Catherine Reagor of the Arizona Republic actually acknowledges that comparing this year to last year may not be an ideally-informative strategy:
Although the Valley’s housing market is definitely slowing, comparisons to last year’s frenzied sales pace and appreciation gains aren’t a perfect indicator. During 2005, metro Phoenix home prices soared 50 percent and houses were selling within days.
We call this tactic The Mole, in honor of Dr. Evil (who now runs a BubbleBlog from which he hopes to extract milllllllions of dollars). The alleged news is that new-build permits are down from last year. Big surprise. The actual news is that 29,943 have been pulled in the Valley through the end of June, which would have been a record-setting pace were it not for last year. Irresponsible reporting? You bet. Alas, we have no other kind in Phoenix.
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