The Pioneer press reports from the Twin Cities. "The housing market's slowdown is gnawing at prices, resulting last month in the first drop in the Twin Cities' median selling price in recent memory. 'There's no urgency with the buyers right now,' said Justin Fox, a Realtor in Cottage Grove. 'It's like you'll be working with one that's really hot to buy and all of a sudden they disappear for a couple of weeks and you can't get ahold of them.'"

"The sharp slump in sales that took hold in summer continued last month, with sales in the 13-county metro area dropping 24 percent from September 2005. Pending sales, an indicator of future sales, also have plummeted. To get houses sold, sellers are offering extravagant incentives like sports cars or even auctioning off their homes to the highest bidder."

"That's what John Massey is doing this weekend to sell his Minneapolis house. 'There's just been no movement on it at all, so we're trying some radical stuff to at least get people to look at it,' said Massey, who moved with his wife last year to a house near Madison, Wis."

"Massey has slashed $100,000 off the asking price of his four-bedroom house since listing it for sale a year ago for $839,000. Homes in that price range now typically take a year to sell. Bids will start at $349,500 for Massey's 4,200-square-foot house."

"'We're at the point that it's impossible to carry both house payments and keep any standard of living,' said Massey, who planned to live in the Minneapolis house before business and family issues forced a move."

"Many sellers simply aren't sure what to do. Leslie Larson had the kitchen and bathroom remodeled before listing her Macalester-Groveland three-bedroom in February. But she just took the house off the market after listing it for sale for seven months and reducing the price $40,000, to $289,500."

"Larson is frustrated by comments from agents who have toured the house and offered glib advice such as placing colorful hand towels in the kitchen. 'No one can explain why this house hasn't sold,' she said. Larson has no doubt that the housing market has changed. 'If we had sold this house two years ago without putting in a new kitchen and a new bathroom, we'd have made $50,000 or $60,000 more,' she said."

The Star Tribune. "For the first time in 14 months, the number of new listings added to the Twin Cities residential real estate market dipped in September. For the past several months, inventory levels have been rising at a double-digit pace, driving the number of homes for sale to record levels."

"From January through September, there were nearly 90,000 new listings in the metro area, 11.3 percent more than the same period last year and more than 13,000 more listings than the five-year average."

"What's driving the decline in new listings? 'I think people are tired,' said Todd Shipman, president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors. 'In some sense, yes, the numbers are going to level out, but we have a long road ahead of us. They [sellers] know we're in a buyer's market, and maybe they had less success getting what they wanted; the market has shifted, and they know it,' he said."

The Chicago Sun Times. "It's strange how a developer who landed in Chicago just a couple of months ago trailing clouds of public relations glory now has an acute case of shyness. Garrett Kelleher, the Irish developer who in July took financial control of the proposed 124-story building for 400 N. Lake Shore, doesn't answer questions about the flashy project these days. Nor does his Chicago attorney, Thomas Murphy, who has acted as his spokesman."

"Murphy refers calls to a public relations agent (a spokeswoman for a spokesman?) whose main function is to say that neither man has anything to say, and that Kelleher never liked talking to reporters anyway."

"Such a feeling is common, of course, but it usually abates in developers when they want to spread the word that they have condos to sell. The silence can't bode well for this project, which could turn out as one big financial miscalculation."

"Groundbreaking had been promised by early 2007. But financially, the Calatrava contraption looks as rickety as something out of an old Erector Set."

The Journal Sentinel from Wisconsin. "One clear sign of metro Milwaukee's new-home sales slump: developers are raining down on the parade. 'We used to have to beg people to host (the annual) Parade of Homes,' said Matt Moroney, executive director of Metropolitan Builders Association. 'Now, we're turning people away. Developers need the show as a marketing opportunity.'"

"For the year to date, MTD data show, Milwaukee metro permits are running 24% behind last year. This September was the market's worst-performing September in at least seven years, according to Menasha-based MTD, which tracks one- and two-family home permits in most of the metro area. 'I'm hoping we've bottomed out,' Moroney said."

"He said builders have been reducing their inventory of speculatively built homes, which don't have contracted buyers. Metro Milwaukee is sharing the nation's housing market slide, following five years of boom conditions that produced what economist Michael Carliner called 'unrealistic expectations' among customers and contractors."

"'They may be over-reacting now that their expectations have been tarnished,' said Carliner, the National Association of Home Builders' vice president for economics. He predicted national housing sales will be down about 20% this year and shrink further in 2007."