One more topic from readers over the weekend. "Will the condo crash be worse than the SFH crash? Can you really separate the two?"

Another asked, "What pressures do developers have to keep building in the face of a glutted market?"

To which one replied, "I had dinner a week ago with a 75 year old condo developer in Florida. This guy is a survivor and has seen it all. He put his latest hotel/retail/condo project on hold because of oversupply. But, what is interesting is the comment he made about the construction pipeline. Once you start getting airborne with the project you just can’t stop. You have to finish it to completion because if you do not you will have weather-related structural damage, angry pre-sale clients, an inability to get fixed rate financing and a host of other problems."

And another said, "Mark Hulbert is confused about whether now is the time to buy housing stocks." "Daniel Seiver recently wrote: 'The end of the housing boom is now obvious to almost everyone..but we do not believe that the downtrend in housing stocks is over yet. The air will continue to come out of the housing bubble ever so slowly, and all through 2006. It will take years to unwind the overinvestment and overspeculation in housing.'"

"Seiver in his model portfolio currently is recommending two short sales from the housing industry: KB Home and Lennar."

A reader posts, "We are seeing more days when the HB stock charts move consistently with what I term the administration of PPT methadone. What you see is a steep plunge at the open caught by a safety net which limits the loss for the day to less than 2%. This makes the crash gradual and unworthy of a news item in the WSJ."

Speaking of the Wall Street Journal. "Home builders broke ground at the fastest pace in more than three decades last month, as unusually warm weather trumped signs of a weakening market. 'The January number is an aberration that doesn't mean anything,' said (economist) Patrick Newport. 'We're going to see a big drop in February and then a gradual slowing for the rest of the year.'"

"Steve Gerber, vice president of production at a luxury-condominium builder in Bethesda, Md., said his firm is having a harder time selling units now. The company is into its third month of sales for a 14-unit condo complex in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, D.C. 'A year and a half ago, we had a 12-unit condo building sell out in four hours,' Mr. Gerber said. 'Those days are over.'"