Readers suggested a topic around home prices and migration. "Florida migratory outflow: Could it stemmed by falling house prices?"

A reply, "Given the rate at which home prices are falling there and the reluctance of buyers to catch falling knives, I would guess the migratory outfow could be stemmed by the end of falling house prices, but not until they stop falling and everybody knows they have stopped falling."

Another said, "I would add one slight caveat. If Florida prices reach the point where people from elsewhere can purchase for cash as 'sunk cost,' they may be tempted to move even if prices are still falling on a 'live here until I die' basis."

"I can assure you I have seen this happen in more than one coastal area of Australia. I have friends who made a move like this from my city, and paid cash at the coast 2 years back. Their only interest in house prices now is how much they’re likely to leave their kids."

Another from Florida, "It will take a while and much lower prices to stop the flow here in South Florida. I know at least a dozen people with plans in the work to leave. The only thing that is keeping most of them here is their inability to sell their homes."

One said, "It’s hard to say what will happen. People are sheep. Will they continue to think that they have to have a house and keep buying? Or eventually when things bottom out, will they think that real estate is always a terrible deal?"

"A lot of people took a long time to start buying stocks again after the 2000 peak (which of course is when they should have been buying.) And I remember when we bought our first house in Orange County, CA. in 1993, my in-laws, who had made a bad investment in a RE limited partnership in 1988, begged us not to buy because we would lose money."

And lastly, "I’ve been here in So. Florida for nearly two years and it’s amazing how many people I talk to who are leaving. Just yesterday, the huz and I were at the bank and the teller said she was movin’ to Carolina as soon as her house sells. Next door neighbor’s grown kids are going, three other families on my block, about seven families from my kids’ school, many, many are desperate to move outta Florida. Most are going to Tennesee, Georgia or the Carolinas."

The Herald Tribune. "Sarasota and Manatee counties could be facing a shortfall of nearly 12,000 workers in the next seven years or so, a study of the region's job market projects."

"'You tend to lose people in their 20s. It hard to find a home and hard to find the right kind of job,' said Richard Judy, CEO of Indianapolis-based Workforce Associates Inc. 'And the prospect is for more of this qualitative deterioration of the work force. So a company that might expand can't, because they can't find the right kind of workers,' he said."

"'Of 80 employees surveyed who have left jobs at CEO Mary Ruiz's Manatee Glens, 21 said they were leaving the area. The business has been forced to return $200,000 in state money because of staffing vacancies and service cuts."

"Ruiz said she recently wooed a candidate for a key clinical position, but after the worker looked at housing prices online, she decided against the job."

The Wall Street Journal. "This is something few would have predicted 20 years ago. Americans are now moving out of, not into, coastal California and South Florida, and in very large numbers they're moving out of our largest metro areas. They're fleeing hip Boston and San Francisco, and after eight decades of moving to Washington they're moving out."

"The domestic outflow from these metro areas is 3.9 million people, 650,000 a year. High housing costs, high taxes, a distaste in some cases for the burgeoning immigrant populations; these are driving many Americans elsewhere."

"There are some variations. New York had a domestic outflow of 8% and an immigrant inflow of 6%; San Francisco a whopping domestic outflow of 10% (the bursting of the tech bubble hurt) and an immigrant inflow of 7%. Miami and Washington had domestic outflows of only 2%, overshadowed by immigrant inflows of 8% and 5%, respectively."

"The nation's center of gravity is shifting: Dallas is now larger than San Francisco, Houston is now larger than Detroit, Atlanta is now larger than Boston, Charlotte is now larger than Milwaukee."