The Palm Beach post reports from Florida. "Mortgage trouble is creating some of the biggest bargains this side of eBay, allowing buyers to snap up homes for tens of thousands of dollars less than what they might have paid just a few months ago. Notices of pending foreclosures are piling up, in what many believe to be the first wave of a trillion-dollar tsunami: The dollar volume of home loans with interest rates that will be ratcheted upward over the next several months."

"New Palm Beach County foreclosure filings rose by 34 percent in June compared with June of last year. Clients these days are from such well-to-do areas as The Acreage and Wellington, Jeff Pashkow said. 'They're mostly (middle class) people who have financed it to the hilt, and there's really not much you can do for them.'"

"From March through May of this year, the average sale price of a home in Palm Beach County sold at foreclosure was just $195,705. That's more than $200,000 less than Palm Beach County's median home price in June 2006, which was $405,500."

"It's a fraction of the $582,000 average Palm Beach County home price in May. And it is almost exactly the amount considered affordable for a worker earning the median income in West Palm Beach, according to the Florida Housing Coalition."

"Realtor Diane Corbin cites the case of a local developer who was selling a home a week, and who is now selling a home a month. 'It's killing them,' said Corbin."

The Herald Tribune. "Jade Homes, a Sarasota-based builder with 75 houses in varying stages of construction in Sarasota, Charlotte and Manatee counties, has shut down its operations and closed its main office and six sales centers."

"Andrew Coles said he hopes Friday's closure will not be permanent, but added that he is meeting with his lawyers to examine options. 'We are having to downsize because of the slowdown,' Coles said."

"Jade, which has built more 500 area homes since its founding in 1997, sold 123 in 2005, according to Coles. This year, Jade sold four. 'That tells you the nature of the problem,' Coles said."

"Jade Homes is one of three builders that have models at a northeast Manatee County subdivision with large lots where homes are priced from the upper $500,000s to $700,000. On Tuesday, four lots there had Jade Homes' 'Sold' signs on them and two Jade houses were under construction. One of those had a roof ready for a tiling crew. On the other house, the roof had been sheathed with plywood but tar paper rolls sat unattended on the roof."

"Smaller construction-heavy communities such as North Port, Nokomis, Osprey and East Manatee will likely be hit first and hardest. North Port's construction permitting activity speaks to that. A year ago, 300 to 400 permits were granted each month in the city. That number has shrunk to 65."

"With thousands of homes already permitted and waiting to hit the market, the inventory surpluses will likely peak at the end of this year, said Jonathan Dienhart of Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. He remains uncertain about the long-term impact on labor. 'The constant state of labor shortages in the industry will be assuaged,' Dienhart said."