Disheartened home sellers and builders aren’t giving in just yet. Entangled in one of the most competitive housing markets in recent memory, they’re veering off the beaten sales path and are giving home auctions a try.

With the record home sales of 2005 long past, Valley builders aren’t sitting back, hoping for a return to the glory days.

There are signs the housing industry in metropolitan Phoenix is recovering as more homebuilders are buying up land again.

Scottsdale-based Standard Pacific Homes recently sold the last houses available within two of its premier Valley communities, the Villages at Laveen Meadows in Phoenix and the Villages at Sonoran Mountain Ranch in Peoria.

A Pennsylvania-based homebuilder who jumped into the Valley market in late 2005 has pulled up stakes and left the state - scrapping plans for a 267-home subdivision in Gilbert.

Valley homebuilders are scaling back production, as they continue to battle an oversupply of new and existing houses on the market.

The day April Skelton got to see the inside of her new manufactured home on a county island in east Mesa, she was handed the key and a roll of blue painter’s tape. The tape, she was surprised to learn, should be used to mark every blemish she found in her $140,000 home.

Imagine your beautiful brand-new home.

HomeLife Communities marketing director Anitra Brenden sat in her Mesa office Friday and waited for the phone to ring.

Home builders are slightly more confident in the housing market these days, at least compared with the end of last year, a new report shows.

A builder’s request to zone an 18-acre Gilbert spot for town homes was rejected Tuesday by the town’s economic development advisory board.

January 4, 2005

Chandler is beginning to promote its updated in-fill program in hope of encouraging developers to build homes on empty or deteriorating properties in the older part of the city.

An investigation into homeowners’ complaints by the Arizona Department of Real Estate has cleared Richmond American Homes of failing to disclose Chandler’s waste transfer station and plans to expand it.

July 8, 2004

Even with the Arizona sun beating down, the electric meter on Stephanie Feil’s home in the Rio Verde Foothills was spinning so slowly it was almost at a crawl Wednesday. Until the air conditioner kicked off. That’s when it started spinning backwards.

Developers taking a more critical look at the need for golf courses in some housing communities still have to provide the game for enthusiasts at a time of increasing competition.

Fishermen can be seen trying their luck on the banks of a small lake. Workers can be seen atop a building fixing the roof. Through it all, the trains roll by on their little tracks.

Scottsdale builder George Johnson’s ill-fated development in southern Pinal County drew a lawsuit by the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday which claims he wreaked environmental havoc by illegally bulldozing debris into the Santa Cruz River.

Scottsdale builder George Johnson’s ill-fated development in southern Pinal County drew a lawsuit by the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday which claims he wreaked environmental havoc by illegally bulldozing debris into the Santa Cruz River.