My Take:

Hopefully, the market is turning and becoming more normal.

Yvette Armendariz
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 13, 2006 12:00 AM Metropolitan Phoenix’s housing market continues to show a steady pulse.

Prices for existing homes edged up less than 1 percent to $259,000, as 5,040 homes sold for the month of November, according to data from the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University Polytechnic.

The sales volume was the lowest for a November since 2002. However, the number of homes sold was a slight improvement over the 4,985 sales in October. Last year, nearly 7,200 homes sold in November. “Instead of being overactive, or no pulse, it’s running at a normal pulse,” said Jay Butler, who heads the Real Estate Center. “It’s a good, strong pulse. It’s just not the pulse people like.”

He said that sales and prices are much more sustainable than those recorded in 2005.

“Last year, it was like running a race,” he said.

Sellers have been able to get about the same price for their homes the past several months.But although November’s figure inched up some, the median remains below the $263,000 that homes fetched in November 2005.

Prices varied widely throughout the Valley. For example, the median price of a home sold in Scottsdale was $630,000, about 5.9 percent higher than the same time last year. Meanwhile, median prices in Goodyear dropped 11.9 percent to $252,000.