Some housing bubble reports from Florida. "Housing prices in Palm Beach County are so high that 90 percent of the workforce can't afford to buy the median-priced home. An obvious solution, raising wages, isn't practical, business leaders said."

"Jennifer Vacco, human resources manager for Lockheed Martin in Riviera Beach, has hired nearly 200 people in the past 18 months, but it's the ones who got away she can't stop thinking about. 'Every time, it was the cost of housing,' she said, speaking of engineering recruits scared away by Palm Beach County's home prices. 'And these were professional jobs paying $70,000 a year.'"

The Naples News. "'From April through June, our permit applications have increased significantly. We are up 60 percent over the same period last year,' said Collier County Building Director Bill Hammond."

The St Petersburg Times. "In the clearest indication yet that the housing boom in Hernando County has come to an end, the inventory of unsold homes has climbed to nearly 3,760, nearly five times the number a year ago."

"'It came to a screeching halt,' said Jack Gavish, a Brooksville real estate broker. Many real estate offices in the county are selling about half as many homes each month as they were last year, he said. 'I've had a brand-spanking new home on the market for 30 days for $149,000 and that concerns me,' Gavish said."

"County Commission Chairwoman Diane Rowden said the declining market might be a sign the county should rethink the number of approvals it has issued for the construction of new subdivisions. 'Most of it, as I see it, are speculative rezonings,' she said."

The Marco Island Sun Times. "Since there is no federal regulation governing marketing or promises of guarantees of spectacular returns, many investors and homeowners alike are really starting to feel the sting of higher ownership costs associated with the rapid deflation of the real estate 'bubble.'"

"One local investor tells the story of how he was 'guaranteed' by a salesperson that he could sell a property he was considering buying in 12 months for a tidy 30 to 40 percent profit."

"Nearly 18 months later, that 'guaranteed return' sits empty with no prospects in sight. In fact, this particular investor doesn't feel as though he could even recover the initial investment he made to begin with."

"Nobody likes it when we look the 'Sacred Cow' square in the eyes and dare to consider that Marco Island residential real estate could do anything but go straight up. The story may not always be as drastic as the retired banker friend of the family, who owned a direct access waterfront lot back in the early 1980's for almost six years and sold it for a 25 percent loss."