The Post & Courier reports from South Carolina. "Weeks before Dorothy O'Mara put her Mount Pleasant condominium up for sale, the unit next door found a buyer in a mere four days. More than a year later, O'Mara's unit is still on the market. In the Montclair condo and townhouse development...one in every six properties is up for sale. While her two-bedroom, 2 1/2-bathroom end unit has one of the lowest price tags at $175,000, it has been a struggle to attract buyers."

"'It's been kind of an impossible situation,' said O'Mara."

"The local market is full of units that are up for sale, nearly 2,000 in all, compared with less than 500 in a given month just two years ago, according to figures from the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors."

"The upshot is that some condo sellers are cutting prices or offering incentives to lure buyers. Also, several new projects have been delayed, and plans to convert at least one apartment complex into condos have been scrapped."

"In Mount Pleasant, conversions became a popular option because of a town regulation that limits the number of building permits. Developers continued to build new projects alongside thousands of single-family homes."

"'This was the 100-year flood,' said Fudgy Brabham, broker-in-charge of Harbourtowne Real Estate."

"Sellers such as O'Mara are shocked at how difficult it has been to find buyers. 'Some of the neighbors have been forced into foreclosure, and it's just been very sad,' she said."

The News Press from Florida. "Occupancy rates in Fort Myers’ big apartment complexes plunged 10.9 percent in the second quarter, according to RealFacts. Rental complexes with 100 or more units were at 87.6 percent occupancy, down 10.9 percent from a year earlier."

"Jim Garinger, a real estate agent who follows the multifamily market, said occupancy rates in the big complexes dropped because of competition from other sources, including the conversion of apartments to condominiums."

"'The amount of condo conversions that’s happened in the last two years has had a big impact,' he said. 'Those units were pulled off initially as condominiums but now we see them coming back on and being rented.'"

"'That in combination with the regular condo products that were sold pre-construction and they were either sold to someone who’s renting them out or the developer decided to rent them,' he said."

The Herald Tribune. "Stacked-up listings and double-digit price declines, phenomena that have plagued the Southwest Florida residential real estate since mid-2005, have skewed the rules for getting divorced."

"It is not hard to find divorce attorneys who will complain about the effect that the housing blues are having on business. 'I had another one today with the same problem,' said Lisa Kleinberg, a family attorney in Sarasota. 'House on Siesta. And it has gone down from being worth about $1.2 million to being $900,000. They can't get it sold.'"

"'We used to rely on appraisals, but their value is questionable," he said. "Regardless of what the appraisal is, the value of a property is only what someone is willing to pay for it. There are fewer buyers now,' said Richard Perlman, a Longboat Key Realtor."

From NBC 2 in Florida. "Foreclosures in Lee County continue to soar and realtors say the housing boom of the past few years is to blame. In June alone, Lee County reports show that there were 968 foreclosures. That’s up dramatically from numbers in June of 2004 when there were only 156 foreclosed homes."

"As home prices drop, foreclosures are increasing and with last months numbers equaling more than half of 2004's entire total, local investors try to remain hopeful."

"'There is now way you can have 10 different houses and if you paid $300,000-$400,000 for them 2 years ago, that that house or condo is going to sell,' said realtor Fern Twenhafel."

"'It's really sad, but there is not much we can do about it,' said Twenhafel who added that she has a condo like that now, as well as other properties that she need to sell soon."

The Times Union from Florida. "Jacksonville's foreclosure epidemic is widespread among all neighborhoods and income groups. But in one community on the Northside, a battleground of owners, investors, and lenders is strewn with the casualties of a mortgage industry in turmoil."

"In Lake Forest, the concentration is much greater, with some neighborhood blocks plagued with clusters of homes in default."

"Realtor Peggie Wattron said she has about 90 foreclosure listings. She said she's handled all types of crises in foreclosed homes, from homeowners who won't leave until a policeman and cleanup crew literally kick them, and their belongings, out to the curb, to urban campers that break in and move into foreclosed homes."

"Wattron says...that she's hardened to sob stories given by former owners who claim not to have seen an eviction coming. 'I've heard every story in the world. I literally go out to the house and put a note on the door, and then some act like they didn't think it could happen. Most of the time I never get a message and no phone calls,' she said."

