What do you see in your housing market this weekend? A cartoon? Or a remorseful seller? "The Athens housing market, like the rest of the nation, has been slumping since its peak in 2005, but the first half of this year has been particularly hard. The Staianos, who moved to a home in the Cobbham neighborhood of Athens, originally put their Five Points house on the market in December 2006 and immediately found someone interested in buying the house, but for less money than the Staianos were asking."

"'We got an offer out of the gate, that in retrospect, we should have taken,' Mark Staiano said."

"Angie Adams has been a real estate agent for 27 years in the Pikes Peak region. Today, buyers might find 40 homes that match their desired price, location and amenities; three or four years ago, their choices would have been limited to maybe six or eight, Adams said."

"'Buyers used to narrow down their choices much faster,' she said. 'They don’t now. They want to see more. There’s just more to see.'"

"Even when Adams tries, however, some sellers don’t listen. She puts them in the 'yes, but' category. When she explains why they must lower their asking price to compete in the market, Adams often hears something like: 'Yes, but my house has a beautiful yard,' or 'yes, but my house has a three-car garage,' or 'yes, but my views are better.'" "'It will sink them,' Adams said. 'The 'yes, but' typically means they’re pricing it over the marketplace.'"

Rising foreclosures? "Mayor Robert Duffy opened a Foreclosure Summit at City Hall, telling a capacity crowd of more than 150 people: 'We have a problem in Rochester. We have a problem with vacant houses. We have a problem with foreclosures.'"

"'The view from the street is it's a jungle,' said John DeMott with Sector 4 Community Development Corp. in southwest Rochester. 'The American dream is a little bit of an American nightmare right now.'"

"Banks are on pace to foreclose on more than 2 million American homes this year. It's a national trend that's hitting homes in East Tennessee as well."

"Just ask Illree Terry about it in her La Follette neighborhood. To her...foreclosures are about the waist high grass and trash accumulating in the yard of the home next door. 'Well, it's just a big ol' mess as they say and we have talked to our city for 2 months and nobody is doing nothing,' Terry said."

"60 days ago her neighbors disappeared. 'Packed up and left one night about 12 o'clock and they have not been back. The house is a total wreck,' Terry said."

"Wayne Gregg, La Follette's city code officer says the problem is getting worse as more homes are foreclosed on. 'You can spend half a day trying to find who honestly owns this property,' Gregg said."

"In cases where the city can't collect, it puts liens on the property to pay for the yard work. Just ask Terry, in today's housing market, there still aren't any guarantees. Collecting on those liens might not be as easy as it sounds."

'"Well, the way it looks now, No way it's going to sell. No way,' Terry said."

Underwater? "Homeowners hit by rising interest rates are paying out hundreds of extra euro in mortgage repayments for properties that have dropped in value by more than €8,000 in just six months."

"A four-bedroom semi-detached house in Rathfarnham, south Dublin, had its sale agreed at €820,000 but the deal fell through and the owner is now asking for €750,000 or 'anything near that' to secure the property."

"An apartment owner in Dublin 15 saw the value of his property fall by €30,000 in just three months."

"Group chief executive of Irish Life and Permanent plc, Denis Casey, described the falling prices as a 'modest decline. It's not substantial. House prices are back where they were in the third quarter of 2006.'"