The Bend Bulletin reports from Oregon. "Frustrated by a season of sluggish sales, Brooks Resources Corp. put the last three unsold townhomes in its prime RiverWild subdivision at Mt. Bachelor Village up for auction Nov. 2. It was a bit of a bust. Only one of the three sold, and at the minimum bid — more than $200,000 below list price. The other two attracted not a single offer."

"That, for Central Oregon’s largest land developer, was a sign of the times."

"Now, with an overhang of unsold inventory glutting the housing market — the aftermath of a three-year boom run amok — Brooks, along with some of the region’s other large builders and developers, is trying to adjust to a slump that Brooks CEO Mike Hollern believes may last another two years."

"Whether the downturn lasts that long, or is shorter or longer, of course, is anyone’s guess. Hollern’s 40 years of experience in the local housing market is telling him to tread cautiously through the minefields."

"'I wouldn’t be about to predict that we’re at a bottom,' Hollern said. 'I know that’s not what the real estate community likes to hear. But the problem is, you don’t know when the top occurred until after it’s there, and you don’t know the bottom has occurred until after you’ve been through it.'"

"Buena Vista Custom Homes, a Lake Oswego-based company that billed itself as one of the nation’s fastest-growing builders when it moved into the Bend market in early 2006, announced Thursday that it will put all 200 of its unsold homes in Oregon up for auction next month, including 29 in its brand-new east-Bend subdivision."

"'We were overaggressive and too slow to react to the changes in the market, and that has created an oversupply of finished homes,' Buena Vista President Roger Pollock said in a company press release. 'Buyers are going to get amazing deals, but we simply have to reduce our inventory.'"

"Many of the speculators and investors who accounted for up to a third of purchases in subdivisions like NorthWest Crossing during the boom years have fled the 'buy' side and become sellers, inflating inventory levels and forcing the region’s developers and builders to change course."

"When NorthWest Crossing started six years ago...lot prices that started 'slightly below market' in the early years in the $50,000 to $70,000 range ballooned to $200,000 in the peak boom years for the best lots, Hollern said. At the same time, the subdivision’s designated builders built ever-larger homes with ever-more-expensive amenities in the subdivision’s neighborhoods because they could sell them."

"The price escalation has pulled into reverse, Hollern said. Last year, the prices on lots sold in NorthWest Crossing averaged $218,000, the subdivision’s general manager, David Ford, said. This year, they’re averaging about $189,000."

"'Nobody quite knows where the price is going to settle down,' Hollern said. 'If you bought something in 2002 for $250,000 or $300,000 and you missed selling it for $750,000 two years ago, and now you have to sell it for $400,000, is that a bad deal? There was a peak there that some people missed if they didn’t sell. And if they bought on a peak, that’s kind of tough. So prices have to come back to, I think, to a somewhat more normal level.'"

"Are they there yet? 'No,' he said. 'I don’t think so. I think there are more adjustments.'"

The Oregonian. "The Portland region remained a rare star in the gloomy U.S. housing market by reporting yet another annual price increase in October...despite a bloated inventory of unsold homes that would typically drive down prices. So far, sellers have refused to reduce their prices dramatically even though (the) wait is up by more than one-third from a year earlier."

"Some sellers haven't had much luck. Broker Terry Stewart listed a 1966 ranch house for $250,000 in May. It's (in) a working-class neighborhood where crime is a growing concern. She got one offer -- which wasn't acceptable -- and then the buyer pool went dry. The owners dropped the price to $245,000, then $240,000."

"In September, the price fell again to $229,000. On Friday, the couple who owned the home closed on a sale at $223,000."

"Stewart said that sale was typical for what she's seeing. Home sales she works on are off about 10 percent from what they were a year ago."

"The couple found a bigger place in Happy Valley that had been through similar price drops, Stewart said. The 2,170-square-foot home started at $409,000 in April. Stewart's clients bought it for $355,000 in October. She said buyers remain out there, but 'if you're overpriced, you're sitting and sitting.'"

The Columbian from Washington. "Clark County home sellers seemed to be backing down from a long face-off with buyers over asking prices, an October real estate report suggests."

"The median selling price of houses sold in Clark County dropped sharply last month. At $245,000, the October median price of new and pre-owned homes sold was 7.5 percent lower than the $265,000 median price for the same month a year ago, according to appraisers in Vancouver."

