The Palm Beach Post has a preview of tomorrows existing home sales number. "Have existing home prices in Palm Beach County finally started to fall? After peaking in November at a median of $421,500, existing home prices have languished around $390,000 all year. Some observers are privately saying that home prices have begun a downturn."

"Palm Beach County home sales in June, according to the MLS report, plunged 39 percent compared with June 2005: to 947 from 1,551. If the Florida Association of Realtors report echoes this, June will mark the seventh straight month of significantly declining sales."

"Active listings in June represent an 18-month supply of homes at the most-recent sales pace, notes a correspondent. The MLS' new-listings report for June also gives a vivid snapshot of our real estate market, and just how unaffordable it is. Of 3,495 new listings in Palm Beach County last month, nearly 80 percent had asking prices of $300,000 or more. Nearly a third had price tags topping $500,000."

"Housing consultant Thomas Lawler thinks South Florida's real estate market has entered what the respected 'death-and-dying' psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross called the first of five stages of grief."

"This process takes time, Lawler says, which is why home prices in hot markets that cool fast don't immediately start falling."

The Sun Sentinel reports on the states schools. "After decades of runaway school growth, educators across much of Florida are asking, 'Where are all the kids?' Enrollment has swung into reverse in several of the largest school districts and slowed dramatically in others."

"'We used to grow by 10,000 kids a year,' said Jane Turner, budget director for the Broward district. This past year, however, it lost almost 2,500 students. Some districts, including Seminole and Palm Beach, are teetering on the edge of an enrollment drop."

"Although no one can cite a definite cause, school officials blame the growth stall on such influences as fear of hurricanes, curbs on immigration and high housing prices that drive away families."

"In Palm Beach County, schools have struggled to handle 5,000 or more additional students a year. Last year only 270 more students arrived. 'This year we expect to be flat. I figure we will get three kids,' said Mike Burke, budget director for Palm Beach County schools. He was not joking. He said he came up with the total after crunching the numbers."

"'The only thing I really have evidence for is that fewer students came into the state,' said Carolyn DuBard, an analyst with the Florida Legislature. In Seminole and Palm Beach counties, officials say low-income residents may have been forced out by the high cost of houses and conversion of apartments to condominiums."