The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. "Real estate push has come to foreclosure shove in Palmetto. Roughly 200 individual property owners are finding themselves in the first step of a foreclosure because of a legal tussle between well-known Palmetto builder deMorgan Communities and the company that did roads, utilities, sewers and drainage for the development."

"Real estate attorneys said that the neighborhood's troubles could be a taste of what is to come as contractors in the state's limping real estate market use every remedy available to them under Florida law to get developers to pay."

"Already, a couple who bought at Oak View last year, have found out what it means to be caught in the middle. Christian and Erin Slager found a buyer for their deMorgan home, scheduled a closing for Friday, and were then notified by their agent at Opteum Title that they could not close, she could not issue them a title insurance policy because their home was subject to a $544,000 lien."

"Because the lien names deMorgan, homeowners are not automatically notified that there is a cloud over their property. The way they find out is when they try to do something with their property."

"But some Oak View residents have simply declined to get excited. Ray Bartro, a retired Marine who lives in Carpenteras, does not foresee any legal action affecting his ownership. 'What are they going to do, tear up my home and cart it away? I don't think so. I have an Uzi.'"

The Orlando Sentinel. "Will slumping home sales and rising gas prices push Florida, including the Orlando area, into recession? The latest forecast from a University of Central Florida economist concludes they will not, at least not without a lot of help. Other experts, however, aren't so sure."

"Some bankers, though, said they still worry that the problems of many subprime-mortgage lenders will seep into the broader economy. Chuck Owston, Central Florida president of Florida Capital Bank, based in Jacksonville, said that, with credit standards tightening, 'people who are on the borderline financially are not being able to finance or buy a home.'"

"The resulting drop in demand has meant fewer builders building and fewer development loans, he said."

"'Land development and residential construction [have] slowed dramatically,' he said. 'Projects and loans that made sense 18 to 24 months ago don't make sense anymore.'"

The Sun Sentinel. "Florida Atlantic University expects to be on track for modest growth in the coming years, following an unexpected decline last year."

"The university's fall enrollment was 25,657 last year, a slight decline from 25,994 the year before. It was the first time in decades that FAU's population dropped. The university made $2 million in cuts, because it hadn't expected the drop."

"Officials attributed the declines to hurricanes, a depressed housing market and lower high school and community college graduation rates."

The Palm Beach Post. "St. Lucie County officials got slightly better news about property values Tuesday than Property Appraiser Jeff Furst predicted recently, but the values still were way below the double-digit increases of the past few years."

"The county's soft real estate market and construction industries held the tax roll increases down."

"City officials said they were not surprised and had planned for the housing bubble to lead to lower taxable values the next few years. 'A lot of us have been saying the market would self-correct,' Councilman Christopher Cooper said. 'It's been doing that for decades. There are good times and bad times.'"

"Vice Mayor Jack Kelly said he tried to tell state lawmakers the correction would lower property values and corresponding taxes without government interference, just as rising values lined city coffers the past five years."

"'The correction was built into our plan over the next four to five years,' Kelly said. 'We'll have a bigger (value) decrease next year.'"

The Tampa Tribune. "Building in Tampa is about to get more expensive. For the first time in seven years, the city plans to raise permit fees. Mayor Pam Iorio embraces the philosophy of raising fees in the construction services division. 'It is our goal to have that be self-sufficient,' Iorio said."

"If the city makes the building department self-sustaining, employees probably would have to brace for furloughs or layoffs if the building industry slows. 'If those fees are what funds the department, when you have a complete construction slowdown, you will have fewer employees,' Iorio said."

"That's what happened in Hillsborough County, which furloughed building employees this month in response to the downturn in the building market. Building offices are closed every other Friday."

"In Florida, a statewide indicator of consumer confidence ticked up by one point to a reading of 83 in June, but that wasn't a sign that Floridians' outlook is improving. The slight rise was up from a 19-month low, reached in May, and it falls within the survey's margin of error."

"'There are a lot of things weighing on consumer confidence,' said Gary Thayer, chief economist at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc."

"In South Florida, builders have been slashing prices to lure hesitant buyers. DiVosta Building Corp. of Palm Beach Gardens and Levitt Corp. of Fort Lauderdale are among the local building companies to begin layoffs this year in response to the housing slowdown."

"Lennar Corp.'s struggles may not be over any time soon as the troubled housing market shows no sign of recovery. The Miami-based company, one of the nation's leading home builders, said Tuesday it stumbled to a second-quarter loss as inventories of unsold homes rose and it also cut prices and offered more incentives to attract buyers."

"Lennar has cut jobs in Southwest Florida as it contends with the slow market. Lennar, Southwest Florida's largest home builder, merged two local division into one entity and has cut roughly 90 positions since the beginning of the year."

"In April, the company trimmed another 56 position in Sarasota-Manatee. Those layoffs, coupled with the 35 positions eliminated in late February, mean that the home builder has trimmed 40 percent of its local staff. Other big home builders also have been cutting positions."

"The home builder has cut back on housing starts by more than 50 percent year over year as it unloads inventory, Lennar CEO Stuart Miller said."

"Other industry challenges include restoring consumer confidence in the ultimate value of a home purchase and replacing demand that was lost with the recent problems with subprime lenders, Miller said. And, builders who have stopped construction are starting to register losses on land that's just sitting there."

"'Market conditions have eroded so much over the past six months that we are now focused on limiting the loss for the year,' Miller said, adding later that uncertain conditions make him 'suspect that we will not know that a recovery is coming until it is upon us.'"

The St Petersburg Times. "Florida's proposed "super homestead exemption" would slash taxes by about 70 percent for the owner of a new median-priced house in the Tampa Bay area. But the super homestead exemption would be no cure-all to Florida's housing woes."

"'My assessment, is, yes, this would help the real estate industry, but it's not going to resurrect it entirely,' said University of Florida economist David Denslow."

"While tax reform may bring better times for the Florida housing market, economists caution, price declines of the past year stem more from an oversupply of homes than from rising property taxes."

"In Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties, the number of homes and condos listed for sale in May stood at 41,600, quadruple the inventory of two years earlier. May sales disappointed, Realtors theorize, because buyers wondered how deeply the Legislature would cut taxes."

"'The tax plans means much of the uncertainty in the real estate market is now gone. In my view, that's one of the best things about this: At least they're doing something,' said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith. 'But I don't think it's an instant cure-all to the glut.'"