The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "When Laura Roorda's father died in March, a real estate agent advised her to put his Hernando Beach house on the market for $345,000. By the time she and her brother had it cleaned up and ready to show in July, the agent had bad news: $299,000 was the best for which they could hope. After five months without an offer, Roorda dropped the price to $259,000."

"Faced with payments on a second mortgage, Roorda now fears she may have to go lower. 'I don't want to lose everything my dad worked for. I don't want to say, 'Five dollars and it's yours,' but I know I'm losing a lot of sleep about it,' said Roorda, of Palm Harbor."

"After the Suncoast Parkway opened in 2001, the relatively cheap property in Hernando Beach was a magnet for investors. 'Prices doubled, and that's not a normal appreciation in value,' said Gladys Moore, a Hernando Beach resident and an agent . 'All of a sudden it's overpriced, and prices have just had to come down.'"

"The average sale price for houses continued to climb, from $324,000 in 2004 to $419,000 in 2006, records from the Hernando County Property Appraiser's Office show."

"But some sales may have been artificially inflated, said agent John Callaghan. He and other Realtors said they have seen at least a half-dozen cases of apparent mortgage fraud. Buyers took out mortgages for at least $200,000 more than the list prices so they could walk away with the excess, he said."

"In a community as small as Hernando Beach, with about 1,500 lots, 'that's enough to warp the market,' Callaghan said. 'We're in the middle of a zoo here.'"

"I've got a friend of a friend in Pinellas County. He's almost a year behind on his mortgage payments."

"You'd think he'd be pitched off his balcony and shaving his hobo's stubble in a gas station men's room at this point. You'd be wrong. He's still enjoying his waterfront view without coughing up a condo payment for months."

"The sheer scale of mortgage defaults in the Tampa Bay area seems to be turning our lions of the banking industry into bleating lambs: 'Pleeeeassse Paaaay Meeeee!'"

"For enlightenment, I visited the daily auction of foreclosed properties at the courthouse in Tampa. Among the 15 or so properties up for auction that day, a good number were seized from homeowners who defaulted in 2006 and early 2007."

"The day I was there, not one auction home sold. No investors attending the auction were enticed by minimum bids they felt the banks had set too high. More than one Realtor has told me that, contrary to expectations, many of the bank-owned houses are overpriced."

"Bankers...don't just want to give away a house for peanuts. But they also can't afford to add to the glut of bank-owned property. That explains the generosity toward my friend of a friend. Don't expect the free lunch to last forever. The housing slump will eventually end. On that day the lions will get their teeth back and the deadbeats will have to beat a retreat from their free lodging."

From Bloomberg. "A newly formed advisory panel composed of Florida school and local government officials with money frozen in a state-run investment pool has said it will not accept a return of less than 100 percent of their investment."

"'The very fact that you're out here talking to us about taking less than 100 percent is in my mind unacceptable,' said MaryEllen Elia, superintendent of Hillsborough County Public Schools. 'You need to figure out how to make the taxpayers in Florida whole. It isn't going to be fixed by asking us to take less than what we put in there.'"

"Florida schools and towns with money frozen in a state-run investment account are unlikely to get their cash back tomorrow, when officials meet to discuss a crisis prompted by withdrawals that drained almost half of the fund's $27 billion in assets, a policy officer said."

"'If we reopen the window without limitations on Tuesday, and we see behavior like we've seen up to now, there's simply no way to meet that demand without having a fire sale on assets,' said James Francis, senior policy officer for the State Board of Administration, manager of the Local Government Investment Pool."

"Kevin SigRist, deputy executive director of the State Board of Administration, said the board can't promise to make pool participants whole, because of the pool's 'problematic' securities. 'We have securities in the pool that clearly have credit risk associated with them,' he said."

"'We don't ever want to be in a situation here at the SBA where we are somehow issuing guarantees or suggestions that everyone will get dollar for dollar,' said SigRist."

The Palm Beach Post. "A sobering quarterly economic report for Palm Beach County, released Wednesday by the Economic Development Research Institute in West Palm Beach, sees the slumping housing market as a harbinger of bad things to come."

"'The unfolding economic slump in Palm Beach County is most notable and visible in the county's labor markets and housing sector,' says the report."

"In the county, 31,009 residents are currently requesting unemployment benefits - up by 4,551 individuals since June. Retail sales are down 3 percent from last year at an estimated loss of $51 million. Professional and business services ended with a loss of 2,800 jobs for the third quarter."

"Among households, 18,507 out of 474,175 - almost 4 percent - entered some stage of foreclosure activity this year. The county is on track to register the lowest level of housing starts in at least 15 years."

"Realtor Sarah Howard, the former 'Queen of Flagler Drive,' has swept up her scepter and crown and moved to Winston-Salem, N.C. 'It's a wonderful area, with lots of homes of character, just like West Palm Beach,' she says by e-mail. 'The difference is pricing. People can really get a good buy here.'"

