Reader Clay comments below, “Some call it a buyers market, some call it a ghost town?” and points to this article.
The housing slowdown has turned some parts of the Phoenix and Las Vegas metropolitan areas into “ghost towns,” where many unsold homes stand empty, Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, said Monday.
I think the Phoenix area home builders were in a game of chicken. No company wanted to be the first to slow down. So they all kept building at a breakneck pace for many months even after it was very clear the inventory of unsold new homes was totally out of control.