The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. "North Port and neighboring Charlotte County, each with tens of thousands of vacant lots, are now home to 1,200 abandoned construction sites, yet another aftershock from region's real estate market collapse. North Port and Sarasota County combined have about 540 of these sites, including about 200 in North Port. Charlotte, with far more vacant lots, has an estimated 1,000."

"'The city issued too many permits too quickly/ for building homes, said Mary Heins, whose North Port house sits across the street from an abandoned homesite."

"Skyrocketing real estate values in recent years meant frenzied buying and building of houses across the region. Some builders, confident that the high volumes would continue, overextended themselves, taking on too many projects and without enough money to finish them when the buying stopped."

"Some speculators saw the market turn sour and just walked away rather than take greater losses paying to complete homes that had dropped in value."

The Miami Herald from Florida. "Hollywood home builder Tousa, which posted a $622 million loss in the latest quarter, said there is substantial doubt about its ability to remain in business."

"The company is weighing whether to follow Fort Lauderdale home builder Levitt and Sons into Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization."

"The home builder is shedding its home sites to account for the weak demand for housing. It abandoned rights to buy 9,400 home sites, forfeiting $167 million in deposits."

"Whether Tousa can continue operating will depend on its ability to exchange a large portion of $1.7 billion in borrowings for equity stakes in the company, according to Wednesday's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission."

"The industry is 'going to be a shadow of itself once we get through this downturn,' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. 'Everyone was too optimistic.'"

The St Petersburg Times from Florida. "One builder's stock trades at 25 cents. Another suffered cancellations that chopped two-thirds of its business. A third builder is $2-billion in debt. Those three builders - Tousa Inc., Beazer Homes and Standard Pacific Homes - have been important props in the economy of the Tampa Bay area."

"In the recent housing boom, thousands of their homes spread out over the suburbs of Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Pinellas counties. Now they're all the subject of bankruptcy rumors."

"Tousa said it 'faces many challenges and is considering all available restructuring and reorganization alternatives.' Translation: Bankruptcy is a possibility."

"Standard Pacific is the No. 3 builder in the Tampa Bay area. Corporate analysts have soured on the company's $2-billion debt. The builder also suffers from a narrow focus on three highly stressed housing markets: California, Florida and Arizona."

"Other builders prominent in the Tampa Bay area, including Centex and Pulte Homes, aim to survive an industrywide unraveling by selling houses at bargain prices and slashing jobs."

"Tampa Bay area housing analyst Marvin Rose predicts the slow market, home starts are down more than half this year, will claim the scalps of more builders. It's happened before...in the recession of the early 1990s. 'There were a ton of builders that left the market. They just pulled out of town,' Rose said. 'I suspect there will be a few this time that decide to leave or go bankrupt.'"

The Bradenton Herald from Florida. "According to the Manatee County MLS, the glut of homes on the market appears to have plateaued and has been ebbing downward since the high-water mark in March. In March, there were 5,968 homes on the market. In October, that number had been reduced to 5,362."

"By contrast, in October 2005, there were 2,095 homes for sale. That same month, there were 242 sales. In October, local Realtors reported 104 sales, and the median price was $277,000, down from a median of $333,366 the same month in 2005."

"The number of homes on the market needs to fall dramatically before a true correction can occur, said Dan Forbes, broker (in) Bradenton. A healthy market has about a six-month supply of inventory, compared to the current 36-month supply, Forbes said."

"Forbes stresses that pricing a home appropriately for the market will save both the seller and the agent time and money. 'Realtors are their own worst enemies when they take overpriced listings,' Forbes said."

"Sunday's big headline in the Herald must have sent everyone's blood pressure through the roof: 'Area property values to dip; but taxes up?' What?"

"But that's the report from the Manatee County Property Appraiser's Office. On next year's tax bill, property values could fall by 5 percent on single-family homes. That's right, next year's taxes are determined by this year's property values, so you won't see the current drop in value until tax notices are shipped out in November 2008."

"Try to sell your home now for just a 5 percent drop in value, and all we can say is good luck with that."

"Realtor sales figures for the Bradenton-Sarasota market show the median price plunging $43,300 to $244,300 over the course of a year, from September 2006 to 2007. That's a 15 percent tumble - nowhere near 5 percent."

From First Coast News in Florida. "You see them on the rise, but some condos and other development projects are starting to halt their upward movement. The Shipyards development and a new Publix in San Marco are all pushed back. 'Unfortunately, the people of San Marco are going to have to wait a long time for a Publix,' says Raymond Rodriguez with the Real Estate Strategy Center."

"'Well, the demand is not there right now for presale construction. People are sitting on the fence waiting to see what's happening,' says realtor Paul Pierce."

