The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "Jeanne Gavish met with clients Ed and Earlene Young last week to tell them the housing market would soon come back to life. 'You're staring daggers at me,' said Gavish, sitting in the Youngs' living room. 'No I'm not,' said Young. 'It's just that we had this great expectation of selling in a heartbeat and we can't believe we've found ourselves in a market that's bottomed out.'"

"Gavish knows how she feels. The ongoing depression in the real estate market has transformed the lives of brokers and agents, said Gavish, the former president of the Hernando County Association of Realtors. Many of Gavish's own investment properties have lingered on the market without buyers or renters. Attendance in a beginning real estate class at her Nature Coast Real Estate School 'dropped off a cliff' in February, she said."

"The median sale price of houses in the area did not begin to fall until June, but has since slid more than $10,000."

"But she isn't ready to drop the price of the Youngs' house. They bought it for $145,000. Their asking price of $229,000 is still valid, Gavish said, based on recent sales in Wellington and the added benefit of being on a cul-de-sac. Neither were the Youngs ready to accept a long stay on the market. When she was asked when she needed to sell the house, Earlene Young had a ready answer: 'Three months ago.'"

"By all accounts, the party is over for most condo developments in and around downtown Tampa. Weeds, not construction cranes, are spouting in more than one expensive empty tract. Tampa's long-sought dream of a vibrant residential core, while not gone, appears to be seriously diminished."

"All told, about a dozen projects with more than 4,100 planned units have either been delayed, put on hold or are simply dead. Banks have stopped lending money for condominium projects, said Mark Huey, manager of economic development for Tampa. 'You see that happening throughout the state and the country,' he said."

"Frank DeBose, part of the group behind the defunct 02 at Pinnacle Place, said, 'We've put too much housing in the higher end.' Buildings with high-priced units now under construction will probably have to drop their prices, he said. 'Five years from now, the discussion is going to be about all those $700,000 and $800,000 condos downtown that you can buy for $300,000,' he said."

The Tampa Tribune. "State agencies are investigating potential mortgage and title fraud involving 36 unorthodox real estate deals in the Bay area. The deals aren't an anomaly. 'The reports we're getting are incredible,' said Doug Pollock, (who) investigates problem mortgages. 'This scheme is hitting every county in Florida. It's like people are going to classes to learn how to do this.'"

"How widespread are the inflated deals? The answer, industry experts fear, is that they're everywhere, but there's no way to determine the extent. 'This is prevalent in some areas,' said Brad Monroe, president of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors. 'It just makes you wonder how many of these deals are going on that we don't know about yet.'"

The Herald Tribune. "The J.P. King Auction Co. will auction 100 units in The Hamptons at Tampa Palms condominium conversion project. Forty of the units will sell at absolute auction, meaning they will go to the highest bidders with no minimum bid or reserve."

"'With the marketplace slowing down a bit,' said King in the understatement of the year, 'Bay Communities decided it was a good time to get more aggressive and sell a number of units in one day.'"

The Naples News. "Ruth Lundi and David Chadwick decided to give their home away in an essay contest. 'I talked to a few Realtors who came out to look at the place and said it would be hard to even get people to come out for a showing,' Lundi said. 'Everyone's selling now.'"

"They are soliciting 6,000, 250-word entries on the subject — 'I believe you should give me your home because ...' Each entry is $100 so they stand to make about $600,000 which would cover the appraised price of their home as well as the cost of advertising and running the contest."

"Skeptics will be skeptics, however, said (broker) Brett Ellis. 'To me it sounds like an act of desperation ... like someone who isn't willing to price their home at today's market and is trying to get more money for it,' Ellis said. 'If you price it right, anything will sell. If you want to overprice it you can try an essay contest.'"

"When Jan and Barbara Mueller put their 2,700-square-foot coach home in Mediterra on sale for $970,000, it didn't move for months. So they took it off the market. Now it is back on the market for $840,000. But this time the home, which sits near the Lee-Collier county line, has been staged by a professional."

"'There are 10 other homes on the market that are essentially similar,' said Jan Mueller."

"In another instance, stager Sarah Stickney bought a $225,000 boat that will be given away with the house. In that house, the main focus was the back patio. 'It's what the house is all about so we emphasized that and put the boat in the back to really draw attention to it,' Stickney said."

"The house hasn't sold yet, but she is confident it will."