The Bradenton Herald reports from Florida. "The Florida Association of Realtors cited disruptions in the mortgage market and tightening credit as factors affecting Florida's housing market. Statewide, sales of existing single-family homes fell 29 percent in the year-to-year comparison. The median price of homes statewide was $222,100, compared to $242,700 a year earlier."

"While those numbers showed the local housing market continuing to struggle, things were worse in many parts of the state."

"The picture was somewhat brighter in the local condominium market. Barry Gould of Island Vacation Properties attributes the falling condo prices and the increased number of sales to the same thing: investors."

"'Part of the reason is there were a lot more condos purchased as speculation houses and some of these people have to sell,' Gould said."

The Naples News from Florida. "Home sales continued their unsettling trend downward October both locally and around the state. 'I know as an owner/broker I should be looking at those numbers every month when they come out, but it’s gotten to the point that I sometimes feel like I don’t want to hear it,' said broker Joe Pavich. 'I always try to stay upbeat, and I think we’re near the bottom, but the numbers can be discouraging.'"

"Figures for Lee County condos were bleak, with the median price and the number of sales both down 28 percent. Lee Clerk of Courts Charlie Green said there were 1,809 foreclosures in Lee County in October, up from 1,326 in September."

"Pavich said sales prices today resemble what they were in 2002 and 2003, and serious sellers need to remember keep that in mind. 'Nobody cares what you paid for your house and nobody cares what you owe on your house,' he said. 'It’s a buyers market and that’s what the price needs to reflect.'"

The News Press. "The number of sales of existing homes in Lee County was 405, down 36 percent from 630 in October 2006. With about 15,000 houses for sale in the county, selling a house can be tough."

"'In January it’ll be a year I’ve had it up for sale,' said Rob Ross, who’s trying on his own to sell his three-bedroom, two-bath home in the Silver Lakes community in Gateway for $277,000. 'The irony is I listed it myself thinking I could pass the savings on to a potential buyer but I’ve just been chasing the market down.'"

"Ross started out with an asking price in the mid $290,000s before cutting the price, and expects he’ll have to cut his price again because there are so many houses for sale in Silver Lakes."

"'I don’t like taking any listings in Cape Coral — I don’t believe I can sell those,' said Alva-based real estate broker Cindi Infiesto. 'The Cape is saturated with (speculatively built) homes and investor-related homes that are going into foreclosure. I didn’t see anything moving.'"

"The Bonita Bay Group eliminated 14 jobs Tuesday, bringing the cuts to 74 since the beginning of the year. 'It’s basically because of the current real estate market,' said spokeswoman Meredith Parsons."

"Lee County has bigger problems than just foreclosures to contend with — the economy is already contracting sharply as the construction and real estate markets collapse, said Ray Kest, an economics professor at Hodges University who tracks local economic indicators."

"'I was shocked,' Kest said, when he analyzed state sales tax figures for 2007. Since May, revenues collected have been lower than 2006 levels each month. 'Our economy is hurting a lot more than people realize, and it’s hurting in all sectors.'"

"The bad numbers are a result of higher unemployment, Kest said — 5.3 percent in October compared to 2.8 percent a year earlier. 'Those construction people were making a lot of money and spending a lot of money. The real estate people were buying Mercedeses and Lexuses; they’re not buying those anymore.'"

The Miami Herald in Florida. "House hunters looking for a bargain may want to consider a condo in Broward County. After falling for five straight months, the median price for Broward condominiums hit $159,300 in October, down 24 percent from a year ago."

"Broward's condo price drop was a singular dramatic move in a market characterized for more than a year by a standoff between sellers who don't want to lower prices and buyers who refuse to pay up."

"Of course, some sellers have been dropping their price, just not enough to entice buyers. Take Scott Parsons, a restaurant franchisee wishing to leave South Florida. He lowered the price on his three-bedroom, two-story town house in Pembroke Pines' Villas Lake from $312,000 to $290,000."

"'We weren't getting close to what we needed,' Parsons said. 'The offers were outrageous, $240,000, $250,000, on a town house that appraised for $330,000 eight months ago. The market is so terrible.'"

"After listing the town house for six months, Parsons said he has decided to keep it and tough it out until the market rebounds. 'We're willing to stay another two years,' he said."

From TC Palm in Florida. "The Martin County median home sales price in October was $225,000 down from $269,000 last year."

"'The numbers continue to show what appears to be a leveling off of the market for Martin County,' said Dave Derrenbacker, president of the Realtor Association of Martin County."

The Sun Sentinel from Florida. "Palm Beach County's median price for existing homes fell in October for the 15th consecutive month, and analysts say sellers should brace for more hardship ahead as the housing slump intensifies."

"'It's uncomfortable, but it makes sense,' said David Levin, a housing consultant in Delray Beach. 'We have to undo the excesses of our recent buying binge.'"

"The county's median now has slid 17 percent since peaking at $421,500 in November 2005. The median price for existing condos plummeted 30 percent to $158,900 from $225,500 a year ago."

"'There's no way we could sustain that,' said Gus Pasquale, co-founder of Element Funding, a residential lender in West Palm Beach. 'What we're going through is a correction to a more affordable plateau.'"

"Candy Pritchard has been trying to sell her five-bedroom home west of Palm Beach Gardens since the summer. She originally listed the property on an acre lot for $649,000 but has since dropped the asking price to $599,000."

"Unable to maintain the expensive property, she realizes she may have to come down even more before prospective buyers make an offer. 'It's a great market to buy, just not to sell,' said Pritchard. 'It's very slow, very frustrating. If I didn't have to sell, I wouldn't.'"

