Some terribly ugly housing news from Phoenix Arizona as investors flee like cockroaches

Sales off 40%, prices tumbling as the Ponzi Scheme ends, investors scrambling for their lives, foreclosures mounting, desperation and panic setting in.

Yup, that's sure one healthy housing market! Greg Swann researched it!

Like here in Britain, people in Phoenix were buying homes regardless of the fundamentals simply because they were betting on future price appreciation. Once that became dubious, the rush for the exits was swift and brutal. As it will be here in Britain eventually.

Here's the latest ASU housing report. Bravo for some refreshing housing honesty from ASU and Jay Butler. Must not be getting the big REIC checks like Harvard's Corrupt Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The rapid growth of sales activity and prices of the last few years has been due largely to the ever-increasing involvement of investors in the market.

Thus, the slowdown in the investor market can be a relevant reason for the overall market slowdown and the increase in trouble properties.

Many investors have found it increasingly difficult to rent and are trying to sell their homes before they lose them to foreclosure or to sell them to lock in any appreciation.

Another source of trouble properties are those households, in anticipation of continued appreciation, that bought more home than they could afford and probably used non-traditional financing to acquire it.

Thus, confronting financial issues, these households are trying to sell in order to obtain some appreciation and/or to avoid foreclosure.

"Thus, many of the market issues of 2006 and potentially 2007 can be attributed to individuals, trying to secure their futures, who got emotionally involved through believing in constant success and appreciation," said Butler.