Knowledge@W. P. Carey recently taped a discussion about the subprime market between Jeffrey Coles, chairman of the finance department at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Anthony Sanders, professor of real estate and finance at the school and Steven Davidson, vice president,

A first-time homebuyer with limited earning power and a sketchy credit history would seem to have little in common with a blue chip corporation. But thanks to some creative investment vehicles they've now been tied together.

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

Drive around the biggest cities in Arizona and you'll see an interesting contrast in land usage: packed-full swaths of retail, residential, business and industrial buildings bellied up to vast fields pockmarked with weeds and here and there, a house or two, or even a shiny new casino.

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 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.