The stock market may have taken a big plunge today, but the U.S. housing market received a good piece of news with existing home sales reaching the highest level in months.The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that existing home sales rose 3 percent in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.46 million units — the highest level in seven months. That’s up from a pace of 6.27 million units in December.The association’s chief economist David Lereah said that home sales are expected to rise gradually this year, though the recent winter storms pelting much of the country this month may have a dampening impact on sales.The national median existing home price was $210,600 last month, down from $217,400 in January 2006. There are currently about 3.55 million homes for sale on the market — roughly 6.6 months worth of inventory. Read more on the latest national housing market numbers here.

Imagine waking up one morning to find the home you just moved into six month ago back up for sale. That’s what happened to Mesa resident Eddie Frias on Tuesday when he discovered a For Sale sign plopped in front of his home in the Las Sendas area.Frias said neighbors have been asking him why he’s moving, saying, "Is something wrong? Did something happen?"Turns out that a sign company working for a local RE/MAX office placed the sign in front of Frias’ house by mistake. An agent with the office said this kind of error hasn’t happened there before, but that the sign company had promised to take it down by Friday.Good thing too because Frias — who has called RE/MAX a number of times — wants it gone as soon as possible."I can’t imagine why it would take three days to get a sign removed," he said. "If it’s here Monday, I’m going to put it on the owner’s desk."

The Valley’s commercial real estate market has soared this past year, as developers gobbled up land for new office, retail and industrial projects. A recent spate of commercial property sales by a local brokerage firm shows that — though the market is expected to normalize in 2007 — investors are still scrambling to get a piece of the action.Jim Fijan and Jerry Roberts, a sales team for commercial brokerage CB Richard Ellis, recently closed 12 office property sales — totaling more than $300 million in value — in the past six weeks. Many of the deals were located in East Valley communities like Scottsdale and Tempe, where Class A office properties are in big demand.Here’s a partial list of East Valley transactions:* Hayden Ferry Lakeside I, Tempe: 203,113 square feet; sold to Los Angeles-based GE Asset Management for $63.2 million* Paradise Valley Corp. Center, Scottsdale: 198,501 square feet; sold to Newport Beach-based Pacifica Real Estate Group for $52.5 million* Gainey Center II, Scottsdale: Bought by Newport Beach-based Invesco Real Estate for $50.6 million* North Scottsdale Corp. Center land sale, Scottsdale: 33.56 acres; sold to Phoenix-based Opus West for $6.9 million

A sharp housing market downturn has builders retooling plans to build hundreds of more homes across the East Valley. At least two local builders have already postponed plans for major subdivisions, as they wait for the market to bounce back.Scottsdale-based developer Montalbano Homes said Wednesday it has pushed back plans to build 1,800 homes in the Queen Creek area. The builder had originally hoped to start work on its Copperton Trail development — which will cover roughly 640 acres, or 1 square mile, of land — in fall 2007. Now, the project’s been pushed back to summer 2008.

Montalbano still has 55 homes to sell in its 112-home Skyline Ranch Estates in Queen Creek, said Jon Baer, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. Many builders are taking a hard look at how their current projects are selling before they go out and build new ones, Baer said.

"There’s enough competition out there as it is," he said.

Another Scottsdale developer also backed out of plans for a 155-home project recently. Cachet Homes let escrow expire on 88 acres of land — this time in Chandler — where it had planned to build. Read more about that project here.

Over the past several months, developers of condominium conversions have been changing their tunes — deciding to switch hundreds of units back to apartments becaues of slumping sales. But at least one major conversion project has found success in the face of a dramatic housing downturn.Chicago-based developer Robert Sheridan & Partners recently announced the sellout of a 299-unit condo conversion project in Chandler. Lakeshore at Andersen Springs — near the intersection of Dobson and Ray roads — opened for sales in October 2005, right when the real estate market was starting a dramatic slide. Sales took off initially but soon fell off like many conversion projects.Though the project eventually sold out, company President Robert Sheridan’s outlook of the conversion market remains bleak."I think in many areas of the country, including Phoenix, there’s a price correction yet to come to burn off excess inventory," Sheridan said in a statement Tuesday. "Many will hope I’m wrong, but I think we’ll see condominium prices decline rather than rise in the medium term. We’re not out of the woods yet."