The Chicago Tribune reports from Illinois. "By any measure, including the two released Tuesday, little is coming up roses for the housing market, locally and nationally. Chip Wagner, a Naperville appraiser, said sellers' asking prices appear to be on the way down, which might generate some momentum. 'People have become more realistic on their pricing,' Wagner said. 'The average price of a house for sale today is $436,000; a year ago it was $467,000.'"

"Local real estate agents echoed this. 'Sellers out there now really want to sell,' said John Veneris, a broker in Downers Grove. 'They're getting less than they had wanted, but they're happy to get them sold.'"

"Inventory continues to climb in the area.Wagner said the number of single-family homes listed for sale in the MLS of Northern Illinois as of Tuesday had surged to nearly an 11-month-supply, up from about seven months a year earlier."

"'I hate to throw salt into the wound to show how bad it has gotten, but we have almost doubled the number of active listings since September 2005,' when the nation's housing boom peaked, he said."

"The deeeper America drops into the housing slump, the further out go predictions of when the market will recover."

"David Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae, told Bloomberg News it could be years before the slump is over. 'I don't think we hit a bottom until the end of '08, and then we have some period of time to work our way back up again,' he said."

"He joins the chorus of economists and industry experts looking into 2009 or beyond."

"'I've stopped making predictions,' said Chicago builder Alan Lev. 'You ask 10 different economists, you get 10 opinions. The real answer is, nobody knows.'"

"'Mismatched expectations,' explains Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida who says that consumer behavior is the wild card in the marketplace impasse."

"Many home sellers, he says, are in love with the old days, when home prices seemingly rose by the hour. And sellers, he said, are stuck in neutral, waiting for a better deal."

"'When prices are going down and there are articles in the news about prices dropping, it leads more people to wait and see, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,' Ritter said. 'Rather than closing the deal now, they're on strike, waiting until after prices have fallen.'"

"Stephen Baird, president of Baird & Warner Real Estate in Chicago, says the increasingly gloomy forecasts are an overreaction."

"'I think 2008 is a little long [to expect the market to bottom],' he said. 'One of the things you have to keep in mind is those guys now want to be overly negative. They don't want to sound like Pollyanna because there's been criticism that they were just too rosy about the housing picture. Now, if they're going to err, they're going to err on the negative side.'"

"'You ask me when the market is going to bottom out, and my take is, I have no idea,' Baird said."

"The developer of the proposed Chicago Spire will host a preview and party for the global press, but the celebratory mood could be dampened by the worldwide credit crunch and a postponement of the tower's preconstruction sales."

"'If I didn't think I could deliver, I'd have a good excuse to pull out, but I'm not doing that,' said Garrett Kelleher, who two weeks ago delayed the launch of sales from this week to Jan. 13, citing the complexity of the documents that must be filed with federal regulators."

"The preview of the $1.5 billion, 150-story building, slated to be the tallest in the U.S. and the highest residential tower in the world, comes at a tough time for high-end residential developments in Chicago and around the country."

"Real estate buyers and investors in Chicago, around the nation and in Europe, where Kelleher plans to sell more than half the Spire units, wonder what property is really worth and if it will appreciate."

"Understandably, European investors are cautious, said Dominic Grace of London-based Savills PLC, who is directing the Spire sales effort. 'The whole world is spooked,' he said. 'They're aware of the malaise potentially hanging over the U.S. investment market, but Chicago is steadier than Miami and a huge market.'"

"In the U.S., capital for property development and purchases has become more difficult and more costly to secure."

"'The debt market is frozen for the inexperienced developer,' said Robert Horowitz, a partner at Cooper-Horowitz Inc., which places about $15 billion in real estate debt a year. 'To finance a supertall luxury condo project today, you need to have be an experienced developer with at least 30 percent cash equity, 50 percent presales and the ability to pay 9 to 10 percent interest.'"

"Kelleher, chief executive of Shelbourne Development LLC, said he won't seek financing until he has the requisite amount of preconstruction sales. Before he would close on a loan for perhaps 70 percent of the cost, he'd have to spend about $500 million on construction. That is a lot of building that will take a lot of time."

