The Post and Courier reports from South Carolina. "For two years it was a feeding frenzy. What began as a pragmatic investment alternative to a shaky stock market after Sept. 11, 2001, suddenly prompted thousands of regular people to jump into real estate. In Fort Myers, the raging real estate market came to a screeching halt late last year."

"'The brakes went on — boom! — it stopped,' said local builder Bart DeRosso. 'It's definitely, definitely dried up.'"

"Is South Carolina the next Florida? In the Charleston area, the median price of a home last year was $188,000. It had risen nearly $100,000 since 1995."

"In Fort Myers last month, nearly 12,000 condos and houses were on the market. Too many, DeRosso said. 'If you want to know where the market's going, you look at inventory,' said Denny Grimes, a Realtor in Fort Myers. 'We don't have a demand problem, we have a supply problem. … We had a market binge and now we're going to suffer a little bit.'"

"In the Lowcountry, some say the housing market has started to soften. Prices are starting to come down, said (realtor) Sandy Stone. The Charleston Trident Association of Realtors reports that the average area home price has slipped from about $305,000 in October to about $296,000 in February. The number of homes sold also decreased, from 1,365 in October to 998 in February."

The Miami Herald. "Sellers face a transformed housing market. 'There is a much bigger inventory on the market this year,' said Leslie Kliger, co-owner of Assist 2 Sell. According to Kliger, there are an estimated 350 single-family homes on the market in Cooper City, compared to just 150 this time last year."

"Steven Wall is trying to sell his four-bedroom, three-bath home in the Le Cristal section of Rock Creek for $549,900. He already has dropped the price because potential buyers have been few and far between."

"Lynn Puccio has had her Flamingo Townhome property on the market for two months. At $334,000, potential buyers have not been knocking down her door. She is prepared to wait it out because she would like to let her son finish the school year in South Florida before moving to North Carolina. 'However, if I already had a house waiting for me there, I would really be knee-deep,' she said."

The St Petersburg Times. " It has been a profitable ride for St. Petersburg's Signature Bank, which has hitched itself to the real estate rocket of the past few years. Eighty percent of its loans are in real estate, mostly commercial loans financing offices, shopping strips and housing developments."

"So when the Federal Reserve and other regulators proposed tightening standards for such loans, citing potential volatility in the property market, Signature shot off a letter of protest. So did about 20 other lenders in the Tampa Bay area."

"Alex Sanchez, head of the Florida Bankers Association, predicts dire results for development-reliant Florida if regulators start requiring banks to unload commercial loans. 'If you take commercial real estate out of the equation, it would have a chilling effect. The economy in Florida? You might as well forget about it. Our economy is going to sink fast,' Sanchez said."

"'Most of our banks - commercial loans is all they do. And if they don't do that, what will they do?' Sanchez added. Bankers such as Sharp fear their options will narrow. They could boost their bank's capital by luring more deposits or else delve into other types of lending, such as car loans."

"But after reaping big profits over the past few years in real estate, options such as financing a customer's new Mustang holds less allure. 'Car loans? We don't want to do them if we don't have to,' Sharp said."