What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Puzzled analysts? "Chicago-area home sales in the first two months of the year declined 12.1 percent from 2006, confounding analysts who were looking for the first small signs of a spring bounce but instead saw a market continuing to struggle."

"'It's not a market that got caught up in the bubble, and it didn't have affordability issues. I suppose buyers have gotten caught up in the general psychology and are sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see what happens,' added economist David Stiff."

"'The buyers I'm working with all tell me they're in no hurry,' he said Wilmette real estate agent John Nash. 'They say they want to get a good deal, and I don't know that they're not overplaying their hands.'"

"One of his clients, Ann Peisel, listed her Wilmette home last summer, and took it off the market after three months, without a single offer. She lopped $100,000 off her asking price and relisted it a little over a month ago for just over $1 million."

"She did get an offer--though it was for about $900,000, which she considered too low. 'It was somebody who was taking a chance, who really couldn't afford the price,' she said. 'Nobody is taking into consideration that I have already lowered the price by $100,000.'"

Subprime concerns? "With foreclosures mounting and the subprime mortgage industry melting, a University of Minnesota housing forum Friday broached the $64,000 question: What now?"

"'This was a social experiment, and it's terrifying,' speaker Prentiss Cox said of subprime lending. Cox is a University of Minnesota law professor specializing in consumer protection."

New legislation? "Rising foreclosures and the near-collapse of the market for home loans to those with bad credit have triggered a flood of proposals from Texas lawmakers."

Lending cutbacks? "Industry analysts worry that tougher lending standards could lock out thousands of potential North Texas homebuyers at a time when home sales are already lagging."

"'Local builders and local Realtors should be somewhat worried that the number of potential buyers will decrease or at least shift into lower-cost submarkets as lenders start requiring equity down payments and tightening underwriting,' said said James Gaines, a research economist at Texas A&M University's Real Estate Center. "

"But Jim Fite and other local housing executives say that changes in the mortgage market are welcome and overdue. 'Is there really a surprise that many of these loans went into default and then the lenders went under?' he asked. 'As we have seen in the past, there is a 'correction cycle' that is occurring.'"