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.

A geographic mapping of subprime and Alt-A loans in the Phoenix metropolitan area has revealed some unexpected results: these risky mortgages are not scattered, but cluster in certain cities and neighborhoods.

In Part 5 of our series on the subprime market, real estate finance Professor Anthony Sanders, Jeffrey Coles, chairman of the finance department at the W. P. Carey School of Business and Steven Davidson, vice president, capital market research, Securities Industry and Financial Markets

In Part 4 of our series on the subprime market, real estate finance Professor Anthony Sanders, Jeffrey Coles, chairman of the finance department at the W. P. Carey School of Business and Steven Davidson, vice president, capital market research, for the Securities Industry and Financial

In Part 3 of our five-part series on the subprime market, real estate finance Professor Anthony Sanders, Jeffrey Coles, chairman of the finance department at the W. P. Carey School of Business and Steven Davidson, vice president, capital market research, for the Securities Industry and

It's understandable that some economic forecasters, spooked by gloomy indicators, say the U.S. is heading into or already in a recession — but they may be overlooking key factors that buffer negative forces, according to Richard Kovacevich, chairman of Wells Fargo & Co.

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 most popular indices currently in use today, such as those developed by the National Association of Realtors, measure the median home prices nationally and in a given region. But is median price the best way to measure the trend in home prices?