What do you see in your housing market this weekend? Lower prices? "With so many houses on the market right now and prices falling, buyers have more houses to choose from and more bargaining power than in recent years, agents say. 'Buyers know they are more in the driver's seat,' agent Yolanda Muckle said."

"Last month, houses took an average of 90 days to sell in the 20716 ZIP code, three times longer than a year ago. Prices were also down by nearly 4 percent since May 2006."

"Agents remain optimistic, but they cautioned that many buyers will expect to get the prices they may have seen during the real estate boom a few years ago. Agent Homer Henry said he is often unwilling to work with owners who insist on overpricing their houses. 'I won't waste my time,' he said."

New legislation? "The Florida Legislature pushed Adam Lubkin off the fence Thursday. Legislators hope a proposed constitutional amendment is just the stick needed to jump-start a slow real estate market by giving the most benefit to new middle-class homeowners."

"Lubkin rents an apartment, but he wants to live in Boca Raton. He's been pre-approved for a loan and plans to look for a house in the $600,000 range. 'You might say that's a lot of money,' Lubkin said, 'but in the areas I'm looking, you couldn't get a townhouse for that a couple years ago.'"

"Not so fast, says a local housing analyst. 'There isn't likely to be much immediate impact,' said Mike Larson of Weiss Research in Jupiter. 'That's because the tax cut for the 2007-08 tax year is only averaging 7 percent, or about $170,' he said."

News from Wall Street? "Concerned that an internal hedge fund at Bear Stearns Cos. wouldn't be able to meet a margin call, Merrill Lynch & Co., one of the fund's biggest lenders, seized $400 million of its assets and is preparing to auction them off."

"The auction, in the coming week, could trigger the fund's dissolution, the second blowup in recent months of a hedge fund that made dicey bets on the market for risky home loans, known as subprime mortgages."

"Everquest Financial, a company that filed plans for an initial public offering last month, has ties with a troubled hedge fund run by investment bank Bear Stearns Cos."

"'If the stories are correct about the problems at the fund, it sounds like they off-loaded the riskiest positions to Everquest,' said Josh Rosner, a managing director at research firm Graham Fisher & Co. 'It is not clear if this was before or after they were aware that those positions were hurting the hedge fund, but the decision seems to have happened before news leaked of the funds' supposed problems,' he added."

Decreasing affordability? "The affordability of most types of housing deteriorated in the Greater Vancouver area in the first three months this year as prices continued to climb, the Royal Bank said Friday."

"RBC says it takes 70 per cent of pre-tax income to service basic ownership costs (including mortgage payments, utilities and property taxes) for a two-storey home in the region. 'If you have a job and rates are going up, then you simply cut three days from your vacation,' said CIBC economist Benjamin Tal. 'You start to make some tradeoffs.'"