The Palm Beach Post from Florida. "Condominium sellers blinked first. Prices of existing condos in Palm Beach County plunged in October - the sharpest annual decline since the Florida Association of Realtors started tracking them in January 2006."

"'Individual sellers are becoming more realistic and lowering prices,' said Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach real estate consultant specializing in the condo market. Seller incentives have failed, he said, and appraisers have 'returned to fundamentals.'"

"Palm Beach County has a 35-month supply of existing condo units, McCabe noted."

"Despite falling condo prices, sales continued to decline. In Palm Beach County, sales of existing condos fell 12 percent, and on the Treasure Coast they fell 13 percent."

"There's a record four-year supply of condos and single-family homes for sale in Palm Beach County, according to Illustrated Properties Real Estate. 'The high inventory shows that there is still a gap between buyer and seller expectations regarding price,' said Mike Pappas, CEO of The Keyes Co."

"The Seasons at Tradition was to be a gem of a 55-and-over community: Celebrity mansion-size clubhouse. Ten tennis courts. Indoor-outdoor pool. An activities director."

"Now, the guard gate is guardless. The clubhouse, tennis courts and pool were never built. The activities director is being laid off today. And the fate of more than 1,000 unfinished lots in the community is unknown."

"The Seasons' builder, Levitt and Sons, got the go-ahead Tuesday in bankruptcy court to abandon its incomplete lots at the Seasons, plus about 3,000 others across the state."

"'It really is like living in a ghost town,' said Phyllis Visakowitz, a retired nurse who moved in May from Great Neck, N.Y., into a $457,000 home at the Seasons. Among the seven homes on her cul-de-sac, hers is the only one occupied."

"Other residents are living between denuded lots and half-finished homes with tiles stacked on the roofs. 'It's very scary when you feel totally abandoned,' said Visakowitz."

"The builder stopped construction in October, but not before it managed to close on about 90 homes at the Seasons, the largest of its 11 active-adult communities under development in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina."

"In a sense, the Visakowitzes are among the lucky ones: buyers whose homes were finished. Sixty-four other buyers at the Seasons put down deposits on homes that Levitt and Sons never finished, court records show."

"West Palm Beach residents Jerome and Marlene Greenfield shelled out a 10 percent deposit on a house at the Seasons in May. Now they have no idea whether their home will be completed or they will get their money back. 'We were fortunate that we hadn't sold our present home,' said Marlene, who declined to reveal the amount of the deposit."

"Residents, including Bill Quattrocchi feel that their home values have taken a hit. Quattrocchi thinks the builder duped him with a phony sales lottery that increased his home price by more than $27,000. 'I saw this here as a promising community,' Quattrocchi said. 'A lot of pluses here, but we were deceived.'"

The Atlanta Journal Constitution from Georgia. "'We were never a bubble market,' insists Eugene James, director of the Atlanta regional office of Metrostudy."

"Yet somehow, that nonexistent Atlanta bubble seems to have popped. New-home construction has taken a real blow, with ramifications that will ripple through the region and could significantly alter how Atlanta grows."

"For example, the crunch is hitting hardest in exurban areas where thousands of lots sit vacant. Overall, it would take 40 months to build homes on all the vacant lots in the Atlanta region, according to James — twice the normal inventory."

"That's consistent with a report from the Atlanta Regional Commission that development of open land in the metro area has fallen 70 percent in the last two years."

"The decline has even become apparent in our school systems, where classroom trailers have long been needed to handle the overflow of students. This year, when metro schools opened, enrollment fell 10,000 students short of projections."

"'Anybody tied to residential development — the carpet industry, the building supply industry, real estate attorneys — is feeling the impact of this,' James says."

"The strain is being felt particularly in local banking, which has made handsome profits for years by financing developers and land speculation. Now, with lots sitting unsold, developers have a hard time making payments."

"'I understand there are quite a few banks in the metro area, and some in the rest of the state, that got too much into land development,' says state Sen. Tommie Williams, a member of the Senate banking and finance committees. 'Auditors are specifically asking banks what percentage of their loans are in speculative land development.'"

"That warning is echoed by a federal bank regulator, who told me that they've already seen 'severe asset-quality problems emerge at several metro-area banks. If the real estate market does not turn around soon,' he says, 'I think the problems could get really big.'"

"According to James, the hesitancy of would-be Atlanta home buyers can be blamed in part on media coverage of collapsing prices in California and Florida. 'Prices weren't tumbling here, but all the news in the national media started artificially forcing prices down [for new-home construction],' James says."

The Sun News from South Carolina. "Shaken investors along the Grand Strand are being extra cautious, experts say. Many are shying away from real estate and finding other investment vehicles - or not investing at all."

"'There's money on the sidelines right now, waiting for the bottom of the market,' said William Harrison, director of the Center for Real Estate at the University of South Carolina. 'Once that money has perceived the bottom, you'll see that money moving into the residential market to take advantage of those rates.'"

"But nobody is sure when that will be, he said. Some predict there may be an uptick in the market as early as the spring, but Harrison doubts it will be that soon."

"'A lot of us tend to want to believe good news that there is a solution to this around the corner, but there's not, and I'm one of the believers that it is going to get worse before it gets better,' Harrison said."

"Local real estate analyst Tom Maeser said he sees a rebound in the residential market sooner rather than later. 'The main reason buyers aren't buying right now is because they're being told by the financial media to hold on, prices are going to go down. I think our buyers are going to start realizing that the prices are not going to come down a whole lot,' Maeser said."