The Las Vegas Sun reports on the housing bubble. "Home sellers better prepare for whiplash. Buyers are in the driver's seat these days, steering for bargains that haven't been offered in years. A record number of resale houses, 18,467 in April, are on the market, along with another 4,000 new homes. Additionally, another 6,000 condominiums are, or will soon be, for sale after being converted from apartments."

"Some incentive packages have been valued by builders at up to $100,000. Builders are offering higher commissions to real estate agents, up to 6 percent in some cases. With contract cancellations reaching 38 percent in some new subdivisions, builders are cutting staff and prices on new homes by tens of thousands of dollars."

"With about 30 houses entering the market daily, one broker expects the number of resale houses for sale to reach 20,000 this year, a first for the valley. The increase in the housing inventory is largely attributable to real estate investors and speculators who are now trying to cash in before the market cools too much, said Dennis Smith, president of Home Builders Research Inc."

"With the market softening, buyers are aggressively trying to push prices down even further, said real estate agent Shelley Brown. 'Some buyers are making offers of $20,000 to $30,000 less on homes that are priced right, and they can't do that; sellers won't sell,' she said. 'Buyers with unrealistic expectations are not getting houses.'"

"The market fluctuations are bittersweet for homeowners like Mason and Bonnie Hall, who purchased their 3,200-square-foot home in the northwest Las Vegas Valley five years ago for $248,000. They listed it for $699,000, but accepted $660,000 in April after the house had been for sale for almost three months. The Halls bought a new home in Enterprise, Utah, that cost about $200,000."

"Price drops are occurring already in the Las Vegas new-home market. Some homebuilders are reducing prices of their high-end homes by as much as $100,000, according to Larry Murphy, who monitors real estate trends. KB Home recently reduced prices up to $30,000 at 16 of its 38 subdivisions."

"'We had to make sure that we were priced correctly to the market,' said KB Home division President Don DelGiorno. 'The amount of competition out there, especially in the resales, is in reaction to that.'"