What do you see in your local housing market this weekend? Builder price cuts? "'The cut is deeper, and they're bleeding more heavily than ever before,' said Jill Flink, a broker in Raleigh who has sold homes in the Triangle for 21 years. Last weekend, Pulte advertised discounts of as much as $40,000 on some new homes."

"Comstock is offering $75,000 off its townhouses in North Raleigh, a 16 percent discount from the original $463,900 price. Discounts of $35,000 are available at Comstock's townhouses in Cary's Preston neighborhood, a 10.5 percent cut. Drees Homes' biggest discount is $60,000 off a 4,400 square-foot home in Cary's Cold Creek development, normally $659,000."

"The sales aren't helping homeowners who made recent purchases in the same subdivision, Flink said. 'They're not just bona fide reductions, they're lessening the value of the neighborhood,' Flink said. 'If you pay $250,000 and the next guy pays $225,000, what's your house worth? It's less than $225,000, because your house is older.'"

Or foreclosure statistics? "A new report said foreclosures jumped 311 percent in Maricopa and Pima counties in September. 'Maricopa was about 2,100 - exact number, I believe is 2,127 foreclosures - and then in Pima we had 287,' said Serdar Bankaci with Default Research."

Or overbuilding? "Like the rest of the country, Texas has more new homes than it needs. 'We gain about 400,000 folks a year, so we need about 160,000 to 180,000 new housing units. We’ve been building 205,000 to 210,000 new homes a year, so we’re overbuilt by 10 to 15 percent,' said Waco-based economist Ray Perryman."

"That’s nothing, he added, compared to places like Florida and California, which are overbuilt by 40 percent."

Related markets? "AutoNation Inc., the nation's largest automotive retailer, said Wednesday its third-quarter profit tumbled 12 percent on a decline in new vehicle retail sales, particularly due to the weak housing markets in California and Florida."

"New car sales fell 7 percent last year in Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties, and, as of July, were on track to fall 12.5 percent in 2007. The two worst states for new car sales are Florida, down 11 percent, and California, down 17 percent. They are also the two states that have been hit hardest by the slide in real estate values."

"'Wherever you have the biggest declines in the values of homes and the sales of homes, you have the biggest decline in automotive retail sales,' said AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson. 'Actually it's any big-ticket item ... anything that requires a long-term commitment, the consumer is very unwilling to do that while there's this big cloud over housing.'"

"Falling home prices, slower home sales and tougher lending standards have dampened the once-booming home- remodeling industry. According to Harvard University, overall growth in spending on remodeling projects in 2007 is expected to be 3 percent. In 2004 and 2005, at the height of the housing boom, it was nearly 20 percent each year."

"The reason is simple, said Gopal Ahluwalia of the National Association of Home Builders: 'When prices are declining, the homeowners don't want to spend a whole lot of money on their homes. When prices are rising, they tend to take care of their investment.'"

"With prices falling, people who bought in recent years won't be able to take out home-equity lines of credit, which many homeowners use for renovations. Lenders will 'be more skeptical about what your home is worth,' said Kermit Baker, director of the Harvard's Remodeling Futures Program."

Or appraisal fraud? "Two appraisers valued the Kansas City home of Katheryn Shields and Philip Cardarella at $1.2 million, about $500,000 more than its listed sales price. One of them was working with the FBI. The other later was charged with mortgage fraud conspiracy."

"Jeremy Plagman testified that he told the mortgage brokerage employee who hired him that he did not think the house was worth $1 million. He said she told him that if he appraised it over $1 million, she would 'send more business my way.'"