A trio of housing bubble reports from Florida. "Realtor Art Broslat is concerned that there are still thousands of empty platted lots in both North Port and Port Charlotte, all owned by different people with different ideas and timetables."

"'The thing that concerns me is that..land prices are going up, but lot prices have dropped like a rock. That will encourage a different in-migration from the $400,000 opera-goers. In North Port, there are zones that are relatively concentrated (with homes). Then there are zones where you can drive a long way down a street and there are no houses.'"

"North Port City Commissioner Dick Lockhart said, 'There's hundreds of General Development houses for sale. (North Port's) still a bedroom community, but it's geared to catch up. Lowe's is coming in, and of course we have Home Depot and Wal-Mart.'"

The Sun Sentinel. "The number of foreclosures is ballooning as strapped homeowners can no longer make their mortgage payments or quickly unload properties in a cooling housing market. The pace of foreclosures in South Florida seems to be accelerating. Almost a third of Florida's 29,636 foreclosures were in South Florida in the first quarter of 2006."

"Lawyers, financial counselors and government agencies report an explosion in such complaints as more homeowners find themselves unable to keep up with their payments."

"'We've been warning people that this is coming,' said Doug Duncan, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington. He said more than half the loans on the books today are less than three years old, and the peak delinquency period for loans is when they are three to five years old."

The Daytona Beach News Journal. "The condo buying frenzy of the past three years is now mostly over, developers and sales agents agree. Since January, Realtors have brokered 505 condo sales in Volusia and Flagler counties, just half the 1,010 deals they tallied in the same period of 2005."

"According to the Florida Association of Realtors, prices stayed strong in the first quarter, with condos typically selling for about $20,000 more than the levels of a year earlier. But in April and May, the pattern reversed, with median prices falling about $40,000 below the monthly results of a year ago."

"In some cases, short-term investors are lowering prices, worried about facing rising mortgage costs if they can't flip properties quickly. 'There's been a softening of the market because investor demand has fallen off,' said Sheriff Guindi."

"The slowdown is occurring as developers put a growing volume of new units on the market. During 2004, more than 1,100 condominiums were added to Volusia County's housing stock, and in 2005, nearly 2,000 more were completed. More than two dozen projects are under construction in both Volusia and Flagler counties. When finished, they'll add another 2,800 units to the pipeline."

"Work has halted on the Island Town Center, a 202-unit condo project slated for New Smyrna Beach's North Causeway, and deposits were returned last month to 71 early buyers. WCI Communities, a Bonita Springs developer building hundreds of condominiums in Palm Coast's Hammock Dunes area, told shareholders last month that orders for its condos up and down the East Coast have plunged 84 percent from last year's level."

"However, WCI is nearing completion of its 64-unit Tuscany project, is near the halfway mark on its 57-unit Casa Bella carriage-house project, and plans a groundbreaking later this year on its 64-unit Arezzo project."

"Bill Roe agreed that investor demand has dropped sharply. 'The difference between today and last year is that a lot of the investors are gone,' Roe said. 'The opportunity to make a fast buck isn't there anymore so they've left the market. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. They were creating an unreal situation.'"