The Tampa Tribune reports from Florida. "In February 2006, Kim and John Cataldo bought their dream home in Tampa's swanky Corey Lake Isles neighborhood. They paid $565,000. But a year later, after their property taxes and homeowners insurance skyrocketed, the couple couldn't afford mortgage payments and put the house on the market. No offer was more than $500,000. The Cataldos kept making payments, but were running out of money."

"They kept trying to sell the home, but the offers dropped lower. In November 2007, the lender filed a foreclosure lawsuit against the couple. Their best offer from a buyer is $350,000. To their astonishment, the Cataldos say their lender is considering accepting it and forgiving the rest of the loan."

"Debbie Ferraro of American Guardian Title in Tampa said lenders had been reluctant to accept short sales, but two weeks before Christmas, attitudes changed. 'Short sale business started going crazy,' Ferraro said."

"Tony Maltese, a local real estate investor, got in over his head in deals that went bad. He took out $3 million in loans on nine homes. One home has been foreclosed on, despite an offer for a short sale, he said, and another home is likely to be lost in foreclosure soon."

"He's now working on two short sale deals, one for a home in Zephyrhills and one for a home in New York. 'I was reluctant to try this,' he said. 'But I'm trying to keep my credit from getting worse.'"

From NBC 2 News. "Many Southwest Florida homeowners trying to sell are frustrated that 2007 was not a good year for the real estate market. For homeowner Penny English, 2007 was a financial nightmare."

"'I'm going to be stuck here. I'm not going to get rid of this house,' said English."

"She's ready to sell her nine-year-old Lehigh Acres home, but no one is buying. If anyone was interested, English says she'd probably lose about $75,000 selling her home. Overall, she says she's just one victim of Southwest Florida's housing market."

"'It's been very hard unless you want to drop the house and get nothing out of it,' said English."

The News Press. "'Speculative excess' in single-family home construction in Lee County probably will create a soft housing market for three to four years, according to a report released Monday by Orlando-based economist Hank Fishkind."

"The report was commissioned by Florida-based Attorneys' Title Insurance Fund."

"Overall it was one of Fishkind's gloomiest predictions. As recently as July 2006, he was predicting a soft real estate market, but one that would only last two years. On Monday, he noted that the correction has been sharper and more prolonged because of the surge in foreclosures on homes bought by people with weak credit."

"That caught him and other analysts by surprise, Fishkind said, because 'in part it was something new, and I think in part some of the major banks obfuscated' denying the severity of the problem at first."

"Real estate broker Stephen Luta in Fort Myers said there's an attitude now among potential buyers that the market's in for more declines but that a turnaround may be coming soon. 'You can get a house under $100,000 in Cape Coral and that's a good deal. You can put someone in that as a renter and make it work' as an investment, he said."

"It takes awhile for prices in a real estate market to fall as far as they should because sellers are often unwilling to lower their prices to market levels, Fishkind said. 'They shoot up like rockets and come down like feathers.'"

"The wave of foreclosures in Lee County recently, with more than 1,400 a month for the past three months, has the potential to cause problems, Fishkind said, 'but I think that's not going to happen because it's still a very attractive place to live compared to, say, Akron or Detroit.'"

The Herald Tribune. "Florida's best known economist says the Sarasota-Manatee residential property market bottomed out in September-October and has now stabilized in both price and volume."

"Hank Fishkind predicts flat prices for both counties through 2010, as the region chews through excess inventories of new houses and condominiums."

"The Sarasota market appeared to bottom out in the spring at 470 to 480 closings per month. But then a national liquidity crisis sprang to life in August, prompted by defaults on subprime mortgages issued during the feverish markets of 2003-05 and continuing into 2006."

"For a month or so, mortgage makers froze. As a result, sales fell to 310 in September and stayed flat at 319 in October."

"'It seems to me that is the new bottom,' Fishkind said, referring to sales in more recent months. 'So I'm not seeing any major price declines, and I think volume has stabilized.'"

The Palm Beach Post. "After rising to extraordinary heights in the real estate boom, prices of existing single-family homes in Palm Beach County will remain at an average of around $440,000 at least through 2010, Fishkind said."

"The Florida Association of Realtors, which The Palm Beach Post cites for monthly stories on home sales, uses median home prices, not average prices as Fishkind's report does, so it's hard to compare the two."

"In November, the median price of an existing single-family home in Palm Beach County was $345,700, down from a peak of $421,500 in November 2005, the association said."

"But Fishkind insists prices won't come down anytime soon, if at all. 'Palm Beach (County) will never see price declines,' Fishkind said. 'They aren't making any more Palm Beach.'"

"Palm Beach County's backlog of unsold homes will disappear fast once it starts moving, Fishkind said. That's despite Palm Beach County's housing inventory of five years or more."

