IF EVER THERE WERE A MONTH I WAS qualified to write for PHOENIX magazine, this month would be it, because I think I’ve experienced every part of the current housing slump.

When I first arrived in the Valley in late ’06, I left a fairly large home in Dallas with a giant yard and anticipated an easy, lateral transition to the Phoenix area. Boy, was I wrong! I soon found that what I had paid in Texas might buy me a garage in one of the sought-after areas here. If I wanted something more, my tastes needed to change.

After driving around and looking at the first few houses, my wife Laurie and I started playing the “high-low” game. Here’s how it goes: The passenger jumps out of the car and grabs a pricing flier from its perch near the “For Sale” sign and yells out a number. The driver then has to guess if the actual price is higher or lower than the number that’s called out. I was driving, Laurie was fetching. After I lost 20 times in a row, I realized the prospect of buying a quality home for a fair price was going to be a daunting one.

People had bought two-bedroom fixer-uppers for $150,000 a few years earlier but now wanted four or five times that amount with little added investment – and had people lining up. I’m all for people making money off their properties, but come on! Something had to give.

It was during my early days at 92.3 FM (KTAR) that a listener, who happened to be in real estate, heard me speak about the hundreds of houses I had looked at and months of wasted time I had spent. She wrote to warn me to “be smart” and rent for a while because she was certain the market was about to go into a slump. I am not one who believes in trying to time a market – I usually come up short when I do – but this lady’s advice seemed wise.

We plunked some money down on a condo, and though we thought this stress-free life might be a nice change of pace, we soon went stir-crazy. I needed a yard and much more privacy than a condo could offer, so after a year we were right back playing the high-low game. Except this time, I was winning a few rounds. Actually, a lot of rounds. The market had indeed changed.

With each new house we traipsed through, on-the-spot price discounting awaited. On top of that, sellers’ agents offered cool incentives like free pools and decorating allowances well before I had the chance to put on my best Monty Hall, Let’s Make a Deal face. Now this is the way I like to buy a house, I thought.

That first year of living here allowed me to settle in and learn the region. As a result, I became more knowledgeable about the area, especially about where I wanted to live and what I expected in a property.

Then, we found the house. It was an older home, large enough for the kids to come home to but small enough for Laurie and I to feel cozy and comfortable. Plus, the views of the mountains from our backyard were exactly what I told my agent I wanted when we first met. We made an offer. They countered. We bought. Done deal.

Then the sub-prime fiasco hit the front pages with foreclosures, short-sales and bankruptcies, affecting every sector and pay scale. My radio show was flooded with calls, and my e-mail inbox was saturated with evidence of a struggling economy. People of all backgrounds shared their painful, sad and embarrassing stories. Soon, it started to weigh on me: “What have I done?” I asked myself. “I just bought a house in the worst of economic conditions, and I’m going to lose my shirt.”

With every penny I paid to contractors to put in new floors and re-plaster walls, I gulped a silent, potential last breath. “What an idiot I am!” I thought.