Some updates from Florida. The St. Petersburg Times, "Thousands of dollars in home-closing bonuses. Commissions more than three times last year's rates. Deep discounts and even gas card promotions. In a rapidly slowing housing market, Realtors on Thursday found themselves suddenly amid a flood of incentives to sell homes at Thursday's Tampa Bay Builders Association Expo."

"As the Tampa Bay housing market stumbles, sales have halved in once-hot home producers like Pasco County for the first six months of 2006, compared with the same period last year. With fast-rising property insurance rates seen as the chief culprit, builders are fighting back with a range of incentives to get real estate agents back on the horse."

"Beazer Homes handed out 5 percent. Lennar hawked 6 percent. Standard Pacific offered 10 percent on the second closing."

"'Last year, we did not have any inventory,' said Lorrie Glover, at the booth for one of Pasco's major planned communities. 'Last year, we used to have a lottery for buyers. The market's changed now.'"

The Orlando Sentinel. "During the frenzied real estate market of recent years, 29 condo towers with a combined 7,000 to 8,000 units have been announced for locations in downtown Orlando. Most of the projects have been postponed, however, because of the softening market and because of fast-rising construction costs."

"Braving a cooling real estate market and volatile construction costs, developers of the 24-story Monarch condominium tower in downtown Orlando said Thursday they will launch sales in September with an eye toward starting construction as quickly as possible."

"'The faster we can stick a shovel in the ground, the better off we'll be,' said David Reed, a partner in the project."

The Herald Tribune. "Concerned that student enrollment may not be as large as projected this year, Superintendent Gary Norris on Thursday instituted a hiring freeze for most elementary school teaching positions. The district also is not filling classified staff positions."

"A continuing lag in enrollment this year may signal that housing costs in the county, particularly the Sarasota area, are driving away families, school officials said. 'I blame it on home values,' said Al Weidner, the district's budget director who forecasts student enrollment. 'It's all the factor of the cost of living down here.'"

The Palm Beach Post has this letter to the editor. "Home ownership in Palm Beach County is in jeopardy. Out-of-control insurance premiums and taxes assessed on homes purchased during the past three years for twice their true value and more due to designer mortgages has resulted in hardworking middle-income and lower-income homeowners being pushed beyond their financial limit."

"Foreclosures are increasing by the week, and the number of homes on the market has ballooned, as anxious homeowners try to bail out and move somewhere they can afford to live. Add the obscene tax rates on these homes and soaring insurance rates, and homeowners have no choice: Leave or be foreclosed on."

"When they leave, the banks will be stuck with tens of thousands of homes that they will not be able to sell. Home values will plummet, and the county tax office will be left with huge gaps that cannot be collected. Tourism will vanish if there are no service staff. In the end, we will have created a ghost county that only the rich can afford to live in. This is a reality; it is here and it is now."