The Herald Tribune has this update on the Florida housing bubble. "Like many other sellers, Tara Fizer has come to realize what every real estate agent in Southwest Florida now knows: After three glory years, capped by a period in which homes were being bid on like an eBay auction, the residential market has entered a no-mans' land in which sellers listings are stacking up at prices higher than buyers want to pay."

"Fizer and her husband now own two new houses in Sarasota. It is one more than they want. When they were moving to the area from Orlando in mid-2004, they signed up for two homes being built near University Parkway, one in Sarasota County, the other in Manatee. The idea was to decide later which one to keep, and sell the other for a sweet profit in a fast-climbing market."

"'This could have been a killing,' Fizer said of the 4-bedroom, 21/2 plus loft house in Manatee that they are now attempting to sell for $389,000. 'We could have pocketed a lot of money.'"

"Instead, they have the home priced at $7,000 less than the builder's base price in the same subdivision. 'We know the market is pretty slow right now, so somebody can get a pretty good deal from us right now. We did a lot of upgrades.''

"It does not help that the media keeps writing about the problem, and it is not just the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. For example, Sarasota was held up as a market in which housing is 43 percent overpriced in a recent article published jointly by BankRate.com and MSN.com. Naples is characterized as being 72 percent overvalued in the survey."

"This trend reversal from sellers' market to a virtual standoff is occurring in most Florida metro markets, but it is more pronounced in areas such as Sarasota-Bradenton where prices rose the most, statistics from the first quarter compiled by the Florida Association of Realtors show."

"In Sarasota-Bradenton, the median price was hanging in there at $331,100, one-third higher than the state average. Conversely, sales had slowed by 44 percent from the year-ago level." "But medians can be misleading."

"If a consumer compares what a given home would sell for during the market's hey-days in 2004 and early 2005 to now, they would likely see declines ranging from 15 percent to 20 percent, and in some cases even more."

"A broker who specializes in the posh island enclave of Anna Maria provided what is probably an extreme example of real-world pricing. He is sitting on a two-bedroom, two-bath home with all the trimmings, including a dock on a canal with easy access to the Gulf of Mexico."

"'You could have paid $800,000 a year ago, and people would have been bidding against you on it. And today that same house would be $550,000-$600,000, and you might have to work to get that,' he said."

"The subject of price decline is so touchy that he insists on not having his name attached to this dark appraisal of declining values. 'It would be bad for business. Somebody would read me being negative on the market, and take their listing to another broker,' he said."

"What is bad for sellers is good for buyers, says one (realtor) in the field. 'It's an absolutely delightful time to be a buyer,' said Kathy Scott, as she baby-sat a condominium listing on Longboat Key where she already has gotten the owner to agree to two price reductions. I think sellers are becoming more educated and realistic. I'm hearing a lot of buyers say, 'I'm just going to wait a little bit longer and see how low it gets.'"