The USA Today reports on flipping. "The vanishing act of speculators is accelerating the decline in home sales this year. That's giving buyers a bonanza of choices. It's also a stark reminder of the cyclical nature of real estate."

"Short-term real estate investors are learning how hard it is to make money, any money, once For Sale signs begin hanging in yards for months. Sellers cut prices, and builders hand out swimming pools to entice hesitant buyers."

"Jeffrey Epstein in Florida, put deposits down on a condo and a town house under construction in Miami in 2004, he never actually planned to live in them, or even buy them outright. 'My strategy was just to put down a deposit and try to flip the contracts when they built the properties,' says Epstein. 'But then I ran into a couple of problems.'"

"Namely, a local real estate market with a 17-month supply of condos for sale and prices 11% below last year's median. In June and July, Epstein had to come up with the money to close on the condo and the town house. Now, to get them off his hands, he's offering to pay the buyers' closing costs and homeowner's association fees for a year."

"'We're nervous about what's going on in the market,' says David Kloth, a doctor in Danbury, Conn., who with a lawyer put down deposits on three luxury condos in Las Vegas that will be completed in November. 'We've got two months to close' on the property, says Kloth. 'Until we sell, who knows?'"

"'In the home market, the investors, rather than rushing for the door, are holding onto homes imagining the market will turn around,' says Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast."

"It reminds him of the last real estate bust in California. 'In the late '80s, here in California, you couldn't go to a cocktail party without somebody admiring their own intelligence about the latest home they just bought,' he recalls. Then, in the '90s, deep layoffs in the aerospace and defense industries sent the market into a tailspin. 'What happened in California is a good lesson' for investors. Leamer says. 'We had speculators out of the market for at least a decade.'"

"In Las Vegas, the market was infested with real estate flippers during the recent real estate heyday. Now, in new neighborhoods in the Summerlin area of Las Vegas, about 40% of the single-family homes for sale are vacant, says Bruce Hiatt, owner of Luxury Realty Group. 'It's higher than we expected,' he says."

"Homes that were selling for $535,000 last year are going for $460,000 today. 'It's shocking to see, in a year's time, the price's ability to come down,' Hiatt says."

"Page Musgrove is done flipping in San Diego, where home prices are now falling and there's nearly a nine-month supply of single-family homes for sale. 'I don't trust the California market anymore,' he says."

The Washington Times. "Hundreds of houses get auctioned off every month at the offices of Alex Cooper Auctioneers in Washington and Baltimore, where homeowners grasp at one last chance to make money off their properties. 'I do find that there has been a greater demand from individuals who are very anxious and who can't understand why their house has not sold,' said VP Paul Cooper."

"Many of his customers bought houses during the peak of the housing boom. Now they can't keep up with the payments. 'They borrowed too much, they paid too much,' Mr. Cooper said."

"Doug Goldsten, an auctioneer in the District, said his business of auctioning foreclosed homes is up 10 percent to 20 percent since the spring. 'The banks were making loans with less equity,' Mr. Goldsten said. 'People got into trouble if they couldn't sell their house right away, so they're getting foreclosed on.'"

The Associated Press. "Now that home sales are weakening, buyers have taken a page from the sellers' playbook, demanding everything from new appliances to no closing costs to upfront cash to get the deal done. In some cases, what they are doing is down and dirty, sellers have been asked to pay off buyer's credit-card debt, cover costs of the buyer's current home or even pay for the buyer's commuting costs from the new home."

"This kind of gamesmanship allows buyers to get the most for their money. It also reveals that the housing market's ugly side may be here to stay."

"Buyers throw out new demands right before they sign the deal, such as to have their credit-card debt paid off, their closing costs covered or the homes completely repainted with their choice of colors."

"The buyers of Theresa Liddy Dolge's Hamilton, N.J., home wanted to her to pay their apartment lease from June through August since they forgot to tell their landlord they were moving. She didn't agree to that, despite her lawyer and realtor's attempts to get her to do so. They also asked for her train pass and her parking spot at the train station, both of which she no longer had."

"Granted, she made money on the deal, selling the home for $275,000, which was well above the $160,000 for which she had bought it. But the buyers' sense of entitlement still bothered her."

"Today's buyers seem to have learned from yesterday's sellers, when homeowners saw that as an opportunity to inflate their selling prices. Now buyers are watching mortgage rates move up and risky loans implode. They want to make sure they get as much as they can out of the housing market. That certainly sounds familiar."