"Lenders not only worry about backing new development but also fret over buildings in construction that still have units to sell, said Richard Blum, chief financial officer for Chicago-based Fifield Realty Corp. 'Some [banks] aren't making new loans because they may face bad loans for projects already in construction that have unsold, unclosed units,' he said."

"To protect themselves, banks and private-equity lenders have raised the cost of capital, Blum said."

"In Chicago, where 13,448 new downtown condos are due for delivery from now through 2010, sales fell 35 percent by midyear from a year ago, and in the past few weeks 'luxury sales have been way down,' said Gail Lissner, a VP at Appraisal Research Counselors."

"Here, 'everyone is skeptical of everything until it closes,' said James Kinney, president of Rubloff Residential Real Estate."

"The tall residential towers in development in Chicago all have vulnerabilities. The $650 million Mandarin Oriental Tower Chicago residential and hotel condominium project has not started construction. The $500 million Waterview Tower and Shangri La Hotel is in construction but hasn't closed on its construction loan."

"The half-built, $725 million Trump International Hotel & Tower had more than 200 units to sell as of May, the most recent figures available."

"Spire developer Kelleher isn't worried about selling enough units at $750,000 to $10 million to get financing when the time comes. 'There's pent-up demand all over the world,' he said."

The Columbia Missourian. "Real estate foreclosures in Boone County this year have already set a record, following a trend that has gripped the national housing market."

"A total of 163 foreclosures were recorded through Sept. 14 in Boone County, 13 percent over last year’s total and topping the previous record of 150 set in 2003, according to information provided by the Boone County Recorder’s Office."

"Dale Whitman, real estate finance expert and professor at the MU School of Law, thinks the ARMs weren’t responsible for the market crisis. Rather, it was the 'irresponsible' way they were handled, with 'teaser rates' placed below already-low mortgage rates to attract less-qualified borrowers.'"

"'Lenders made many loans without much regard to whether borrowers would be able to repay them, assuming that increases in housing prices would inflate borrowers out of their financial troubles,' Whitman said. 'Borrowers were willing to accept (adjustable-rate) loans... even when they should have known they would probably be unable to make the higher payments.'"

The Union Eagle from Minnesota. "Princeton area realtor Jan Wokson likely wouldn’t have sold the home she did to a certain young man in his 20s a couple of years ago if she knew then what she knows now. What she knows now, she explained recently, is that the young man got in over his head in what he could afford."

"Now it looks like he is headed towards foreclosure, Wokson said last week. (The man was asked to talk about his case for this story but declined.)"

"One of the negatives in the foreclosure mess, Wokson said, is that realtors are getting the brunt of the blame, when 'most are not at fault.'"

"Local banker Ken Haskamp at the Princeton office of Peoples Bank of Commerce, expressed worry last week about the record number of foreclosures resulting across the United States from too many people having qualified for mortgages when they shouldn’t have."

"Many borrowers, he explained, looked at the low beginning interest rate, translated that to a lower mortgage payment and bought a more expensive house than they otherwise might have."

"Haskamp said those mortgage payments grew beyond the ability of many homeowners to maintain. Coupled with the rising interest rates, has been the declining value of homes in the midst of a housing glut. That has caused problems for people trying to get another loan or refinancing because their home is worth less than what they need to borrow to pay off their mortgage, noted Haskamp."

"'A $310,000 home two years ago may be worth only $270,000 today,' he said. In the ideal world, Haskamp observed, a person wanting to borrow for a home valued at $270,000, would seek a loan for $216,000."

"One reason Haskamp was so animated as he spoke about the foreclosure issue, was his explanation that banks don’t want to have to take homes back for non-payment. The reason, he explained, is because banks look at homes as 'earning assets.' That means, he said, as long as the payments are being made, they are earning interest for the bank."

"There have been many unscrupulous lenders that verified a borrower qualified for a mortgage, when the borrower was not near that, Haskamp said. Along with the record number of foreclosures have been a large number of mortgage companies 'going away,' from the mortgage business, as Haskamp politely put it."

"Haskamp also suggested that people steer clear of offers that only require paying the interest. That kind of loan is a 'stupid thing,' he said."