The Bradenton Herald reports from Florida. "In February, the prices of existing-homes continued to fall - to $254,200 from $319,000 from February to February. Locally, the median price of a single family home was down 20 percent, tying with Miami for the second-largest price tumble. Punta Gorda experienced the largest price fall with a median price 25 percent below where it was just one year ago... according to numbers released by the Florida Association of Realtors."

"Condos in Bradenton/Sarasota fared much worse. Only five of Florida's 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas saw fewer sales than Bradenton/Sarasota despite a 41 percent drop in condo prices from February 2007, bringing the median cost of a condo to $211,500."

"'We're seeing that beginning offers are low even if the house is priced appropriately,' said broker Michael Taylor."

"Short sales may be a large reason behind the continued drop in prices. Joanne Owens, operating principal of Keller Williams of Greater Manatee has 54 listings and 40 percent of those are short sales. 'I've had grown men coming into our office crying,' Owens said."

The Herald Tribune. "Like virtually every real estate agent contacted, Lynn Robbins of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate Inc., has listings on which the price has been reduced significantly, but where the seller is still waiting for offers."

"'I've got a really good deal on a house West of the Trail,' Robbins said, referring to a 1926 home with hardwood floors, fireplace, and its own guest house, reduced from $800,000 to $700,000. 'There's a house across the street for $1.495 million.'"

"Robbins' listing has been on the market since July, and the sellers are 'serious.'"

"The Sarasota MLS listed 10,035 single-family homes for sale in February, virtually unchanged from the 10,391 a year before. In Englewood, broker Jason Painter summed it up without too many numbers to get in the way: 'I would say there is probably three years' worth of inventory.'"

"They can get on the water in Punta Gorda Isles, and they are sitting there in the high $200,000s,' said Luke Andreae of the Andreae Group for Re/Max Harbor Realty of Port Charlotte. 'That is less than lots cost three years ago.'"

The Tampa Tribune. "When the foreclosure filing came last month, developer Fida Sirdar determined the only way to save The Place at Channelside condominium was to file for bankruptcy reorganization. It was either that, he said, or hand the keys over to the bank and walk way."

"About a half-mile away, the developers of The Towers of Channelside also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January, after Wachovia cut off the company's credit. And the developers of Trump Tower Tampa say they too may soon be filing for bankruptcy, if they don't secure construction financing for the luxury tower this week."

"All these projects have something else in common: vanishing buyers. Developers say buyers either wouldn't close because the market had changed or couldn't close because they no longer qualified for loans. Others were speculators or just lost hope in the projects."

"'Developers have been hanging in there and trying to make it work, but their cash flows are depleting,' said real estate lawyer David Carter. 'There's going to be a lot of failures.'"

"Bonnie Dealva, who purchased a unit in The Place, said if the contractors had finished the building on time, more buyers would have closed before the market tanked. Dealva decided not to live there because the building feels empty. The Channel District didn't turn out to be the vibrant area she thought it was, she said. She's leasing out her place and renting an apartment near Rocky Point."

The News Press. "Sales of single-family homes in Lee County soared in February as buyers were spurred into action by a sharp drop in prices. Prices have been falling steadily for about two years in Lee County, although last month's sales were exactly the same as a year ago."

"Mary Grace Munoz, of Cape Coral, who with her husband bought two single-family homes for $133,000 each. Her son and daughter each bought a house, she added."

"Real estate agent Brett Ellis in Fort Myers attributed the pickup in sales to the rising number of foreclosures. A total of 1,674 foreclosure actions were filed in circuit court in February, down from a record 1,833 in January but up sharply from 624 in February 2007."

"The Coral Lakes sales show that lower prices stimulate purchases, Ellis said, but they'll also likely cause some who bought there for the old, higher prices to walk away from their mortgages and go into foreclosure."

"David and Jessica Diaz are looking forward to regaining the American dream after they file the bankruptcy this week forced on them by Lee County’s housing industry collapse."

"'I never in a million years thought this could happen to me,' said David Diaz, who’s working overtime to stay afloat while paying almost $7,000 a month in mortgages on their new Cape home and their home in Lehigh Acres they’ve been unable to sell."

"But now he sees the handwriting on the wall: Even after cleaning out his 401(k) of thousands of dollars, their problems are too overwhelming."

