The Palm Beach Post reports from Florida. "The housing market in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast has turned 'brutal' and is getting worse, a veteran mortgage broker said Tuesday. 'I've seen some tough times, but I've never seen anything like this,' William Davis told members of the Economic Forum of Palm Beach County."

"Davis, a Palm Beach County native who has been a banker and mortgage broker for 37 years, said this slowdown has proven more painful than even the crunch of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates topped 18 percent."

"He blamed a combination of factors. A speculative bubble that peaked in late 2005 artificially inflated prices. The subprime mortgage meltdown of recent months has made it tougher for borrowers to land loans. And homes remain priced above what the typical family can afford."

"'It'll make you sicker than West Palm water if I tell you how many homes are for sale,' Davis said."

"There were 33,708 houses and condos listed for sale in Palm Beach County in August, according to Illustrated Properties.'It's pretty bad,' said llustrated Properties President Chappy Adams. 'We've got a 40-month supply of homes, which has got to be an all-time high. For the foreseeable future, prices are going to keep coming down a bit.'"

"Davis, former president of the Palm Beach County chapter of the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers, expects the downturn to deepen into 2008. On the foreclosures that follow negative amortization loans: 'We called them neutron bombs, because the people would go away, and the buildings would stay.'"

"On the housing hangover: 'We had a three-year fraternity party, and it’s going to take more than a month of Sundays to clean up the mess.'"

The St Petersburg Times. "Bucking earlier predictions that the housing market might have struck bottom, local home sales just keep sinking further. You would have to reach back at least five years in the Tampa Bay area to find monthly sales of existing homes as weak as September's."

"Realtors reported Wednesday that 1,823 single-family homes and condos sold last month in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties. That's 39 percent below the 2,972 homes that sold in September 2006 and 58 percent below the September peak of 4,329 homes in 2005."

"Worst hit on the price front was Pasco. Many of its neighborhoods suffer from a surplus of unsold investment homes. Pasco's median single-family home sale price plummeted 21 percent the past year, from $209,000 to $164,900."

"'The homes that are selling are the ones where the owners ... say, 'I gotta go,' said Rodney Jackson, a Pasco Realtor and home investor."

"Jackson's personal tale of woe is typical. He bought five Pasco investment homes near the top of the market. Even after he slashed prices below what he paid, only a trickle of prospects showed up to look at the houses."

"He's resorted to a short sale to avoid foreclosure on a new 2,450-square-foot house he bought last year in Land O'Lakes' Dupree Lakes neighborhood for $354,000. The bank agreed to a sale price of $257,000 and will forgive the rest of Jackson's mortgage debt."

"'You can beat yourself up, but who knew they were overpaying for a house? Who knew it was going to stop?' Jackson said."

"'There were subdivisions that were so heavy with investors that when they threw these homes on the market, they have become disaster areas,' said the president of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, Carlos Fuentes. 'It's quite disturbing.'"

The News Journal. "Foreclosure activity in Volusia County nearly doubled in volume last month and ran five times higher than a year ago. A mortgage broker and a real estate agent said they see no signs of recovery in either county. They expect conditions to worsen as lenders tighten terms for new mortgages and readjust the rates for existing ones."

"In September, there were 1,028 court filings related to foreclosures in Volusia County, according to Realty Trac. That was double the 579 in August and 190 in September 2006."

"Frank Cardarelli, an agent who specializes in homes that have been repossessed by banks, said Countrywide and other major lenders have alerted foreclosure specialists twice in the past six months to brace for big increases in bank-owned homes in 2008 and continuing into 2009."

"'They're telling us to invest in more software and staff to keep up,' said Cardarelli, who handles real estate for about 15 banks."

The Sun Sentinel. "UCF graduate Karissa Huffmire and her husband wait for someone to buy their home, which has been on the market for four months. They need more space for their growing family."

"In Central Florida, existing-home sales have plummeted 40 percent in the past year, according to the Orlando Regional Realtor Association. In turn, prices have dropped 2 percent."

"'It's housing-market karma,' says Sean Snaith, director of UCF's Institute for Economic Competitiveness."

"The Huffmires installed new wood floors, tile and carpeting and slashed the price by $30,000, but they have yet to generate interest."

"'We're incredibly frustrated because we're not even having showings,' said Huffmire. 'Nobody is even looking for houses.'"

From CBS 4. "Since 2005, home buyers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties have signed so-called 'exotic' mortgages at twice the rate of borrowers in the rest of the country, according to a report done by CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald."

"These mortgages included loans with low so-called 'teaser' rates which can skyrocket within three years to as high as 16 percent."

"'This year went from 12-hundred a mnth to 1450 a month or afraid to lose home,' Marie Fleurimont who is afraid of losing her home told CBS4's Ileana Varela."

"During the real estate boom, as home prices rose much faster than incomes, buyers were forced to take on huge debt to get purchase a home they wanted to upgrade into."

"For example, a home in Miami Shores that sold for $250,000 five years ago skyrocketed to $500,000. To appreciate how this affects a borrower, consider a $400,000 mortgage at 7 percent, which carries a monthly payment of $2,661. When that loan resets, a typical new rate might be 11 percent , and the new payment: $3,809. That's doesn't even include taxes and insurance."

The Herald Tribune. "Stung by continued malaise in the region's residential market, a Michigan-based developer is scrapping plans for a luxury, high-rise condominium tower in downtown Sarasota."

"In place of the planned One Palm condos, Triton Cos. joins a growing list of developers hoping to capitalize on a perceived need for additional hotel rooms."

"'The reasons behind this are fairly obvious: Residential units downtown aren't selling, and it continues to be a very difficult market,' said Brent Virkus, Triton's chief executive."

"As Florida's housing boom stalled, One Palm became among more than a dozen conceived downtown condo towers to suffer from a lack of required unit pre-sales."

"Elsewhere throughout the city, projects like Washington Lofts; Valencia, Premiere, CityPointe, and the Grande Sarasotan have all had designs recast."

"At the same time, well-conceived urban projects such as Sarasota Bayside, Pineapple Square downtown, Atrium on Ringling and Benderson Development's expansion of the 13-story Bank of America building also are well beyond their original construction start dates."

"'The market is dead, and it's going to be a long time before it rebounds, especially for condos, because they traditionally take longer to sell,' said Louise Guido, owner of a Sarasota brokerage firm that has sold units in the 13-story Rivo on Ringling residential tower."

"In all, more than 5,000 new hotel rooms -- equal to the existing number of rooms in all of Sarasota County -- have been proposed for Southwest Florida. Even developers agree only a fraction of what is proposed will be completed. The last new hotel to open in Sarasota was the 95-room Hotel Indigo, in September 2006."

"Virkus believes his site and design will be superior. 'It'll have a lot of eye candy, and be a fun place to go, with meeting space and a restaurant,' Virkus said. 'The residential market is tough now, non-existent. There are a lot of units downtown on the market.'"