The NAR has a press release out this morning. "Existing-home sales are projected to drop 6 percent to 6.65 million this year from a record 7.08 million in 2005, according to the latest annual forecast by the National Association of Realtors. New-home sales, meanwhile, are projected to fall 10.9 percent to 1.14 million. Housing starts are forecast at 2 million in 2006."

"'Home sales will move up and down somewhat over the remainder of the year but stay at a high plateau, meaning this will be the third strongest year on record,' said David Lereah, NAR's chief economist. 'Economic growth and job creation are providing a favorable backdrop for the housing market,' he said."

The Herald Tribune reports on the jobs front. "The long-lived national economic expansion, largely fueled by the housing boom, has more than likely overpopulated the state and Southwest Florida with real estate-related payroll checks. When residential real estate closings dry up, as they did in the fall and winter, big lenders like Washington Mutual start looking for ways to prop up profits."

"A month ago, the company began paring its Florida and California loan-processing operations. Less visibly, job vacancies in the mortgage and title field that were hard to fill only last year are now creating nice stacks of resumes."

"Economic consultant Jack McCabe sees some big employment hits in the offing. 'We are liable to see Florida job losses in the 15 to 20 percent range for construction workers, title companies, appraisal companies and other real estate-related businesses.'"

"You can take just about any set of multi-year statistics and see that the real estate slump has arrived. Last week, the Florida Association of Realtors reported that February sales of existing homes fell 20 percent from a year ago."

"Longtime Sarasota mortgage broker Marta Grande thinks there will be some broad pain in the short term. 'Those mortgage people and anybody in real estate who didn't sock their money away, they're going to be in deep doo-doo until next year.'"

"At the request of the Herald-Tribune, Joseph Kalish ran some numbers for Florida, finding that from November 2001 to November 2005, the state's private-sector work force has grown by 705,000 to 6,855,000. Out of that 705,000, 210,700, or nearly 30 percent, were related to housing. 'Residential housing has played a very big role,' said 'Kalish. 'If housing slowed down, what would replace housing as a growth driver?'"

"(Appraiser) Tom Ponrich gets a bird's-eye view of the lower prices every day as he tries to figure out what a fair price would be for a given house. The bulge in the inventory of Southwest Florida homes for sale is easy to see when you drive around. 'As the bubble bursts, so to speak, inventory rises,' Ponrich said. 'You just drive down the road and count the for-sale signs on your street.'"

"In his own neighborhood in south Venice, Ponrich estimates that during most of the past five years, there were five or six homes for sale at any one time. 'All of a sudden in the last couple of months, it is 15 to 20 homes. The inventory rises, it becomes a buyer's market, and what generally sells are the ones that are the most attractively priced.'"

"As long as transactions don't come to a standstill, Ponrich figures his appraiser's job is safe. 'It is just a matter of what price they buy it at. It doesn't matter to us whether they buy it for half a million or $300,000, somebody is still going to have to do the appraisal.'"