What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Repartments? "Citing sluggish sales, the residential developer in Rockville’s Town Square is shifting more than three-quarters of its units from condominiums to rentals. Scott Ross confirmed on Friday that all but one residential building would now be marketed as rental units."

Changes in loan conditions? "As the subprime home financing fiasco continues to unravel, one of its most frayed threads is coming to light, according to three new studies: Many longtime homeowners have put their houses in jeopardy by refinancing with high-interest loans."

"Shorewest real estate broker Ian Francis said he just turned down a listing from a homeowner who had a $147,000 refinance loan on a house that is likely worth $110,000. 'There was no point to taking the listing,' he said. It's not unusual to see homes worth up to $600,000 in similar straits, said Francis."

"'The way things are looking is that things will be getting worse, not better, for some time,' said John Pawasarat, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee."

Hesitant buyers? "Realtor Mindy Althoff can tell you a thing or two about marketing a home in Michigan's sluggish housing market. To sell a home these days, sellers and their agents will have to go the extra mile, Althoff said. 'Now, (buyers) don't really want to do anything,' she said."

Cheaper materials? "Kruger Inc. is slashing more than 1,000 jobs as it indefinitely shuts four sawmills in Quebec to cope with the impact of the drop in the demand for lumber."

"'Over the last two or three weeks there has been a dramatic drop in [lumber] prices. Our prices are 24 per cent lower than last year at this same time. It's a record,' said Kruger spokesman Jean Majeau. The main culprit is plummeting housing starts in the U.S."

Less speculation? "New and existing unit homes sales in Benton County were off 18.8 percent from a year ago, according to figures released Thursday by the Arkansas Realtors Association. 'This decline is directly related to the number of speculators and investors that have gotten out of the market,' broker Shae Dittrich said."

A spring bounce? "Springtime usually means good times in the U.S. housing industry, but this year it's threatening to become a grim season of reckoning. 'Things seem to be snowballing very quickly,' said economist Steven Cochrane. 'It's going to be a weak spring.'"

"'This isn't going to be over in a year,' predicted Yale University economics Prof. Robert Shiller. 'Housing prices could be declining for years and years.'"

"Lenders made these subprime loans largely because they felt protected by rising home prices. But weakening home prices have exposed the folly of that premise. 'Giving mortgages to people who couldn't afford them was the biggest error of recent years,' Shiller said."