The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. "It is no surprise that Michael Tringali is being forced to sell homes, home sites and land at public auction. When the market turned, he was unable to generate enough income from his home building and real estate investment activities to cover his nearly $87 million in bank debt."

"Now a group of Tringali's banks are forcing Tringali to hold a public sale. The auction should provide a fascinating glimpse into how far the once high-flying Southwest Florida real estate market has fallen. For sale are four luxury homes and 12 home sites in Sarasota County; 14 newly constructed, middle-class homes in Golden Verna Estates near Myakka City; and 253 acres in the same area of Eastern Manatee County."

"With the downturn in residential real estate sales and the logarithmic increase in unsold homes across the region, Tringali's properties will sell for much less than at the height of the boom,' said Martin Higgenbotham, the owner and founder of the Lakeland auction house that is handling the sale."

"'Every builder built too many houses and there is way too much product on the market,' said Higgenbotham, who formed his company in 1959 and has witnessed at least five real estate market cycles. 'Whenever you have this much supply and only so much demand, prices will fall.'"

"This is not an absolute auction, said Donald Kirkland of Higgenbotham Auctioneers. 'It becomes a question of what level of losses they are willing to take,' said George Huhn, a Venice real estate agent and foreclosure specialist. 'This auction is probably a trial balloon for them.'"

"Barbara Anson, a veteran real estate agent in Myakka City, said said Tringali has been trying to sell houses at Golden Verna Estates for $400,000 to $500,000, which she believes is much too high. Anson predicts that Tringali's 253-acre spread in East Manatee will fetch no more than $6,000 per acre."

"That is in spite of the fact that Neil Mohamad Husani paid $12,000 per acre, for the property in August 2005, and quickly sold it to Tringali in a cashless transaction valued $7.6 million, or $30,000 per acre."

"It is Coast Bank that is now on the hook for the property. For the bank to recoup its losses, Anson believes the property will have to be sold for $19,525 per acre. But that is impossible, she said. 'It is agricultural land. Nothing has been done down at the county to subdivide it.'"

"That means the bank will have to take a $12,500 per acre loss on the property -- a total hit of $3.1 million -- if it wants to sell on auction day. 'That's why I don't think it's going to sell,' Anson said."

"One thing is for sure, though, Higgenbotham added: This is not going to be his company's last auction of the year. 'Auctioneers always get busier in a down market,' he said. Because of the chronic oversupply of homes in Florida, local auction activity should be especially brisk in 2007."

"The average monthly apartment rent in Sarasota, Bradenton and Venice fell by $8 in the fourth quarter of 2006, the first time the market's rent came down in at least two years, according to a national research firm."

"Several landlords blamed the drop on the high number of investment properties on the rental market. Lack of tenants has also played a role, as occupancy fell from 97.8 percent at the end of 2005 to 92.3 percent at the end of 2006."

"Landlords such as Al Holmes say the market is so saturated with $1,000-and-up rentals that landlords can't charge higher rent, he said. 'So many investors have bought them and they can't sell them and they put them on the rental market. In North Port they've got a super glut,' Holmes said. 'This is very typical of investors. They're not landlords. They've been forced to be landlords.'"

"RealFacts' data doesn't account for hundreds of single-family homes that have hit the rental market in the past year. Chris Bates, a spokesman for RealFacts, said it is clear Southwest Florida's rental market is 'in flux.'"

"Bates said Southwest Florida's landlords could read that statistic as a new trend: renters are sitting in apartments, watching property values and for-sale prices fall, and contemplating buying."

"'Looking at these numbers, I would say owners were just a little slow in figuring out that their occupancies were going down as much as they were,' Bates said. 'Buyers aren't necessarily buying. They are staying in apartments and waiting.'"

"Gerri Holmes, secretary of a local landlord association, hopes that scenario doesn't unfold in Sarasota, but anecdotal evidences suggests it is possible. 'When we have our meetings we ask our landlords if anybody's got vacancies. And it seems to be that everybody's got at least two vacancies,' she said."

"Renting is a necessity for some investors who need money to help pay the mortgages on investment properties that won't sell. John Stone, broker in Palmetto, told the Herald-Tribune that some newer communities in Manatee County displayed 'a classic case that someone's trying to help with the cash flow.'"

"'You'll see a 'For Rent' sign and a 'For Sale' sign on the same yard,' Stone said."

The St Petersburg Times. "Re/Max Advantage Realty, once a dominant real estate agency in Pasco County, abruptly shut down Tuesday. Nearly 25 affected agents did not learn of the decision until Tuesday morning."

"There was no explanation for the closing. Rick Miller, who said he represented the owner, would only say Tuesday that the closing 'was just a business decision.'"

"Broker Barry Grover, who is one of the Re/Max contractors now looking for a new firm, said the real estate boom brought in inexperienced agents. As the market has slowed, he said, some had problems paying their company fees, which can run about $1,500 a month."

A letter to the editor from South Carolina. "Re Bob Coombs letter, "Insurance burden will drag down S.C.," Jan. 13: When real estate journalists report the local real estate agents' scary scenarios about insurance killing sales, they should do the numbers themselves, not just listen to fantasies."

"Just 18 months ago I heard story after story from agents about pricing property. Fairly recent market evaluation told them to price a unit at say $150,000. Then someone said, 'Let's put $175,000 on it and see what happens, and we did and had a contract in five days.'"

"I've spoken to people all over the East Coast who were buying condos off the Internet at any price because someone in their office bought a condo in Myrtle Beach and quintupled their money in 12 months. Just like the stock market of a few years ago, we have enjoyed a huge speculative bubble that may not have burst, but a lot of the air went out."

"Unfortunately the speculators have an immediate and direct impact on our finances. Speculators have run the market up to a point that the rate of return on equity is poor and more money can be made in other investments. The rate of return on equity is always the basis for evaluating an investment (not a speculation)."

"Five years ago I bought a duplex for $95,000 that generated $1,100 in rents per month. In 2006 an identical duplex sold for $177,000, and it now generates $1,300."

"So what effect does the insurance really have on an investment property compared to the price of the investment? If we need 1 percent of the sale price per month in rents to make a property a good investment, then a $100,000 property needs $1,000 a month in rents."

"If I double the price of that property, as has happened, I need $2,000 a month in rents. If my insurance went from $800 a year to $2,000, a $100-a-month reduction in income, it has the effect of cutting the investment value of the property from $200,000 to $190,000. But the rents only went up $200 a month, which only raised the investment value of the property to $120,000."

"Now, what is the real problem? In the article, real estate agent Steve Tansy says they can't make the numbers work. Steve, if they gave the insurance away, the investment value would only drop by about $20,000."

"The numbers still would not work. Somewhere, we have to come up with $700 a month more in income, or heaven forbid, drop the price back to where it is a good investment. Insurance regulation may need some work, but don't blame the real estate market on the greedy insurance companies."

"After all, who made all the money in real estate in the past couple years?"