The Orlando Sentinel. "Although the housing slump overall will continue, Fishkind predicted that consumers looking for home prices in Florida, and particularly in Metro Orlando, to fall much more are not likely to be rewarded for their patience."

"'Housing prices tend to be sticky,' Fishkind said, falling much more slowly than they rise, unlike other 'products' that often lose value fast to clear an oversupply."

"Fishkind's 2008 real-estate forecast has plenty of sour notes, though. He terms Miami-Dade's condo collapse 'the worst condominium bust cycle that Florida has seen since 1975.'"

The St Petersburg Times. "Despite a real-estate downturn and fears of a recession, the city had another record year for value of construction permitted. But this surge could be short-lived." "Since nearly half of that figure came from a now-declining residential market with few large projects on the horizon, it's unlikely the city can top this figure next year."

"Miles Development Partners, which built condos at 1010 Central and the Sage, was to construct another condo building at 1701 Central Ave., but is instead planning to construct apartments."

"Another project across from Tropicana Field, may become apartments after Grady Pridgen sold it to an Ohio developer."

"Craig Sher, executive chairman at developer Sembler...conceded that 2008, 2009 and 2010 will be down. Sher said Sembler tracks the trends, and while St. Petersburg might be doing well relative to Florida, the state is doing poorly relative to other parts of the country."

"The retailers that buy or rent property from Sembler are not seeing the Florida sales growth they want, Sher said, so commercial construction will, as is typical, follow residential downward."

"Flush with new offices at a time of waning demand, the Tampa Bay area's office market is suffering its first rise in vacancies since about 2003. Until the second half of 2007, the residential real estate slump hadn't triggered a similar slowdown in office leasing. That's changed."

"As builders, Realtors, mortgage lenders and title companies purged their staffs last year, the area's overall office vacancy crept up to 10.7 percent by the end of 2007, according to the Colliers Arnold real estate firm."

"Colliers executive VP Russ Sampson notes that 1-million square feet of office space is available for sublet regionally after the original tenant vacated before the lease was up. Sublet space typically rents for $1 to $3 below market."

"'They're willing to give it away if someone will take it,' Sampson said."

"Today's situation is a far cry from the past couple of years, when brokers urged tenants to lock in leases before rents shot up. Many did, including housing industry types who didn't expect the good times to end so suddenly."

"'They expanded like crazy. They really built their staffs up,' said Colliers president Pat Duffy."

"Some regional economies, including the Tampa Bay area, stand a greater risk of recession than others. Behind the risk is Florida's dependence on the housing industry to provide jobs and tax revenue, as well as residents' reliance on home equity loans to finance purchases. Each of those has tightened during the past year."

"Retailers of big-ticket items such as cars and boats are getting hammered. 'I guess it's the housing market, because it's the only thing that wasn't there before,' said Jack McGaughy, owner of Jack's Interbay Marine in Tampa, where boat sales have dropped at least 30 percent over two years. 'In general, people are not interested in buying boats. They're not coming in the store.'"

"As home values skyrocketed two years ago, Floridians tapped into their home equity through second mortgages in huge numbers. By fall 2006, these 'home equity extractions' added nearly 15 percent to Floridians' disposable income, according to Economy.com."

"By the third quarter of 2007, home equity borrowing had fallen by half, adding only 8.5 percent to Floridians' disposable income."

"Wanda DeBoer, a real estate broker who represents small restaurants and retailers, sees more trouble. She insists that the economy at least is hurting small businesses, if not the big chains. 'Look at the vacancies showing up and down the streets everywhere,' she said."

"A bipartisan group of lawmakers got their first chance Monday to grill state employees about the troubled State Board of Administration fund that was invested in bad securities. Lawmakers left frustrated."

"'It was very clear that the market was melting down in the summer,' said Sen. Ronda Storms. 'Somebody had a fiduciary obligation to say, 'I'm responsible for this fund. I should ask how much money do we have in this. And shouldn't we be getting out?' And why didn't anybody do that?'"

"Storms said she was doubtful an audit would give anything more than 'four different fingers pointing in four different directions and no elected official is going to be accountable for it. And they should be. Because they ran for that job.'"

"Rep. Gayle Harrell said she wanted to make sure that an outside audit looks into who exactly was making the trades involved in the bad investments."

"'When I look at the scope of the amount of money that's involved here, we are talking about assets greater than most countries,' said Harrell. 'I want to make sure there's no insider trading going on. Why did we only have five brokers handling these trades. What is happening within the entity as well as the investments?'"

"Rep. Susan Bucher, a West Palm Beach Democrat, repeatedly asked why more wasn't done in response to a March audit report that had raised red flags. 'Who was minding the store and why didn't we see those red flags?'"

"Jim Cassady, state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink's chief of staff, said: 'Representative, that's a good question. I can't answer that.'"