A pair of reports on slower housing markets. "Just take a look out the window as you're driving around the Twin Cities and you will likely see an abundance of 'for sale' signs, just like the one that stands in front of John Burke and Heid Erdrich's St. Paul house."

"'Of course I'm terrified, because a year ago houses like this sold fast, very fast, and it was competitive,' says Erdrich. Two or three years ago, she says, all the houses on their block that went on the market sold even before the 'for sale' signs went up. Their home has been on the market for only a couple of weeks."

"Minnesota's metro area real estate scene has decidedly shifted from a seller's to a buyer's market. New MLS numbers compiled by the North Metro Realtors Association show a nearly 17 percent drop in home sales in June of this year compared to June of 2005."

"Christopher Galler, VP of the Minnesota Association of Realtors, says people shopping for homes are finding 30 to 40 percent more properties for sale in 2006 than 2005. 'We're just in a cycle. For the last five years we've been running properties basically on sale, meaning that the interest was lower than most people had seen in most of their lifetimes,' says Galler. 'So what it does is allow people to purchase more property than they may have naturally purchased before.'"

"Annisa Jones, the marketing manager for Centex Homes, Minnesota's largest home builder, says while her company is not giving away cars, it has several promotions aimed at luring business. There's a drawing for $50,000 in down-payment money and 'instant-win' gas cards. And there are drawings for the chance to throw out the first pitch at a Minnesota Twins game."

"Centex has also recently began offering a 'down payment assistance' program, in which the builder pays a nonprofit organization to 'gift' down payment cash to certain Centex buyers."

"Jones, like many of her real estate industry counterparts, prefers to call the slowdown a 'normalization of the real estate market.' 'We're not worried about it,' says Jones."

From Madison, Wisconsin. "As the weather heats up, industry experts say the housing market is cooling down. So much, in fact, some home builders and Realtors are finding themselves lowering prices just to get the homes sold."

"The building in Dane County never seems to stop. But Realtors are getting more and more worried about filling those homes. 'About October, we had a slight, normal slowdown, and then it shut off completely,' said Andy Lindgren, Realtor in Sun Prairie."

"Lindgren also says, with continuous building, buyers have a lot more choices. 'They realize that instead of one or two properties that fit their needs that they need to act on very quickly, there may be 15 or 20.'"

"'The market has been absolutely out of control,' said Chad Wuebben, President of the Madison Area Builders Association. 'Things are just finally coming back to a more normal pace right now.'"

"But industry experts say it's still a good time to buy a home, with all the choices out there. It's not, however, a good time to be a seller. 'If they purchased their house a year or two ago, they can't really expect to do much more than break even at this point,' said Lindgren."