The problem with trying to time a market – for stocks, houses, or precious metals -- is that one never knows that the market has passed its low point until it is going up. The Flagstaff real estate market started to slow in the Fall of 2006 – about 9 months after we realized the Phoenix market has slowed. The Flagstaff market gradually slowed to a crawl, and then sometime later, prices fell. Bingo, houses began to sell. Whether or not Flagstaff home prices will fall further, or go up from here, is impossible to say for sure; however, with more houses selling, the pressure on prices has been relieved. The pressure on higher-end homes continues, but for homes priced under $450,000 the drop has probably hit bottom in my opinion. We are already seeing multiple offers in a short time after listing on homes that are well-prepared and well-priced. The real signal for the overall Flagstaff real estate market will come when we know that the Phoenix area market is on the way up again. (Here's a report on the current Phoenix real estate market.) Since Flagstaff’s decline lagged the Phoenix decline by about nine months, we can expect the Phoenix upturn to lead us by at least a few months. For a recent Op-Ed piece by a Wall Street hedge fund manager who agrees that the national real estate market has bottomed-out, click here. For an article explaining why aggregate indices reported in the media are often misleading, click here. | 
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