Once the envy of most of the nation, Arizona's real estate industry has become a cautionary tale, and the new story of recovery is one of fits and starts.

Since 2008, 11 percent of the single-family homes in Maricopa County, Arizona, have been through foreclosure — 4 percent in the last year alone. And with moratoriums on foreclosures ending, the new year is expected to start with an uptick in the number of property owners losing their homes.

The summer resale season in the Phoenix real estate market has been brisk, with about 10,500 single-family homes changing hands in June. And, for the fourth consecutive month, foreclosure-related sales as a percentage of the total market have fallen.

The volume of home sales in May in the Phoenix market was about on par with the rest of this spring's resale season, although the percentage represented by foreclosures continued a modest decline.

The traditional spring resale season is in full swing in the Phoenix market, with 10,265 homes recorded sold in April. That's about 900 fewer than March, but level with April 2010.

In the Phoenix real estate market, the traditional resale season begins in March, and as expected, the number of transactions last month rose to more than 11,000, up from about 8500 in February.

Read or listen: A report on real estate market conditions in Phoenix shows that foreclosures represented 43 percent of total transactions in February.

"Arizona is stuck in a vicious cycle right now," says Lee McPheters, research professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business and director of the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center. "Homes come onto the market from foreclosure and that weakens prices.

January brought an uptick in foreclosures in the still-troubled Phoenix real estate market — discouraging words after the drop in foreclosure-related activity in the waning months of 2010. But is it a new trend?

Phoenix Metro home prices continued their decline in December, and are expected to keep dropping for the foreseeable future.