The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "Inventories are bulging. Contracts are collapsing. A new vocabulary is emerging in the real estate market. Welcome to terms like 'short sale.' This time last year in Pasco, there were 5,011 homes waiting to move off the shelf. Today, there are 7,796, according to a real estate company."

"Sales are down and the glut of unsold homes is up, defying the optimists who said the market would turn around by spring 2007. Two years ago, one in two homes sold in any given month. Today, the same period would see one in 20 sell."

"'2007 is going to be flat,' said County Commissioner Ted Schrader, himself a landowner who sold to developers. '2008 is probably going to be flat, at least in the early part.'"

"Prices are still coming down. Take Meadow Pointe in Wesley Chapel. At 28703 Crooked Stick Court, the selling price has gone from $389,900 in May last year to $335,000 in February."

"Or 28418 Great Bend Place, also in Meadow Pointe, which was $419,900 in March last year. Now it's for sale for $335,000."

"Real estate agent Russ Perlowski said he is seeing more short sales. So is Christie Zimmer, who runs F.R.O.G. Realty in Land O'Lakes. 'There's been a 10 to 15 percent increase in the last year,' she said, though she says this is a rough estimate. 'That number is going to go up substantially. I just did six in the last three months.'"

"Short sales are a way out for desperate sellers who want to avoid having their homes seized. Foreclosure suits rose 87 percent in Pasco last year, the biggest jump in the Tampa Bay area."

"'Foreclosures have more than doubled,' said Linda Pichler, VP for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central Florida."

"Julius Green is a real estate appraiser. He and his wife...are finding themselves with more space than they might need. He just closed on his new home in Deerfield Lakes, a 230-home development on State Road 52 at the Suncoast Parkway. Just over a year ago, his 6-month-old neighborhood would have been crawling with builders."

"It's empty today. Of the 30 houses built in the development, his section has just three. 'On our street, we are the only house that's complete,' Green said."

The Sun Sentinel. "A deluge of South Floridians are falling behind on their monthly house payments, raising fears that many of the delinquent property owners will lose their homes to foreclosure this year and next."

"'Who knows how bad it's going to get,' said Richard French, president of the Broward County chapter of the Mortgage Bankers Association. 'It's a little scary to think about.'"

"Broward had 1,168 property owners with late payments in March, a 331 percent increase over the 271 a year ago, according to Realestat.com. Broward's foreclosures hit 543 last month, more than double the 247 from last March. Palm Beach County's late payments climbed 288 percent, to 888, from 229 last March."

"Late home loan payments in both counties increased in each of the first three months of 2007. Marc Thomashaw, a VP for Realestat.com, was blunt. 'We're set for an explosion [of foreclosures] to happen between now and the next six months,' he said."

"Refinancing isn't as easy because lenders are tightening credit standards. Last week, for example, Citibank and other lenders sent notices that they're stopping 100 percent financing for borrowers who can't prove two years' worth of income, said Louis Spagnuolo, a senior mortgage banker in Boca Raton."

"What's more, South Florida's slumping real estate market is holding down prices and preventing recent buyers from selling quickly to get out of financial trouble. 'A lot of these escape valves are now shut,' analyst Mike Larson said. 'It's not a pretty sight.'"

"Economist Mark Zandi agrees that short-term investors and others who bought within the past few years are most at risk of losing their homes. He said more mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures are inevitable due to a 'noxious mix' of aggressive lending, falling home prices and borrowers facing large increases in their monthly payments."

"'It bears close watching,' Zandi said. 'If it were to fall apart, the foreclosure problem would become very, very severe.'"

From Florida Today. "Brevard County's soft 2006 real estate market will shrink taxable property values for the first time in recent history, according to preliminary estimates from Property Appraiser Jim Ford."

"'It's certainly out of the norm,' Ford said of the declining roll. 'We don't normally see a drop at all.'"

"After four years of double-digit increases, Ford's estimates show a nearly 6 percent drop in existing property values in 2006, to $37 billion. The value of new construction sank 36 percent, to about $1 billion. Ford attributed the drop to a sluggish housing market, fueled in part by high insurance costs."

"Sales of single-family homes last year dropped 34 percent, to 10,540. And the median selling price for single-family homes -- the price at which half sold for more and half sold for less -- was down 22 percent in September 2006 from a year earlier to $206,100."

"Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida's Institute for Economic Competitiveness, said the lower tax roll was 'not that surprising.' 'It's part and parcel of the adjustment in the housing market right now,' he said.