Have any housing bubble observations this weekend? The springtime open house season is in full swing in the southwest. Here are some from the topics thread:

"Written by a Santa Barbara Realtor, 'Many buyers are taking a 'wait and see' attitude. Now that a soft landing can be expected, with interest rates remaining favorable and the excessive pressure to 'buy it now' lessening, buyers can relax a little. They do need to understand, however, that prices in the Santa Barbara area are not going to plummet. Therefore excessively low offers are not appropriate."

"How about a share the real estate listing that 'gets your goat.' Here is mine. It is a 1,336 sf box in the bad part of Westchester (LA, south of Manchester and one block away from LAX). The annoying part is that it was purchased LAST MONTH for 599K and now is up for 769K. No pictures up yet (looking forward to seeing what vast $170K improvement they made in a month), but I’ll be watching this listing closely, hoping that the flippers lose their shirts."

"Phoenix now stands at 40,192. Leave your prediction for when we will hit 50,000."

And some reports of builder incentives in various markets. "In Los Angeles County, sales of new homes in February were up by more than half over a year ago, a big contrast to the otherwise slowing housing market. Meanwhile, sales of existing homes are down 28 percent in February compared to the same period last year."

"One reason for the disparity is that home builders have more flexibility than resellers in offering upgrades and financing deals to buyers, Patrick Duffy said. 'Builders have more weapons at their disposal in terms of incentives,' said Duffy. 'It's a really smart way for them to compete with the resale market.'"

From Arkansas. "Mike Robinson, a broker and realtor in Bentonville said, 'It seems to me, we know that we are overbuilt now in new construction in certain price ranges in Benton County, primarily $250,000 to $500,000,' he said. 'The inventory that we have is sufficient to last for a number of months.'"

"Also, Robinson has noticed that resale home prices have crept up to almost parallel new construction prices in the last few years. 'Not only should we see a leveling off of prices in new construction, we should also see a slight reduction of prices on resale houses,' he said. Robinson has noticed an interesting phenomenon: Instead of dropping prices, builders are offering creative incentives to buyers and Realtors. Builders who own several houses would rather offer incentives and lose on one house, if it keeps prices up on the neighboring houses on the market."

"According to the MLS, 21 new-construction homes sold or closed in Bentonville in the last 30 days. Four of those houses underwent substantial price reductions, for example, one house started at $236,900, then dropped to $210,000."

In Las Vegas. "Steve Fait said he was able to keep the price at around $1 million because the costs were lower. The homebuilder bought the land prior to the 2004 housing appreciation boom. 'You can't build my home for what I did and as cheap as I did, the costs have already gone way up,' he said. 'People are getting a bargain because we are at the old (land) prices.'"

"As the National Association of Home Builders draws attention to the vast benefits of new home construction during April’s New Homes Month celebration, one thing is clear: while the record-setting pace of the last several years is leveling off, savvy consumers can take advantage of creative perks offered by many home builders today."

"'Understandably, some consumers are concerned about the housing market right now,' said David Pressly, NAHB president. 'But the recent decline is certainly no cause for alarm.' Across the country, builders and developers have been offering home buying incentives including..price reductions and help with closing costs."