Here are some reports from financial markets on the housing sector. "The three-year hot streak experienced by real estate investment trust stocks may be nearing an end, two Wall Street analysts said on Monday. Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Sakwa said REITs trade at 23 times forward adjusted funds from operations compared with their three-year average of 12.4 time AFFO."

"'While short-term momentum may push the REITs higher, we are becoming increasingly concerned about the valuations as most metrics continue to move to all-time highs,' Sakwa wrote. Other similarities include building sales by noted investor Boston Properties Inc. The office REIT slowed development in the late 1980, as the U.S. real-estate market headed into a depression."

"The discovery of huge hidden losses at General Motors's finance arm have raised fresh fears of bankruptcy at the world's biggest carmaker, sending tremors through the credit derivatives markets. The struggling group asked for a filing delay after admitting to an extra $2bn in accounting errors at its finance arm GMAC, raising total losses last year to $10.6bn. The news triggered a sharp spike in the cost of default insurance on GMAC's bonds, rising 75 basis points overnight."

"Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, warned in a recent speech that the $300,000bn derivatives market had raced ahead of the infrastructure needed to support it. 'They have not ended the tendency of markets to occasional periods of mania and panic. They have not eliminated the possibility of failure of a major financial intermediary. And they cannot fully insulate the broader financial community from the effects of such a failure,' he said. A 'significant' proportion of total trades do not even match up, he said."

"A Florida real estate investment company has bought a North Raleigh apartment complex with plans to convert the units to condominiums. It is a popular strategy in bigger markets, but one that is expected to trail off as long-term interests rise. 'Lenders and the equity sources are pretty much gone because interest rates are rising and I don't know how many months of press about the housing bubble,' said Jason Nettles of the brokerage that represented the sale. 'Those guys don't want to lend with the risk of it winding up an apartment deal. It's hard to finance a deal in Florida now, much less Raleigh. In Florida, unless you're on the water, it's almost impossible.''

"Despite robust wood consumption at housing construction sites throughout North America—spurred by abnormally mild weather conditions in various regions, lumber prices eased in February. March sales have continued to weaken. Richard Egelton, chief economist at BMO Financial Group in Toronto expects transaction prices to trend lower in 2006 and 2007, as North American housing construction cools."

From TheStreet.com. "The hot Phoenix area housing market is seeing slowing sales and a dramatic spike in housing inventories, according to a research report from Raymond James. Sales of existing single-family homes and condos fell 24% year over year in February, and listings increased 939% in the same period, analyst Rick Murray wrote. 'As prices have stagnated since August, inventory levels have continued to grow, as we suspect an increasing number of speculators are placing their homes on the market,' Murray wrote."

"'It is clear speculators have headed for the exists in Phoenix. Given the increase in mortgage rates recently, it would seem as if this market will continue to face increasingly more challenging conditions, especially in light of the enormous surge in inventory,' Murray says."