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Analysts say the Valley’s housing market has turned around. Earlier this week, the Standard and Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index showed Phoenix home prices had risen faster than any of the other nineteen cities the index tracks.

STEVE GOLDSTEIN: Across the country, home prices are expected to hit their first annual gain since 2006. In Phoenix, prices are up by nearly twenty-two percent in the past twelve months. Michelle Lind, newly-appointed CEO of the Arizona Association of Realtors, says she’s expecting 2013 to continue that upward trend.

MICHELLE LIND: We really have a lot of positive indicators. In the Phoenix metropolitan area, the median sales price is up. We still have interest rates at all-time lows. We have more building permits being pulled, so I think there’s a lot of optimism for 2013.

GOLDSTEIN: Lind says buying a home is the largest financial transaction most people will ever have, but she says it’s vital for homeowners to view the property as more than just an investment.

LIND: And I think that in years past, people valued their home for more personal and emotional reasons. I think actually the change came when people started looking at their home as that investment, as that bank account. And I really think we’re going to get to more considering our home as the place we live and raise our families.

GOLDSTEIN: Even as average home prices in the Phoenix area are on the rise, this week’s Standard and Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index says those prices are still more than forty percent below peak levels. Steve Goldstein, KJZZ News, Phoenix.