"It’s time to make a move, he said. 'I’m tired of being upset and trying to keep thinking of ways of doing things.'"

"'People are just beat up right now,' said the Diazes’ attorney, Charles Phoenix of Fort Myers. 'It used to be you lost your job or some asset failed — now they’re getting it from every direction. Their house has fallen in value, and worst of all that’s offset by a huge debt they can never hope to pay off.'"

"If anything, the number of bankruptcies being filed understates how bad the situation is, Phoenix said: 'Really, the pipeline is constricted. There are only so many law firms handling bankruptcies.'"

"Many of the current ones are people who, like the Diazes, are cleaning their financial slate, an option that’s increasingly acceptable in society, Fort Myers-based bankruptcy attorney Carmen Dellutri said."

"'All of a sudden it’s become not fashionable but OK,' he said. 'I think people are coming to the realization they’re not going to be able to dig their way out of that hole themselves.'"

"Many clients, he said, 'are doing well, but they’re bleeding themselves to death. One gentleman said, 'I spent $100,000 in the past year keeping up these investments.'"

"Diaz said the housing bust hit his family hard: Jessica lost her $60,000-a-year job as adjuster and accountant for a construction firm and has started up a home-based specialty cake business. He’s resigned himself to losing the custom house in Cape Coral they worked for years to attain: 'We owe $344,000 and it’s now worth $250,000 to $280,000. In the prime of the market it was worth half a million.'"

"Ultimately, he said, 'The moral of the story is sometimes things are just out of your hands. You’ve just got to go with the flow.' Fighting off bankruptcy too long can destroy you, he said. 'It’s like a big hole in the boat. You can try to bail the water out but you know eventually it’s going to get tired and you’ll sink.'"

"Cindy Roper, a Realtor in Fort Myers, said she has been encountering a lot of short sales."

"'There was a lot of vacant land there and a lot of people built on speculation, hoping to make some money off of it,' she said. 'You had a lot of construction workers out there and they were able to purchase a newer home, 2000 and up, and of course, a lot of them lost their jobs. It’s been a spiral down effect for everyone.'"

"Roper is the listing agent for a home (where) the bank holding the mortgage is reviewing a short-sale purchase offer for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with a pool and a two-car garage, she said."

"The asking price was $239,000 when the house, built in 2001, hit the market last October, but now stands at $138,000, she said."

The Miami Herald. "An average home sold for around $306,000 here -- down more than $50,000 from the same time last year. And still, the stockpile of unsold homes grew. The 80,000 homes and condos listed for sale don't include thousands of condos still under construction nor thousands of properties acquired by lenders through foreclosures during the past few months."

"Only 360 home sales were closed in Broward in February, a 28 percent drop from the same time last year. In Miami-Dade, the number was 244, down 41 percent. The number of condos sold was 459 in Broward, down 18 percent; in Miami-Dade it was 235, down 46 percent."

The Sun Sentinel. "South Florida's housing market looks worse now than it did at the end of a brutal 2007. Palm Beach County's overbuilt condominium market is reeling. The median condo price last month fell 24 percent, to $159,300 from $209,600 a year ago."

"Susan Gordon of Rhode Island listed her parents' three-bedroom house in Boynton Beach in January 2006, just as the housing boom was ending. She never received an offer and has sliced her price to $229,000 from $350,000."

"'I'm getting a little bit fed up constantly lowering the price and not getting anything meaningful out of it,' said Gordon. 'But I guess it's happening all over.'"

"In many cases, buyers are making low-ball offers, regardless of a home's condition, Boynton Beach agent Bob Melzer said. 'Buyers are all convinced that the market's a disaster, but they can't separate the houses that are overpriced from the ones that are well-priced,' Melzer said. 'It's very frustrating.'"

The Orlando Sentinel. "Rising consumer prices and slumping home values are straining some Central Floridians, especially those with lower incomes and oversized mortgage payments. People who until recently had counted on home-equity lines and other forms of credit to bridge the gap between stagnant incomes and higher prices for food, gas and other items are particularly vulnerable."

