The median price for resale homes in the Phoenix area has been edging up for several months. Does this signal that the market is approaching normalcy?

There's little margin for error when you're in the business of selling electrons. After all, if an electron traveled around the world instead of bouncing around the nucleus of an atom, it would circle the earth some 8.3 times in one second.

A cynic might say that information systems consultants shortchange their clients. They can, for example, promise more than they deliver. Or they can tarry and delay. Or they might ask, on the back end, to bill for "unanticipated" work.

High foreclosure rates and negative equity continue to haunt real estate markets across the nation. In fact, a new report states that about 20 percent of mortgages nationally are under water.

Before a bank offers you a mortgage re-fi, or a credit card company dangles a low interest rate before your eyes, some information-systems worker has probably pegged you as a promising prospect. He most likely used predictive modeling to do it, and it wasn't a quick, easy task.

It's not unusual for the real estate market to slide into the doldrums in the fall and winter, but the Phoenix market was all but becalmed in November.

At first glance, the drop in year-over-year Phoenix housing prices recorded in the October Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI) could appear to be unmitigated bad news: this means prices compared to a year ago dropped for the third consecutive month.

Arizona's economic recovery will continue to move at a glacial speed in 2011 — but at least it's moving. The coming new year will see an increase in job creation, a rise in population and even a modest increase in single-family home permits.

After the turkey trimmings are stowed in the fridge, some 138 million shoppers are expected to hit the mall on Friday — up 4 million from last year.

Price declines hit the Phoenix resale market for a second month in a row in September, with the drop accelerating to 4 percent, according to the latest ASU-Repeat Sales Report (ASU-RSI), released this week by the W. P. Carey School of Business.