"According to the Strategy Center, since 2000 more than 12,000 apartments have changed to condos in Jacksonville. Now, 22% of those condos are empty."

"'At one time the market was great, they made the announcement for condos. The market changed, they reversed themselves and went back to apartments,' says Rodriguez."

"'The good thing is...we did not go crazy overbuilding these high price condos like in south Florida. We just made a lot of announcements which never came to be,' says Rodriguez."

The New York Post on Florida. "Miami's once-sizzling realestate market has certainly cooled off, but perhaps not by as much as redicted. In a city oozing with the vested interests of owners, renters, potential buyers, investors, brokers and developers, it's difficult to get an honest assessment of the market."

"'I think that you'll see prices coming down to the 2004 level, but not much below that,' says Dr. William Hardin, a real-estate professor at Miami's Florida International University. 'We're going to have to forget 2006 and part of 2005. I would try to make a transaction at 2004 or 2005 price points - they would be a good starting point for negotiations.'"

"Karla San Emeterio, a 28-year-old teacher, bought a 582-square-foot studio this past August for just $149,000, or about $250 a square foot, at Loft 4, a 440-unit building in downtown Miami."

"This price point is quite an aberration even for downtown Miami, which has more affordable condos than what you'll find in South Beach. Smaller studio apartments in nearby new buildings such as One Miami or 50 Biscayne are on the market with asking prices in the mid $200,000s."

"'This type of thing wasn't advertised very much at first,' she explains. 'I felt like it was very word-of-mouth, and you almost had to really look for [great deals] like this. And, of course, give up certain things, like parking.'"

"San Emeterio was required to put down just 5 percent when she signed the contract; she'll pay another 5 percent at groundbreaking. She's hoping her credit score will be good enough to get zero-percent-down financing at closing."

"'I know the market is bad ... but, I mean, how much more is it really going to go down?' she says. 'Am I ever going to get a better deal than $150,000 in the heart of Miami? Sure, now may not be the best time to buy, but you can't let a good opportunity pass you by.'"

The Daily Business Review from Florida. "Residents of the Club at Brickell Bay Plaza condominium came home one day to find they had no cable or Internet service, the result of the condo association falling months behind on payments to provider Primecast."

"It was the latest service snafu for the troubled building and its association, which is struggling to make ends meet as many unit owners fail to make their monthly maintenance payments."

"We are victims' of speculators who bought condos intending to flip them but got stuck with the units after the prices peaked, said Diana Ospina, association president at the Club at Brickell Bay."

The Daily Report from Georgia. "A ground breaking for One Museum Place, a super luxury condominium project slated for Peachtree Street in Midtown Atlanta, has been postponed indefinitely until the credit market loosens up and 'we know where the economy is headed,' said the project’s developer, John Wieland."

"'We decided to put it on hold until we get past the credit crunch,' said Wieland, CEO of one of Atlanta’s largest home builders. Wieland said 15 buyers who placed $50,000 deposits on units will receive refunds. Wieland said he hopes to revive the project in a year or two."

"Wieland said his team was negotiating financing for the $350 million project but didn’t have it in place before the credit market tightened six weeks ago in response to the collapse of the subprime mortgage lending industry."

"'That kind of building needs to be built in an upswing instead of a downswing,' Wieland said about One Museum Place."

"One Museum Place is one of at least six condo projects planned to bring a total of at least 175 $1 million-plus condo units to Atlanta. David Haddow, president of a real estate consulting firm, said it’s hard to tell how well this wave of luxury condo projects will perform, but said the sales pace for $1 million-plus condos in Atlanta hasn’t been good historically."

"With the exception of a few projects...most of the condo projects with units carrying a $1 million-plus price tag built over the past decade have struggled, Haddow said."

"'It may change,' Haddow said, adding that nobody knows how deep the demand is for that market. 'The fact of the matter is, when you’ve got a million dollars to spend on a home, you’ve got all the choices.'"

The Atlanta Journal Constitution from Georgia. "Lenders have scheduled 5,244 metro Atlanta properties for public foreclosure sales next month, according to statistics released Tuesday by Equity Depot."

"The monthly total is the second-largest monthly figure ever posted for the 13-county area of metro Atlanta."

"The failing mortgages tend to be high-interest, adjustable-rate loans, said Barry Bramlett, an Equity Depot vice president. 'It's still a subprime problem,' he said. About one in four metro Atlantans who purchased a home in recent years took out a high-interest mortgage, according to federal data."

"Bramlett said he is also seeing an increase in the number of construction loans facing foreclosure. But he said these loans make up a small portion of the total."

"So far this year, 53,365 foreclosure sales have been scheduled in metro Atlanta, well above the 44,971 total for all of 2006. This month's total represents a 36 percent increase over the total for November 2006."