Glen Creno
The Arizona Republic
Aug. 25, 2004 12:00 AM

Metro Phoenix’s housing market showed few signs of slowing in July, although one measure of the national housing market cooled.

Arizona housing analyst R.L. Brown said the Valley’s numbers were up in all of the categories that he tracks: escrow closings of new homes, permits for new homes and resales.

The number of permits, an indicator of future new-home construction, was up more than 40 percent, compared with July of last year.

“It’s another month that proves the fallacy of the doom-and-gloom philosophy,” Brown said.

“The market continues to blow everyone away with its strength.”

July permits came in at 6,424, helped by particular strength in the Gilbert area, Laveen, Surprise, the Hunt Highway corridor in Pinal County and along Interstate 17 in the north Valley.

That compares with 4,526 permits last July, an increase of 41.9 percent and a continuation of the pace that could take Valley housing past 50,000 permits for the first time.

Closings increased from 3,491 in July of last year to 4,144, an 18.7 percent jump. Brown said resales were up about 28 percent, from 8,345 in the year-ago month to 10,685.

Nationally, resales increased 8.6 percent in July, compared with July of last year, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

Sales of existing homes nationwide fell 2.9 percent from June to July of this year, mirroring a trend that Brown tracked in the Valley.

But Brown said permits and closings were both up on a consecutive-month basis in the Phoenix area.