"'My house is up for sale,' said Kim Hanley, a custodian at Walt Disney World. 'I just put it on the market. I can't keep up; it's gotten to be too much. The economy is terrible; gas prices are ridiculous. I've even done things like moved to a slower-speed Internet connection. I've cut down on air conditioning. But it's not enough.'"

"Hanley, a single parent in her 40s with a teenage daughter, makes $11.82 an hour at Disney but said she has been on medical leave recently and is falling behind. 'At my age, I expected to have a nice little nest egg, but I hardly have any savings,' she said. 'It's hard to keep up.'"

"On Saturday a busload of prospective home buyers went searching for bargains as part of a tour of foreclosed and bank-owned homes in east Orange County. Tours also are planned in Seminole and Osceola counties. The empty homes beckoned bargain hunters with new carpet and paint and tantalizingly low prices."

"Rudy Darden, 27, was among the busload of potential buyers hoping to snag a home for a fraction of its original value."

"'I wasn't expecting to see new carpet, tile and appliances in a foreclosed house,' said Darden, an Orlando newlywed and first-time home buyer, as he inspected a house near the University of Central Florida."

"In one house, the residents expressed their frustration by hammering holes in the walls, staining the carpet and damaging the stove before leaving their home to the bank that held the mortgage."

"Carlos Colmenares, a Kissimmee-area renter, said he could see the stress the former owners were under by the condition they left the house. Still, he said, 'It's a great opportunity for us buyers.'"

The Times Union. "Jacksonville's single-family dwelling sales fell 40 percent in February to 687, with the median price 9 percent lower at $180,200. Area sales of existing condominiums also decreased by 12 percent to 92; sale prices fell 21 percent to $142,500."

"One local analyst explained the Northeast Florida drop as a consequence of the excess new home inventory that has prompted builders to offer a myriad of incentives. Although some potential buyers might want to move into one of these new homes, they can't sell their existing home."

"'Incentives are good for the new buyer, but consumers can't match those incentives,' said Ray Rodriguez, owner of the Real Estate Strategy Center of North Florida Inc. Rodriguez doesn't fault builders because they 'have to do something to keep business alive.'"

"Some home owners there are dropping prices and throwing in golf carts to move a deal, said Realtor Dottie Lay."

"'Your home has to either be staged cleaner and nicer or you have to offer incentives,' said Lay, who has dropped the sales price on her own St. Augustine home more than once as she prepares to move into a new home still under construction."

The News Journal. "Upon returning to Florida to check on two rental properties she and her husband own, Regina Marston was surprised by to see how much this seaside community has gone to seed."

"Numerous homes, some of them in one stage of foreclosure or another, have overgrown and unkempt lawns, boarded-up windows, blue tarp-covered roofs or missing shingles, and boats, cars and trash in the yard."

"'I live in California now, but I came back in December and I was shocked to see the decline in the area,' said Marston, a former long-time resident who plans to retire here one day. 'Values are falling. I pay $8,000 a year in property taxes, and what am I getting in return?'"

"'Over time, things get out of hand, and unless someone reports it, it doesn't get fixed,' said Realtor Al Weeks, the Marstons' agent, who has been in the real estate business in Ormond-by-the-Sea for 21 years."

"If a yard needs to be mowed, a notice is mailed to the address on record for the property owner. If the notice is returned, code enforcement officers will post another notice on the property for 10 days, after which a crew will be sent in and a bill will be mailed to the property owner charging an hourly fee for the mowing and a $200 administrative fee."

"If the bill is returned, a lien will be placed against the property, said Carol Kerrigan, Volusia County's code enforcement manager. 'We can do it twice a year,' Kerrigan said. 'We'll probably do a lot of these until we run out of money.'"

"But Regina Marston doesn't think that goes far enough."

"'That's a plan? The market has changed, and that won't work anymore,' she said. 'The county can't do business as usual. This is an unusual situation. This is an emergency.'"

"Two streets over from one of the Marstons' properties is a home that was foreclosed on March 11. The grass was overgrown, brown fronds drooped from a palm tree in the front yard, a storm door stood open and a section of wood fencing lay on the ground. County records show the foreclosure sale will be April 11."

"'If the county isn't doing anything right now, what are they going to do when these (foreclosures) hit the market?' Marston said. 'I think the county has allowed this area to get to such a place that I won't be able to sell either one of my homes for what they're worth.'"