"'I hear I got out at a good time,' Howard says. 'All my Realtor friends are telling me it's really tough down there now.'"

The Orlando Sentinel. "If Central Florida's economy has a heart of darkness in the waning weeks of 2007, it is beating inside the housing industry, where plunging home sales have led to widespread retrenchment and draconian job cuts."

"Employment is often a lagging indicator of a coming economic cycle. Job losses in one part of the economy tend to spread to others. 'Consumers have lost much of their discretionary spending power,' said Bob Allsbrook, chief economist for Regions Bank in Birmingham, Ala. 'That's particularly true in Orlando.'"

"Although talk of a serious financial downturn is spreading, there isn't consensus. University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith predicts a housing-market recovery next year that would blunt the downturn's effect on other sectors."

"'We are in for a couple quarters where there won't be much good news for the real-estate industry,' Snaith said. 'But I think 2008 will be the year we put the housing situation behind us.'"

"Although housing prices have dropped and the number of unsold houses on the market is at a record high, Snaith says the market will begin to improve by the middle of next year."

"'There's no shortage of Chicken Littles predicting a recession and worse,' he said. There are signs the economy could take a spill, Snaith acknowledged, but he doubts Central Florida will suffer greatly. 'I think we will see unemployment go up slightly,' he said."

"In little more than a year, the once-swaggering industry has lost confidence in the near-term future. 'We are looking at a 50 [percent] to 60 percent work-force reduction for home builders,' said Steve O'Dowd, president of Engineered Homes in Winter Park. 'That is moving through the whole supply chain that feeds the industry. That could have a massive affect on the economy.'"

"Central Florida has a record inventory of pre-owned homes for sale but that's not stopping builders from unleashing a flurry of town-home lots and construction."

"Local builders have about 2,000 town-home units under way in a three-county Orlando area and are 'sitting on a supply of more than 10,500 developed town-home lots in over 100 active communities,' according to a new report by Charles Wayne Consulting Inc. in Orlando."

The News Press. "It was January 2005 when Tracy Emerson moved to Fort Myers. She rented an apartment and, after a year, contacted a real estate agent to help her look for a home. It was just after the peak of the frenzied real estate market in Southwest Florida. She didn't like anything she thought she could afford, so she continued to rent for another year."

"'Then I moved in with my aunt last January so I could save some money to put down on a condo,' Emerson, 26, said. 'It was supposed to be temporary.' She's still there."

"'Renting is a waste of money,' Emerson said. 'I'm throwing money out the window and it's not getting me anywhere. I want to buy a place. I'm not building any equity by renting.'"

"Like many young people, Emerson dreams of owning her own home. Prices have come down dramatically since she began looking at property, so that dream may soon become a reality. Even so, she remains apprehensive about buying."

"'I don't want to be in charge of maintenance, cutting grass, things like that. When you own a condo, there are no worries about the maintenance of the exterior,' she said. 'But I also don't want to pay the condo fees. As a young, single person, I don't have anyone to share those expenses.'"

"Broker Janet Rushin said buying young is better because younger people can get a bigger jumpstart on building equity and credit history. 'But with rentals being so competitive now, many are renting,' she said."

"For Emerson, that is why she hasn't bought a home yet. 'Renting is cheaper than owning,' she said. 'It's great for the short-term, but I definitely don't want to do it forever.'"

"Almost 30 months after Lee County's real estate peak, one of the most frequent questions I'm asked is 'when will things return to normal?'"

"The answer, I explain, depends on the specifics of the question and their definition of 'normal.'"

"'Return to where?' I always ask. As discussed many times, the 2003-2006 real estate frenzy was artificial, caused by a combination of low mortgage rates, amateur real estate investors buying properties to 'flip' and lenders who would gladly make the needed loans."

"Recently I consulted for a 'short sale' on a waterfront single-family home in Cape Coral. The lot was purchased in 1987 for $11,000 and sold in 1999 for $26,000. This 7.42 percent compounded annual rate of appreciation was normal."

"In 2001 the lot owners built a house, which they sold in November 2005 for $700,000. It then 'flipped' in April 2006 for $1.2 million and again in October 2006 for $1.9 million. This was NOT normal."

"Today, the fair market value of that property is approximately $500,000."

"On Nov. 20, The Greater Fort Myers and the Beach MLS showed 18,596 single-family homes and condos available for purchase and 444 sold in October 2007. At this rate it will take just under 42 months for the present supply to reach zero."

"Southwest Florida is in the precarious position of having only two economic legs: tourism and home building. I don't think I could write anything new about our current local home building situation. Out of necessity, it's almost come to a grinding halt. Due to trickle-down economics, this has affected more than just the trades. When tradesmen aren't working they don't buy new vehicles, eat out, buy new tools, furniture etc."

"In turn, when retailers, distributors and manufacturers see their sales decline, they reduce spending and often lay off workers or reduce employee hours. And so it continues."

"At times like this I'm reminded of the words of Longfellow, who said 'The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.' Many of us just have to endure through this down economy."