Bloomberg reports on Florida. "Brian Tuttle owns so much land that he paid $3.6 million to get rid of 125 acres ready for development in the middle of Florida's Palm Beach County. 'In 2005, I was a brain surgeon, and in 2006, I was a moron,' said Tuttle, who walked away from his deposit on the land rather than lose even more money buying it and building homes on it. 'The only good news is that I'm not alone.'"

"If he chose to buy the land, he would pay $310,000 an acre, almost 10 times more than the $33,000 an acre he paid for his first parcel there in 2000. Two years later, land values have fallen by as much as 40 percent. Tuttle said it was impossible for him to make enough on the deal, so he chose to give up the deposit rather than buy the land."

"'I'm just this humble guy and I didn't see prices going this low,' Tuttle said. 'The big guys didn't see it either.'"

"These days, the speculators are looking foolish. In Florida, where they helped inflate land values as much as 10-fold from 2000 to 2005, prices have dropped by as much as 50 percent."

"'The land market has dried up,' said analyst Alex Barron. 'Most builders are on the sidelines because they expect prices to go down another 30 percent.'"

"St. Joe Co., Florida's biggest private landowner, said yesterday the average price per acre of land it sold in the fourth quarter dropped to $1,900 from $4,100 in the third quarter."

"Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach, Florida, said land prices in his region will keep falling. He said investors are waiting for prices to hit bottom, probably in the second half of this year. 'It's going to be pretty ugly,' McCabe said. 'Lots of people will lose money and a lot of paper wealth will be going away.'"

"Margie Bushnell is one land speculator who said she's willing to wait to get the price she desires. The 77-year-old widow from Flagler County, Florida, owns a half-acre parcel on Highway A1A in the coastal town of Hammock. The carrying costs are killing her, she said. She's paying property taxes of $4,500, triple what she paid when she made the purchase three years ago."

"'It's an extremely lot of money,' Bushnell said. 'I'm retired and it's hard for me to come up with that.'"

"Bushnell is offering the land on a free on- line advertising site. A year ago, her price was $699,000. Now she's asking $650,000. She said in a half-whisper that the land, zoned mixed commercial and residential, could be had for $595,000. She's ready to wait another year for a buyer at that price."

"How much did Bushnell pay for the half-acre in 2004? $80,000."

The News Press. "A meltdown in the Southwest Florida housing market has forced a hiring freeze of building inspectors and permitting staff in Lee County and Cape Coral."

"'We're hearing that things could be slow possibly for another year, so I don't think we'll be filling (openings) any time soon,' said Mary Gibbs, director of Lee County's Department of Community Development."

"'When we had the boom, we had tons of overtime. So we cut out the overtime. We had some temporary help. We cut out the temporary help,' Gibbs said."

The Orlando Sentinel. "Bob Bach Sr., vice president of research nationally for Grubb & Ellis Co., and another expert, though speaking to a crowd of commercial real estate brokers, spent a lot of time talking about the state of residential real estate, given the nationwide slowdown in existing-home sales and the slump in new-home construction."

"Mark Vitner, chief economist for Wachovia Corp., the nation's fourth-largest bank, said a recent uptick in home sales doesn't mean the residential market's troubles are over. 'I don't think so,' Vitner said. 'There's evidence the market still hasn't hit bottom.'"

"Vitner said recent sales spikes were due to the holding power of relatively low mortgage rates and to home-builder incentives. The market's weakness is reflected in order cancellations, which are still running high, he said. For example, Orlando's new-home market is experiencing a 50 percent cancellation rate, while the nationwide average is 35 percent, Vitner said."

The Tampa Tribune. "With a premier address and waterfront views, ParkCrest Harbour Island was irresistible to many investors, who repeatedly bought and sold units since it opened two years ago. Now, dozens of owners want out, and there are signs some can't pay their bills."

"Sixteen of the 336 units are in some stage of foreclosure, and 67 of the condos are for sale. An additional 41 units are listed in the database as leased or for rent. 'This is excellent anecdotal evidence of what's happening in the Florida housing boom and the bust we're now in,' said consultant Jack McCabe."

"Of the 16 foreclosures in ParkCrest, five are a result of owners not paying condo association fees. The rest are being foreclosed on by the financial institutions holding the mortgages. It is not clear how many of them are investors, but three own two units each."

"'I tend to think the overall trouble in the condo market is because investors are overextended,' said Jim Pyburn, president of the ParkCrest Harbour Island Condo Association. Pyburn said other condo owners are on the verge of foreclosure for not paying monthly fees. The fees vary depending on unit size, but a 1,300-square-foot condo runs $573 a month in maintenance fees, he said."

"ParkCrest Harbour Island, along the Garrison Channel in downtown, opened in March 2005. The building was originally planned as an apartment complex, but the developer decided during construction in 2004 to convert the project into condominiums. Within six weeks, the building was nearly sold out, the company said at the time."

"Investors have converged on the building since the beginning. There are 397 total sales in the building listed in the MLS. Some of the units have sold multiple times."

"Developers typically sell units themselves and don't use the listing service, so many of the sales listed in the database are resales, said Emmy Purcell Reynolds, vice president of Tampa real estate company Henry Purcell Inc."

"Reynolds said she has taken clients to see units in ParkCrest three times and isn't surprised by the amount of foreclosures. 'The apartment-condo idea may have been good in its infancy, but developers oversaturated the market,' Reynolds said. 'The units themselves [in ParkCrest] don't feel like condos; they feel like apartments.'"

"Of the 67 units on the market, 15 have been for sale less than a month; 10 have been on the market for more than 200 days and two have been waiting for a buyer for more than a year, according to listing data."

"There are so many units on the market that the ParkCrest condo association has decided not to allow lockboxes to hang on the doors. Instead, the lockboxes, used by agents to gain access to units, go in a cabinet. 'If you walked in a building as a buyer and saw 67 lockboxes, you might be a little intimidated,' Pyburn said."

"Michael Brudny, a lawyer in Oldsmar, is representing the condo association at ParkCrest. Brudny said the firm represents 400 condo associations in the Tampa Bay area and that foreclosures on behalf of associations are on the rise."

"'It's the only remedy associations have when people don't pay,' Brudny said, noting that some condo owners face losing their property over as little as $2,000 in assessment fees. For some condo investors, the foreclosure process is a way to buy time to come up with the money, he said. But if they can't, others are watching and waiting to buy units at a discount."

"McCabe said he is advising these investors to wait for better deals. 'In my opinion, it's still a little early. After the current snowbird season is over, I think we'll see lenders take back properties from developers and foreclosures will go up dramatically.'"