Housing stabilizing.

• Position: Alaska - Alaska Business Briefs

Housing Stabilizing Housing Stabilizing. Although the four-year slide in Alaska's housing market appears to have ended, rents and house prices remain far below what they were in 1986, according to a recent study conducted by the University of Alaska Anchorage's Institute of Social and Economic Research for the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. The research agency also notes that despite increases in population and home sales and declines in vacancies and mortgage defaults, prices and rents continue to show effects of the 1986-88 recession. In an August report entitled "Alaska's Housing Today," ISER observes:

* In an aggressive campaign to sell off its inventory of foreclosed homes, the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. sold 1,000 homes in 1989, neutralizing price and rent increases that would have otherwise resulted from population growth and housing scarcity.

* The condominium market continues to be worse off than the single-family home market, largely because conventional financing is not available for condominiums in complexes with less than 70 percent owner occupancy. A 1989 survey revealed that only 41 percent of Anchorage condominiums were owner...