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In the boom of 2005, homeowners like Sue and Dave Broberg and Lisa and Robert Hall felt lucky to nab houses in new subdivisions on the outskirts of Tucson.

But now, the Brobergs say there are many for-sale signs throughout their Northwest Side neighborhood. One is in front of their home.

The Halls, who recently moved from one Sahuarita neighborhood to another, encountered the pleasant shock of finding themselves in a buyer's market, with numerous spec homes to choose from and deeply discounted prices.

"It's a lot different than when we bought the house two years ago," Robert Hall said.

"People were fighting over lots," Lisa Hall said.

When the market was at its peak, some of the hottest areas were northwest, southeast and southwest of the city. But now, buyers no longer line up to buy homes in outlying subdivisions. Instead, builders slash prices, pack on incentives and still are left with unsold spec homes and empty lots.

In many cases, homeowners trying to sell properties in newer developments are finding they can't compete with builders' rock-bottom prices.

"The builders, they just flooded this market with inventory," said Melinda Turner, who put her Sahuarita home on the market about a year ago without success. "And the rest of us, the previous customers, got really screwed."

Corona de Tucson slowdown

Near the Santa Rita Mountains, a luxury townhome development serves as a striking example of effects of the slowdown.

At the development, Aldea del Rey, construction has been halted. A resident who rents one of the homes, Linda Vaughn, has a view of overgrown weeds and decaying half-built homes from her window.

Construction work stopped about two weeks after Vaughn and her family moved in during the summer — leaving the development without a planned community pool, spa, or even mailboxes, she said. Mike Teufel, owner of the development company, Tucson-based Pathway Developments Inc., did not return calls for comment.

Had she known that construction around their rental would stop, Vaughn said she and her husband, Herbert, wouldn't have signed a year's lease.

"It doesn't look very good, you know," said Vaughn, 24. "Not for $1,100 a month."

Elsewhere in the area, for-sale signs abound. To entice buyers, home builders such as Canoa Homes in the sprawling Sycamore Canyon development in Corona de Tucson are discounting up to $80,000 off the sale price.

"We're not doing the numbers that we were doing a year and a half ago," said Jenny Bell, a sales representative for Pepper Viner Homes. "But we're still holding — it could be a lot worse."

While the market overall has cooled considerably since 2005, the change has been even more drastic for some outlying areas.

The situation echoes what is going on in many metropolitan areas across the country, where rapid price appreciation during the boom years drove buyers to the comparably less-expensive outskirts, national experts said. Demand was also fueled by a plethora of easy mortgage options, including some not requiring proof of income or down payments, experts said.

Now that the market has slowed and lending standards have tightened, there are simply not enough buyers to absorb the supply of new homes in Tucson and other metro areas, said Bernard Markstein, a senior economist for the National Association of Home Builders. In some especially far-flung developments, sales may also be slow because of concerns about gas prices, he said.

"There's certainly plenty of doom and gloom for people who want to feel doomy and gloomy," he said.

Homes throughout the Tucson metro area spent an average of 73 days on the market last month compared with 30 days in September 2005, according to statistics from the Tucson Association of Realtors.

But in outlying areas, the jump was higher.

The average time on the market on the Southeast Side was 70 days last month, up from 20 days in September 2005.

In the Northwest, the average time rose to 84 days from 22 days in the same month in 2005.

And in the extended South Side, the area home to Sahaurita and Corona de Tucson, the average time was 84 days compared with 28 days in September 2005.

Meanwhile, in new developments, builders are getting left with spec homes on their hands as some would-be buyers back out of contracts because of problems selling their current homes or problems with financing.

On the Northwest Side, some buyers have been reaping the benefits of a soft housing market.

Melissa McLauchlin recently bought a 3,300-square-foot inventory home at a reduced price in new development Tangerine Crossing at West Tangerine and North Thornydale roads.

"We got a good deal because it was a spec home," McLauchlin said, referring to a new home that does not yet have a buyer. "Apparently someone else bought it and backed out or financially couldn't handle it."

Minnesota retirees Sue and Dave Broberg, who stopped by the development recently, said they are in the market for a bigger home. But first they need to sell their house in Heritage Highlands Golf and Country Club in Marana.

The couple said they felt lucky when they bought their current house about two years ago in the midst of the boom.

"There were very few homes for sale there," said Sue Broberg. But these days, she said, there are dozens of homes available. Theirs has been on the market since mid-June.

In new-home community Rancho Sahuarita, near Interstate 19 and Sahuarita Road, several people attempting to sell their homes have found themselves stuck in direct competition with builders in the development who can offer new homes for roughly the same prices or less.

"Certainly the prices have dropped precipitously, and the homes just aren't selling," said Rancho Sahuarita seller Susan Chapman, whose house went a month without being seen by a single buyer. "It's very difficult to sell existing houses."

The situation is worse for homeowner Melinda Turner, who put her house on the market a year ago, anticipating a move to Idaho. In the meantime, her husband moved to Idaho, started his own custom home-building business, but had to move back to Sahuarita because the house still hadn't been sold.

Turner said the house has been seen by many prospective buyers, but the serious ones ended up buying similar new homes from the builder.

"We ended up becoming the unofficial model home," she said.

Tucson housing market consultant John Strobeck, of Bright Future Business Consultants, declined to comment for this story. But previously, in describing his monthly sales report, the Southern Arizona Housing Market Letter, Strobeck said the market is suffering from an oversupply of both new and resale homes, and conditions might not improve until 2010.

Strobeck also said builders should focus more on entry-level buyers, because they might be the only significant market for a while.

Art Flagg, senior vice president in KB Home's Tucson division, said his company is already "retooling" some of its developments to provide "more affordable products."

"We'll come back as strong or stronger than we were previously," he said.

In the meantime, though, buyers who have the means can land unprecedented deals, industry experts said.

"We knew we would be able to get the most bang for our buck," said Lisa Hall, who recently bought a 3,100-square-foot home in Sahuarita development Madera Highlands with her husband for $255,000. There are many houses under construction, but not many people living in the development.

Hall said she enjoys the quiet at night.

"You can see the stars. You just feel like you're the only people."