Like an object dropped over the side of a high building, housing prices in the Phoenix metro area picked up speed on the way down, reports Karl Guntermann, real estate professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business.

Housing prices in the Phoenix metro area continue to plummet and the rate of decline has accelerated, according to Karl L. Guntermann, a professor of real estate and finance at the W. P. Carey School of Business.

The home-equity loan industry is crowded with competitors, making it tough for mortgage companies to hang onto market share — much less grow revenue, according to Brad Connor, president of Chase Home Equity, who recently spoke at the 18th Annual Compete Through Service Symposium, sponsored by the

To sum up where the real estate finance markets are today, Kieran Quinn, chairman and CEO of Column Financial, Credit Suisse's Atlanta-based mortgage lending subsidiary for commercial properties, relied on a poetic quote from an associate: "Things will be fine in 2009." Quinn was speaking at the

In Part 2 of our five-part series on the subprime market, real estate finance Professor Anthony Sanders maps the occurrence of subprime loans in the metro Phoenix market.

The Phoenix metro area housing market is closing on a record. And unlike the Olympics this has more to do with losing than winning. Back in the 1990 to 1991 years, during the last serious real estate recession that roiled Arizona, house prices on a 12-month basis declined for 17 straight months.

The overall price decline for the Phoenix metro housing market took a dramatic, 18 percent leap downward in April, which was unsettling since March numbers were already very weak.

There's trouble in paradise — housing troubles to be exact. In March, for the first time ever, home prices in the overall Phoenix metro area declined by double digits.

Arizona's most severe real estate downturn began in the late 1980s and stretched deeply into the next decade. At the abyss, home prices in the state had declined (on a repeat-sale basis) for a record 17 straight months.

The start of 2008 in the Phoenix metropolitan area was not much different from the end of 2007, as housing prices continue to decline.