for a really nice television."

"In September, Richmond American took out permits for the construction of only six homes locally, down from 90 in September 2006."

"Many builders, such as Utah's Hamlet Homes, say the slowdown came on rather suddenly, in July. 'Suddenly we hit this brick wall,' said David Irwin, VP of sales and marketing. 'Sales were down, traffic was down. The initial thought was that it was a temporary blip. But it continued, through August and September.'"