New numbers from ASU show an almost unheard of jump in Phoenix-area home prices. KJZZ’s Mark Brodie reports.

MARK BRODIE: Mike Orr, with ASU’s WP Carey School of Business, says an increase of more than 35 percent has only happened once before, and that was during a bubble. His latest report shows the median single-family home cost $163,000 in January – up from $120,500 last January. He attributes the jump to a lack of supply. Orr says normally, there’d be around 33,000 listings. But, right now, there’s about half that.

MIKE ORR: No matter what the demand, even if demand was weak, that would be a shortage. Demand is actually somewhat stronger than normal. So, you’ve got an imbalance in the market, and when demand exceeds supply, prices tend to go up. We also have, in the recent past, a big drop in prices, which means that it’s quite natural for them to recover.

BRODIE: Orr says he expects prices to keep going up for the next four months. But after that, he says it’s a lot less certain which direction prices will go, and how long it’ll take for them to get there.