The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. "Some home builders in this region "have not had any sales this year" and are working off unfinished backlogs to survive, said John King, president of the Homebuilders Association of Sarasota County. King said he is starting to see signs that 'things are picking up' and that sales incentives are working."

"Lakewood Ranch-based Neal Communities has made sales in recent weeks and its namesake credits 'new products with substantially reduced prices.' Pat Neal, who owns enough land in the region to accommodate about 9,000 new houses, might be in a better position than some builders: He has land with a lower cost-basis that he can pass along to buyers without hurting his profits significantly."

"The home construction industry had a 'long run of overconfidence in which it could build anything and sell it,' said Derrick Barwick, of Palmetto-based builder de Morgan Communities. Those days 'are gone. It's no longer the go-go market.'"

"Incentives to make sales abound, even among Southwest Florida's big players. Lennar Homes is launching a four-day-long '26 Hour Sale' this weekend featuring reduced prices in 13 neighborhoods in the region. The effort includes the lowest prices offered by the big Miami-based home builder so far this year, said Rob Allegra, president of the Sarasota/Manatee division."

"Allegra said the current downturn is a six- to 12-month proposition. If he or his bosses thought it was more severe, Lennar would be 'leaning the machine and laying off people, which we're not.'"

The Daytona Beach News Journal. "Which causes Floridians more worry, rising gasoline prices or falling real estate prices? The man who measures the state's consumer confidence every month says most Floridians aren't that worried about gasoline costs. Uncertainty about real estate values is a bigger concern."

"Chris McCarty, survey director at the University of Florida, predicted unease about real estate values will push down confidence levels for the next several months. We expect a fairly pronounced effect from the decline in the real estate market,' McCarty said. As prices soften, there will be a 'leveling or decline' in home equity, a loss of construction jobs and slower sales of appliances and building products, he said."

"Area homes marketed by Realtors sold in June for a median price of $221,300. While that was $12,600 higher than the median price of a year ago, it was $10,200 below May's price level. 'There's clearly a lot more inventory on the market now, but sellers haven't come to grips with that yet,' McCarty said. He expects prices to fall farther in higher-priced coastal markets like Naples, Fort Lauderdale and Sarasota, but he was uncertain whether Daytona Beach will follow suit."

"One local seller who recently bit the bullet and lowered his asking price is Bill Fletcher, an Ormond Beach resident who had been trying to sell a two-bedroom starter home for $147,900. After four months of waiting for a buyer, he's lowered his price to $143,900."

"'My theory is that the market is very saturated right now, and interest rates are going up,' Fletcher said. Fletcher bought the 50-year-old fixer-upper in March for $96,000, painted inside and out and replaced its roof and heating and air-conditioning system. Fletcher owns two other rental homes, but this is his first attempt to do a quick resale."

"Mark Soskin, an economist at the University of Central Florida's Daytona Beach campus, can understand why sellers are nervous about empty properties. Speculators trying to flip expensive new condominiums while juggling interest-only mortgages are perhaps at greatest risk, he said. 'The foreclosures that are likely will dump a lot more of that product on the market,' he said."

The Tampa Tribune. "Trump Tower Tampa, the 52-story riverfront project trumpeted as downtown's crowning luxury condominium building, is still at ground level and without construction financing, its project manager acknowledged Friday."

"Spokesman David Hooks would not say where the financing stands and would not answer general questions. For days, construction appeared to have halted at the Ashley Drive site. Friday afternoon, three workers were on the property."

"Since plans were announced January 2005 for a 600-foot, $220 million tower, which would be Tampa's tallest, the project completion date has been moved several times, and developers parted ways with at least two contractors. Frank Dagostino, SimDag's CEO, said 80 percent of the 192 units were spoken for. The majority of those buyers had contracts, he said, and had put down 20 percent nonrefundable deposits."

"At least one buyer, Stephen Page, of Clearwater, said he's unconcerned. 'I'm looking forward to this going vertical,' Page said, noting he paid just under $1 million for the two-bedroom condo he wants on the 34th floor. 'Knowing the Trump people, I have a lot of confidence they'll get it done.'"