What do you see in your local housing market this weekend? Have a home link? "It is roughly the same size as a prison cell. But a Chelsea bolthole, which needs rewiring, refurbishing and totally redecorating, is the latest home conversion to go on the market and is expected to fetch a minimum of £170,000."

A business development? "Wachovia Corp. has closed its subprime mortgage lending division, EquiBanc Mortgage. Wachovia decided to close the business after 'an intensive strategic review of its mortgage business, which has altered the company's approach to the origination of nonconforming loans.'"

"Battered by the slowest housing market in years, Pulte Homes yesterday announced that it would shut down a three-year-old manufacturing plant in Manassas where it once hoped to build many of its Washington area homes."

"'Overall costs were higher and that was something that Pulte Homes could not pass on to homebuyers,' said Melanie Hearsch, a Pulte spokeswoman."

How about sales? "Home sales slumped in Maine for the second year in a row in 2006, according to statistics released Friday by the Maine Association of Realtors. 'It's all good for buyers, as they have a good number of homes from which to choose and sellers are more motivated than they have been in the past,' said Alan Peoples, president of Home Sellers of Maine."

"For years, a shortage of houses for sale in Greater Hartford helped create a frenzied housing market. Last year the opposite was true as the inventory of single-family homes for sale inched toward record-high levels. 'But there is still six months of inventory on the market, which is a buyer's market. And come spring, those inventory levels could pop up again,' said Ron Van Winkle, a West Hartford economist."

Signs of speculation? "Local statistics show Houston is different from other markets, which have been facing slumps in home sales and prices. Those coming from pricier markets like California, with 'truckloads of money, look at Houston as an absolute bargain,' said Rob Cook, chairman of the Houston Association of Realtors."

"Sugar Land resident Henry Rothschild bought one condominium in Galveston last year and has put down deposits on two others. His three-bedroom unit in Ocean Grove is on the market for $380,000. He paid $260,000 for it in 2006. 'Demand is so great,' he said of Galveston. 'Everyone wants to go there.'"

Or falling prices? "'Let's say, for example, there were 200 people in the (higher-priced) market two years ago,' said said Colin Mullane, an agent in Ashland and a member of the Statistics Committee of the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors. 'If there were 200 in the lower-priced market, about 100 of those went away.'"

"Total home sales in Jackson County dropped by 32.5 percent, from 4,159 in 2005 to 2,805 in 2006. Median prices fell from $295,000 to $275,000. Mullane suggested falling prices on the low end might have hurt some sellers who didn't have a great deal of equity in the house even after a year or two. If a home was bought for $210,000, Mullane said, the seller wasn't necessarily in a position to sell it for much less than $190,000."