The State reports from South Carolina. "Bill Rhomberg is without a worry in the world, except for the two-bedroom, two-bath baggage he left behind in nearby Bluffton. There sits Rhomberg’s 1,900-square-foot home on a golf course. It is for sale. So are 280 other houses in Sun City. After no bites, Rhomberg soon dropped the price to $360,000. Then, he shaved it to $345,000. Again to $325,000. Then, $305,000."

"Now I’m down to $295,000, looking for an offer, any offer,' said Rhomberg, who spent about $64,000 on the home to build an addition, bar and bookcases. 'So many people are just looking, looking, looking,' Rhomberg said. 'They just can’t sell their (own) house.'"

"Former Sun City resident Akber Haidri said he has been 'scrounging every penny' since he moved to Atlanta in May with his wife and bought a $480,000 town house. The couple put their 2,600-square-foot, lagoon-side house in Sun City on the market in November for $459,000. Since then, they have reduced their asking price to $389,000. No one has toured the house for three months."

"'You can drop the price as much as you want, but if there’s no buyer, what do you do?' asked Haidri."

"Beside the glut of neighbors’ homes he’s competing against for a sale, Sun City developer Del Webb is building new houses at comparable prices."

"The $3,000-a-month mortgage payment Haidri pays for the Sun City home has forced him to delay the decoration of his Atlanta home and cut out visits to restaurants. 'We are postponing even putting curtains on the windows,' Haidri said."

"Rhomberg attempted to rent the house until it sells, but a property company said not to bother listing it, the company is flush with properties to rent."

The News Press from Florida. "People who work for a living are feeling the pain — especially those in the construction trades who find themselves unable to make close to what they did during the boom."

"Dolores Taylor, the former mortgage underwriter said a history of making good money is no help in the search for a new job."

"'I can’t even get a basic cashier job, things are so bad,' she said. 'I have 15 years’ mortgage experience. When they look at my resume, they basically say, 'What are you doing here? You’re overqualified to be an $8-an-hour cashier.'"

"Christina Torres was a drywall installer and faux painter for 30 years, making good money in Southwest Florida and around the country. Now, she said, 'I’m trying to brush off my GED, trying to get a teacher’s assistant job.'"

"Torres said she had been making $18 an hour, but the teaching job would pay $10. 'I haven’t been making 10 dollars an hour for 30 years,' she said."

"The job, even if she gets it, will not pay all her living expenses. 'I’ve got $2,300 a month in bills,' she said. 'I’m going to have to work two jobs.'"

"It doesn’t help that insurance on Torres’ North Fort Myers home has gone up $500 a month since she bought it in 2003. She likes Southwest Florida, but isn’t sure it’s in the cards for her to stay here. 'Everything’s so expensive here, the housing’s so bleak here,' she said. 'It’s only made for the rich.'"

"The situation isn’t likely to turn around soon, she predicted. 'I can feel the recession,' she said, 'and it’s going to get worse.'"

"Jim Rose used to spiff up his 16 rental apartments as fast as he could in order to get them leased out again. Now Rose doesn’t worry so much about getting a unit back on the market — it’s likely to take a while to get it leased out."

"From his vantage point as landlord, he sees what’s happening: a mass exodus of the construction tradesmen and others who rented his $500-a-month efficiencies in Cape Coral. 'In the last three months I’ve lost three tenants,' Rose said. 'It wasn’t like the lease was up and they left. They just left. One wrote me a letter; the other two just disappeared.'"

"It doesn’t help, he said, so many newly-built houses in Cape Coral are on the rental market at fire sale prices. 'There are people desperate to rent their house because they can’t sell it,' he said. 'I can rent a three-bedroom house for $650.'"

"'It just finally dawned on me a month ago, man: We’re in a fix here,' he said. 'If it’s not a recession, I don’t know what the hell it is.'"

"Ray Kest, an economics professor at Hodges University in Fort Myers, spent the summer tracking various economic indicators. 'Each one of them shows a trend downward,' Kest said. 'Every one shows an upcurve from 2003 to a peak in 2005 and then it starts going down slightly in 2005 and a big free-for-all in 2006. They’re all down except foreclosures.'"

"Steve Shimp, president of construction company Owen-Ames-Kimball in Fort Myers, said he’s seeing it, too. 'I would tell you that this is probably more broad spread than what we’re looking at on the surface, and deeper than what we want to believe,' he said."

"'I think that unfortunately it is kind of flowing into the rest of the marketplace,' said Michael Timmerman, Naples-based managing director for Florida at Hanley Wood. 'The fact is that there’s a lot of people who can’t get the financing, can’t get refinanced. It gets to the point it starts affecting disposable income.'"

"Still, he said, the news isn’t all bad: Property and labor costs are falling, and the tourism industry remains relatively strong."

The St Petersburg Times from Florida. "President Bush extended a helping hand Friday to thousands of homeowners caught in the financial bind of escalating mortgage rates."

"Those most vulnerable may benefit little from the administration's offer. 'You're talking about helping people who have relatively good credit and that's not the problem,' said Scott Brown, senior economist at Raymond James & Associates in St. Petersburg."

"Wachovia Bank economist Mark Vitner said Bush is doing the right thing by not offering help to investors. 'In Florida and California, unfortunately the speculators need to be hurt,' Vitner said. 'That's the only way we're going to restore affordability. If we don't make housing more affordable in Florida, people can't afford to move there.'"

"Exactly how much help to provide debt-burdened homeowners is not a simple issue. 'We do not want to take all of the mortgages that are certain to default and just have the government pay them off,' said Stuart Feldstein, president of SMR Research Corp., which researches housing issues. 'Even if we could afford it, it would just encourage more loony lending going forward.'"