"'A lot of people, who tend to have low incomes, have had bad experiences and are used to being told 'no' when it comes time to take out a mortgage. The ploy with some mortgage brokers is that they'll say 'yes' to you, but they don't give the details of what that 'yes' really means,' said (mortgage broker) Jeff Lazerson."

"Sometimes an event is so unusual it demands our attention. Levitt and Sons did just this, with a developer closeout auction of the town homes in Fort Myers...held on June 7."

"Expectations of many, was that between the hope to buy below market, the expected high number of bidders and the excitement of an auction, final prices would end up being close to the original developer prices … but just the opposite happened! In fact, only 37 of the 53 offered actually sold at the auction, plus an additional five directly after. Those that did sell sold well below original developer prices."

"The absolute highest price paid for the entire evening was the very first property. The hammer price was $225,000 (plus 10 percent). The next hammer price was $210,000, then $195,000, $185,000 and so on all the way down to $140,000. So went the evening as each new group of town homes opened for bidding, opened high then drifted down as successful bidders were removed from the pool of potential buyers."

"This audience wasn’t going to get sucked into 'auction fever.' In fact, when the reserves were too high, no one bid, making for an unusual silence. I had the opinion...that Levitt and Sons management felt like 'deer in headlights' when this happened."

"My hope is that as land prices, labor costs and some materials continue to correct, builders will be able to offer quality properties like those at San Simeon at these affordable auction prices. When they do, buyers will appear."

"In response to a recent column about home auctions, Realtor and auctioneer Marsha Wolak wrote in to say she successfully closed 18 properties in an auction last spring and is preparing another 'mega-auction' for August."

"'One (home) in particular had been on the market for a year and a half with no offers,' she wrote. 'I commend the brokers, agents, sellers, buyers and media for recognizing the need for auctions in this marketplace.'"

"'It is not fiction, it is a fact, that properties are selling at auction. I only wish that all auction companies operated ethically and morally when it comes to 'absolute' sales, shills and rigged bidding as well as excessive fees and commissions,' Wolak said."

"She said buyers are being taken advantage of and believe the home really is selling 'absolute' when it is not."

"Wolak said she attended a multi-property auction recently in Estero, and even in the terms and conditions it stated: 'XYZ Company may act to protect the seller's reserve, as an agent of the seller, by bidding on behalf of the seller. The auctioneer has the right to reject or raise any bid which, in his opinion, is not commensurate with the value of the property being offered.'"

"Similar language exists in some auction listing agreements and does not appear in their terms and conditions, and virtually turns an auction 'into a joke,' she said."

The Sun Sentinel from Florida. "In half of Broward's cities, more people are leaving than moving in, census figures show. 'We left because we tried for almost two years to find a house we could afford to buy, but we couldn't,' said Diana Fernandez, who moved from Pembroke Pines to North Carolina with her husband and two daughters in February."

"They traded a rented townhouse for a new $200,000, four-bedroom home on a large lot about an hour from Charlotte."

"Another indicator of a downturn in population is declining school enrollments. Broward's public school population has dropped two years in a row, with about 10,000 fewer students enrolled during that time. District projections show enrollment continuing to drop until 2012."

"The gap between what people earn and home prices, despite the real estate market's downturn, is still too wide for some to afford a home, financial experts say. Generally, the purchase price of a house should not exceed three times the annual salary of the buyer, they say."

"The median price of a single-family home in Broward is about $370,000, almost seven times higher than the median household income in Broward of $53,100, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development."

"Roy and Ruth Smith, of Coral Springs, have their home of eight years on the market for about $330,000. They are hoping to join relatives in Loganville, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. 'If I get my price here, I can buy a house up in Georgia and not have a mortgage payment,' said Roy Smith, who is retired."

"Fourteen other Broward cities saw declines ranging from two people in Southwest Ranches to 241 in Lauderhill. The others were: Cooper City, Dania Beach, Deerfield Beach, Hollywood, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Margate, North Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Plantation, Sea Ranch Lakes, Weston and West Park."

"'Those young families that used to come in larger numbers to South Florida now are saying, 'Where am I going to be able to afford to live?' said real estate analyst Brad Hunter of Metrostudy."