Phoenix Business Journal - by Chris Casacchia

Metro Phoenix home prices dropped more than 20 percent in June from a year ago, marking the 16th consecutive monthly dip, one month shy of the record drought during the early 1990s real estate recession.

The average home price declined by 22.8 percent from June 2007 to June 2008 -- the fourth month in a row of double-digit declines, according to the Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index.

While the year-over-year percentage drop was steep in June, the rate of decline has slowed for the second straight month, possibly indicating that prices are leveling out, but not necessarily hitting bottom, experts say.

"The slowing in the rate of decline, if it holds in future months, is a good sign," said Karl Guntermann, a real estate professor at ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business.

The biggest year-over-year drop was recorded in Peoria at 28.1 percent. The smallest decline was 14 percent in the Scottsdale/Paradise Valley area.

The ASU-RSI is based on repeat sales, which compare the prices of a single house against itself at different points in time, instead of comparing different homes with different quality factors.

The Phoenix housing market, much like other cities in the West, has been decimated by plummeting home values, record foreclosures and mortgage woes. Many experts now believe that, by in large, the national housing crisis has subsided, and moved to a regional problem hampering Arizona, California, Nevada and Florida.

Source: http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2008/09/08/daily50.html?b=1220846400^1698141