While standing in line at the Bismarck a irport, Cindy DuPaul-Vogelsang began talking with a North Dakota man who had offers on seven properties in an area in Arizona, with the intention of purchasing them all.

On the flight down to Phoenix-Mesa, she realized there were more than a couple of people chatting about Arizona's real estate market.

DuPaul-Vogelsang was on her own hunt for property. In an effort to be closer to her grandson and taking advantage of the new direct flights to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport from Bismarck's Municipal Airport, she would spend the next two days looking at nearly 25 different properties.

The chatter about property in Arizona has grown significantly since areas in the southern state experienced similar housing market crashes to East and West Coast markets:They were unable to sustain the double-digit increases of the earlier part of this decade, and their proverbial home-price bubbles began bursting in 2006.

Prices are now down to pre-increase ranges. Foreclosure rates are high. Empty homes and "For Sale"signs dominate many neighborhoods.

Kathy Pfeifle with 1st USARealty Professionals in Mesa, Ariz., is an agent getting the attention of North Dakotans with an eye for investment. Or maybe just a desire to snowbird, like DuPaul-Vogelsang.

Janell Kennedy with Sotheby's International Realty in Arizona advertises in the North Dakota Board of Realtors newsletters, looking for North Dakotans who want to invest in what she calls an opportunity market.

Both Kennedy and Pfeifle are North Dakota natives and find that the state's buyers feel a little more comfortable with them. Pfeifle, whose husband owns Pfeifle Chevrolet in Wishek, said North Dakotans tend to want a lot of the same thing, and tend to live within blocks of each other.

That's true with DuPaul-Vogelsang, who put an offer on a house very close to a co-worker's new property.

DuPaul-Vogelsang's offer is still pending, but the deal is almost unbelievable. For the money they were willing to spend, she realized they were looking at more home than she could handle.

"We downsized and we found this property that was still owner-occupied and it's move-in condition,"she said. "We made the offer and the owner accepted it."

Pfeifle said she's selling homes that are new, with original price tags of $230,000 or more, for less than $100,000.

It's not often that Bismarck-Mandan buyers can say they are getting too much home for their money. Unlike like the national housing market, North Dakota housing valuations continue to increase, although not in the double digits experienced a couple of years ago.

The average price of a single-family home sold in Bismarck-Mandan was more than $178,000 in May 2009, compared to $154,680 in May 2008.

In Arizona, the median price for a single-family detached home was $93,000.

These aren't smaller homes, either. DuPaul-Vogelsang put an offer in on a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in a community with golf courses, a big yard and landscaping. Move-in ready, she said it doesn't need any extra love.

Their price range:Between $70,000 and $80,000.

"It was unbelievable to us that there were no offers for this price,"she said.

In Bismarck-Mandan's healthy housing market, three-bedroom, two-bath homes typically begin selling above $150,000. On the lower priced end, homes get plucked off the market days after they're listed. Higher-priced homes have been staying on the market a little longer than this time last year, however.

For agents like Pfeifle and Kennedy, its almost an easy sell. Phoenix-Mesa is a buyer's market if there ever was one. Coupled with direct flights to the city, the climate and the availability of property, North Dakotans and other Midwestern buyers are flocking to the area.

"North Dakota's markets seem more stable compared to Arizona's,"Pfeifle said. "It's not that (the homes in Arizona)are distressed physically, it's just that they're great deals."

(Reach reporter Crystal R. Reid at 250-8261 or crystal.reid@;bismarcktribune.com.)