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Housing news hasn't gotten any less grim, but some real estate agents are trying to keep the Tucson market from being painted in gloom and doom with a broad statistical brush.

Long Realty Co. is using tools from a California data-analysis company, Terradatum, to provide in-depth market numbers, including inventory levels and prices, for areas as small as ZIP codes or individual subdivisions.

"It gives us a real quick, powerful way to slice and dice what's going on in the market," said Kevin Kaplan, marketing director for Long Realty.

Other real estate companies in town are either using similar tools or considering them.

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has been using a number-crunching program in Tucson for the past three months, said Laura Mance, regional vice president. The program was provided by Coldwell Banker's parent company, NRT LLC.

Tierra Antigua Realty doesn't have its own market-research program, but it's looking into the possibility of using one, owner Kim Clifton said.

Long representatives said the in-depth information is useful in winning over buyers and helping sellers price their homes competitively. The agents can use the program to produce reports on pricing trends within different price categories and inventory levels by calculating "months of inventory" — the amount of time it would take to sell all the homes on a given market.

"If you're in an area where you've got 17 months (of inventory), versus an area where there's only four months, there's an entirely different strategy," said Rosey Koberlein, CEO of Long Cos.

Overall, the Tucson market had about nine months of inventory and a median price of $195,000 in April, down about 13 percent from the same month in 2007, according to the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service. The average price for April, $253,729, was down about 9 percent from the previous year. May statistics were not yet available from the Realtors.

But Long's statistics as of May show a wide variation.

In the 85747 ZIP code, on the Southeast Side, inventory was about four months, according to Long's numbers. The median price was down about 14 percent from a year ago at $202,000. The average price was down about 12 percent at $221,076.

But in the 85653 area code, in Marana, inventory was at 13 months.

The median price was $189,900, down about 25 percent from the same time last year. The average price dropped even further in that time, falling by more than 30 percent to $232,452, according to Long's numbers.

Bob Semple, a Long agent in Oro Valley, said he used the deeper market numbers in a listing presentation for a house in Rancho Vistoso, showing that the area had about nine months' worth of inventory and a "flattening" median price. The presentation helped land him the listing, he said.

"Because we had that data available to us, just for Oro Valley, it was really valuable," Semple said.