Bloomberg reports on the US housing market. "Nancy and Brian Christopherson are asking $389,900 for their eight-room Colonial Revival home in Westford, Massachusetts, featuring a new kitchen with maple cabinets. Even at that price, they'll lose $14,100. Monthly price reductions since they listed it in May for $429,900 have lured no offers for the house, bought for $369,000 in 2004. 'It's getting scary,' says Nancy Christopherson."

"The National Association of Realtors may report on Sept. 25 a decline in existing home sales for the fifth straight month, says David Lereah, the group's chief economist. 'For the next couple of months, we're probably looking at between zero to a five percent drop in prices,' Lereah says. 'The only way for home sales to come back, and for inventories to start to diminish, is for sellers to start to bring prices down.'"

"Not all homeowners are willing to accept less. Roxy Allen listed her four-bedroom house in Littleton, Colorado, for sale in May. She dropped the price once to $339,900 from $352,000 and has refused to go lower. She hasn't received a single offer."

"'The Realtor wants you to just make a deal with somebody and sell it for cheap,' Allen says. 'Why would I sell my house for less and buy one for more?'"

"Peter Francisco, who owns a three-bedroom ranch in East Harwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, has fewer options. The U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant was transferred in July and put his house on the market in August at a price lower than he wanted: $379,900. 'If you have to go, you have to take what you can get,' says Francisco. So far, he has no offers."

"'It's called `How low can you go?' says Doreen Kelly, who has dropped the price three times on her Westport, Connecticut, farmhouse to $799,900 after listing it in May for $938,000. 'The gains the real estate market made in the last three years just got wiped out on this particular house.'"

"Edward Brown, a Florida real estate investor, says he's financially overextended and needs to sell a three-bedroom house in Cape Coral, Florida. He's asking $579,000. $20,000 less than he paid for the property a year ago. 'No one expected the market to drop so quickly,' he says. 'There are a lot of people like me who are caught in a pickle.'"

The New York Times. "To hear some people in the real estate industry tell it, one of the biggest problems with the housing market is what is being said about it in the news media."

"Agents and industry executives say reporters, editors and news anchors are making a cooling market sound worse than it is. 'There was a 'constant flood of media that is so negative' that it was discouraging many potential buyers and sellers,' said Richard Smith, president of the nation’s largest residential real estate broker."

"'Nobody wants to be foolish in this kind of market,' he said. 'No one wants to sell too low or buy too high.'"

"But exactly how much the press influences mass consumer behavior is subject to debate. Robert J. Shiller, the Yale economist, said the news media played an important role in molding public opinion as markets both rise and fall. He said he generally approved of the skeptical tone of many news reports about both the real estate boom and subsequent downturn. 'The media has been pretty on top of this story, that this might be a psychological event,' he said."

"Many journalists who cover the real estate market said they expected, and were not worried by, criticism from the industry. They said they were more concerned about whether the news media were skeptical enough about the boom while it was continuing."

"'We were late to the savings and loan crisis and we were definitely late to the dot-com crash,' said Bradley Inman, publisher of a real estate news service, who said he believed that the news media have done a better job covering the housing boom."

"Some critics say the news media did not include enough contrary viewpoints during the run-up in home prices. 'Obviously, people get carried away,' said Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington. 'But if there are voices that challenge it, it stops some people.'"

"But Mr. Shiller said he was not so sure it did. In reviewing historical news clips, he said, he found that the press had frequently questioned the premise of booms, including the 1920’s stock market boom. 'Newspaper people do that more than their audience demands,' he said. But it appears, he added, that people 'read it blandly and it doesn’t sink in.'"