Activity in the Phoenix real estate market dropped between June and July, during the summer season when sales are usually up. The reason is that foreclosure-related activity fell once again — dropping below 30 percent for the first time since 2009.

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.

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.

The slumping Phoenix real estate market reached an ironic point in October where it was both "boring" and scary at the same time, according to Associate Professor of Real Estate Jay Butler, author of the W. P. Carey School's monthly resale home market report.

In his latest Realty Studies Report, Jay Butler, associate professor of real estate at the W. P. Carey School, finds that 46 percent of the home transactions recorded in Phoenix in September were foreclosures — the highest percentage level of foreclosure activity since March.

Commercial real estate matters because it's a proxy for a city's economic health. When an economy grows, companies expand into new offices, warehouses and storefronts. Vacancy rates fall, property prices rise, and developers launch new projects.

The latest realty studies report for the Phoenix resale home market showed that the typical fall downturn began as expected in August. The 8,790 sales recorded were a decline from the 10,860 recorded at the peak in March, but this August was slow even compared to August 2009.

Home prices in Phoenix have been on a welcome upswing for several months, but preliminary data for July shows no change from last July, according the W. P. Carey School's Karl Guntermann, who calculates the ASU-Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI).

Housing prices in the Phoenix-metro area are likely to continue dropping for the next several months, says Karl Guntermann, professor of finance and real estate who compiles the Arizona State University-Repeat Sales Index (ASU-RSI).