"'It looks like sellers are finally yielding,' said Tim Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon."

"The volume of homes sold last month also continued to be lower than 2006, but that trend has been under way for several months. Kathy Rylander, an associate broker in Vancouver said she's been most surprised to see slowing sales among inventory that was once considered somewhat affordable, priced between $200,000 and $500,000."

"'It's shocking to me. That's usually a pretty good price range,' she said."

"Locally, 'it's a good time to buy,' Rylander said. 'Now that we see sellers are reducing their prices, that should be an incentive.'"

The Heraldnet from Washington. "Tom Callaghan remembers when Snohomish County developers couldn't build houses fast enough. And Callaghan, a real estate agent, couldn't sell them fast enough. But in the space of a year, he has watched a once sizzling market smolder."

"Those who are buying have more than 50 percent more homes and condominiums throughout the county to choose from than last year, according to the Northwest MLS. It's a boon for buyers and a burden for builders who are stuck with too many finished houses."

"Some builders are lowering prices and some are offering upgrades, cars and flat-screen televisions. The most common come-on is buyers' bonuses that range from a few thousand dollars to $100,000 in at least one south Everett development."

"'Builders are being beaten up so badly,' said Callaghan, an agent in Lynnwood. 'It's like having a gun pointed to their head. They just need to get out of that standing inventory, step back and regroup.'"

"Drive 35th Avenue SE from Everett to Mill Creek and see a glut of new developments, most offering enticements to potential buyers. For several miles, nearly every cross street and side road contains two or three signs plunked in the ground advertising new homes in the area."

"In a healthy market there is usually about a year's supply of vacant lots. Right now there are 22 months of inventory in the county, according to New Home Trends. The inventory of homes under construction has doubled since last year to about a 61/2-month supply."

"Competition for buildable land had been stiff. Developers paid top dollar for vacant land, and in order to make a profit, they have to build and sell a house for a certain price."

"'It got to the point property kept going so high it began shutting out a lot of people,' said Vern Holden, a broker in Mill Creek. 'When an entry level home is $500,000 -- come on, half a million for a newly married couple to buy a house? It could only go up so far and it did.'"

"Buyers, however, shouldn't expect those deals to stick around much longer, said Todd Britsch, president of New Home Trends. For buyers, now may be the best time, he said. Many of the incentives will likely disappear after the first of the year. Sales typically slump in the fall and pick up each spring."

"'Builders are very, very nervous,' he said. 'Buyers are sitting on the fence waiting on the shoe to drop and the market to absolutely collapse. It's not going to happen.'"

The Juneau Empire from Alaska. "Alaskans are worried about the extensive media coverage of housing problems in the Lower 48, and that is undercutting confidence here."

"'Folks want to know if Alaska is heading for another market crises like the one we experienced in the mid-1980s. The answer is no,' Dan Fauske, AHFC's CEO told the Alaska HomeBuilders Association at the group's annual meeting. 'The 1980s crises was an economic crisis, not a housing crises. Today what we have is a cooling off of the overheated housing market from the past several years.'"

"Fauske said that Alaska has only 11,000 of 92,000 total mortgages that are considered sub-prime and only 2.7 percent of current mortgages have adjustable interest rates."

"Housing prices in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough have dipped 4 percent to 5 percent, and the growth in Anchorage home prices has slowed to about 5 percent over last year. But those are adjustments to an overheated market over the past two to three years in both areas, Fauske said."

"'We're...coming off peaks in the market. Until about a year ago, our state's housing market was chugging along extremely well, too well. In many areas of the state it was a seller's market,' he said. 'Now more housing units are on the market for sale or rent, they're staying on the market a little longer, and depending on how urgently an owner wants to sell, prices are likely to be adjusted downward.'"

"Bankers may have been less diligent than they arguably should be because they wanted to help their customers. New generations of younger bank officers don't remember the 1980s. 'In those days the only new home that a builder could finance was a pre-sold,' Fauske said."

"'It is not likely that Alaska will escape scot-free from the economic squeeze being felt across the nation. Like in other states, we'll see adverse consequences of the national housing market, which is shaking the confidence of consumers and the mortgage industry,' Fauske said."