The Union Tribune follows up on the Dataquick numbers. "San Diego County's housing market weathered its second straight month of price declines in July, when overall prices dropped 1.8 percent from a year ago to $487,000, DataQuick reported. Taken together, the two summer months showed the first back-to-back downturn in prices here since May and June of 1995."

"Last month's figure put the county's median housing price 6 percent below the all-time peak of $518,000 set in November. Prices for newly built houses, resale condominiums and condo conversions all were down, as they had been in June."

"Even more telling of the market's pronounced shift was the rapid slowdown in sales. There were 3,370 closed escrows last month, down 29.3 percent from year-ago levels, and off 21.7 percent from June, the biggest retreat from any June to July since DataQuick began keeping records in 1988."

"'We need to watch the sales pace closely because that was an unusually sharp decline between June and July,' said DataQuick analyst Andrew LePage. 'Maybe it's a one-month deal or it's the beginning of a more forceful slowdown; we don't know.'"

"San Diego is not alone. LePage said the market slowdown is evident in Sacramento and is spreading to other areas. 'The sense of urgency is gone. The sense that buying a house is the fast road to riches is gone. There are fewer people out there buying a house, and a good chunk of people who sense the cooling are going to wait for a deal,' LePage said."

"The role reversal shocked some sellers. Heidi and Wade Shields put their 1,410-square-foot San Diego townhouse in Murphy Canyon on the market five months ago. After dropping the price on the home once, they still have received no offers. The house on West Canyon Avenue hasn't interested buyers at its $619,000 price. They bought the home two years ago for $480,000."

"'I've been really surprised at how dead it's gotten,' said Heidi Shields. 'We've hardly had any lookers at all.' The Shields are in a tough spot. With 18 homes listed, their street appears to have more single-family resale homes on the market than any other in the county."

"Their agent, Tim Skoglin, said he confronts a growing feeling of negativity toward home buying outside the realty community. 'It's kind of spread like fire,' he said. 'All your buddies you work with are not feeling good. It creates a wave opposite from when people said, 'Get out of the stock market and get into real estate.'"