The St Petersburg Times reports from Florida. "Gov. Charlie Crist stood before hundreds of Realtors in Orlando last summer and predicted fantastic things about the property tax cuts on the January ballot. 'Florida's going to have a sonic boom when this happens,' he said, using rhetoric he would repeat again and again over the next several months. ''You're going to be busier than you've been in your life. Get ready, get your rest, make sure your license is up to date."

"Five months after the vote, Florida is still waiting for the sonic boom."

"To fully benefit, however, homeowners need to be able to sell the home they are leaving. John and Melanie Scharch moved to Hernando County last year from the Keys. The couple carried $235,557 in accrued Save Our Homes benefit from their old home, reducing the assessed value of their new home to $93,336."

"'It's great,' said John Scharch. 'But until I sell my other house, I'm not saving anything. I've had three people look at it and they really like it, but they say, 'I have to sell my house first before I can buy yours.'"

"A steady trickle of potential buyers streamed through nine downtown developments Saturday as part of the Urban Tour of Homes. The price tags ranged from the $180 thousands to the millions."

"'Everything is down here right now except the people,' LaQuinda Brewington said. When asked 'which comes first, the residents or the retail?' many people Saturday said they believe the retail will follow. And when it does, maybe they'll have a prime piece of property, Brewington said."

Steve Pralle of Hyde Park (is) considering buying property to rent out. He was weighing whether this is a good time to invest, and cautiously optimistic that in six to nine months the market will be back on the upswing."

"'And hopefully there will be quick appreciation,' he added."

The Herald Tribune. "Federal regulators are worried that some banks in Florida and across the nation may be ill-prepared to deal with their battered loan business. U.S. banks have set aside just 89 cents to cover every $1 in nonperforming loans, or loans that borrowers are no longer paying off, said Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp."

"That is the lowest 'coverage ratio' in 15 years. In Florida, the coverage ratio is just 50 cents per $1 in bad loans."

"Bank analyst Richard Bove of Lutz says the outlook is not good. 'The impact on banks will be to drive loan losses to levels only experienced in a depression,' Bove said. 'The annualized first-quarter 2008 domestic loss numbers are higher than in any year than 1934 already.'"

The Miami Herald. "Las Olas Riverfront, the distressed retail and entertainment complex along downtown Fort Lauderdale's New River, is slated to go on the auction block. A Boca Developers company bought the property for $31.9 million in 2005, intending to raze it. The developer earlier this year unveiled plans to build two condo towers, offices, shops and entertainment."

"But Boca Developers' vision unraveled after the company ran into financial troubles resulting from the turmoil in the real estate market. A New York concern called ACF Riverfront moved ahead with the foreclosure. ACF Riverfront is owed about $22 million."

"'There will be an investor who will buy the thing,' said Michael Cannon, a Miami real estate analyst. 'The question is what use the property will be put to.'"

From Marketplace. "U.S. mayors are working to resolve the housing crisis by using federal money. Rampant foreclosures are especially hurting cities by choking off property tax revenues that fund city services."

"Frank Ortis is mayor of Pembroke Pines, a city near Miami. He says people getting kicked out of their homes are adding to urban blight. Ortis: 'Some even poured concrete down toilets, put holes in walls. And then you have the over-growing of the grass. And you have pools, in Florida especially, turn green and become mosquito-infested.'"

The Sun Sentinel. "It's a nice-sized house in a country club neighborhood in Delray Beach. The owner put it up for sale in December 2005. Despite having its price slashed more than 50 percent, the house has sat. And sat. Current days on the market: Nine hundred and twenty-six - and counting."

"'It's been a tough one,' admits real estate agent Louis Levy. 'It was listed at $699,000 two years ago and now it's $329,000.'"

"At least 1,058 have languished for more than two consecutive years in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties. Yet even that estimate is too low, ZipRealty said, because the numbers don't count homes pulled off the market and put back on when sellers switch agents, make improvements, or let the listing expire and enter a new sales so the home does not look stale."

"'It's very hard for people to adjust their mind to the new value of the property. They all have this mind-set, 'I can afford to keep it for two years and sell it when the market recovers,'" said real estate agent Jackie Moore of Fort Lauderdale. 'But in the '70s, it took almost 14 years for real estate to rebound.'"

"'I'll take it off the market and stick it out if I have to,' said Charles Resta of Fort Lauderdale, whose Harbor Beach home has been for sale since November 2006, despite dropping the asking price from $1.9 million to about $1.4 million."

"Steve Lee moved from Pompano Beach to Los Angeles but hasn't been able to sell his three-bedroom condo, which he put on the market in April 2006, despite cutting the price from $224,900 to $99,000."

"Part of the problem, he said, is the home was damaged after a water leak and sewer backup. The repairs are done, but he's still tied up in lawsuits with his condo association. He's begging the bank to foreclose so he can cut his losses."

"'I don't want a penny, just take it,' Lee said. 'It's absolutely destroyed me - mentally, physically and emotionally.'"

"A $1.7 million waterfront mansion in Fort Lauderdale's South New River Isles (was) offered three years ago by developers before ground was broken. 'We used to sell them before we finished them,' said Ken Fernandez of Kenco Builders. 'Now I've got it listed at a loss.'"

The Orlando Sentinel. "Countrywide, the nation's No. 1 home lender and poster child for the mortgage crisis, is marketing 1,600 homes in Florida and more than 200 in Central Florida alone. Countrywide has slashed prices, with some houses listed at 40 percent less than what their owners paid at the height of the real-estate frenzy just two years ago."

"In case you needed more proof of just how artificially inflated home prices were and how foolishly banks signed off on loans to pay for them, this is it."

"George Philbeck, an agent in Orlando, has several listings for Countrywide-owned homes. On some, he said, he has received eight and nine offers. 'About 90 percent of homes are getting very little traffic and not selling,' he said."

"That's because they aren't priced right. Many sellers aren't willing to let go of the dollar amount they think they would have made on their house two or three years ago. Banks, unlike individual sellers, are often willing to hack the price."

"'The banks are interpreting value based on the amount of traffic and the competing market, and they're making their pricing decisions and adjustments based on facts, not emotions,' Philbeck said."

"The home at 2067 Marsh Hawk Circle in the Hunter's Creek area, for example, sold for $343,000 in 2006. It is now listed for 43 percent less -- at $194,900, according to Countrywide's web site. It's been reduced at least three times, according to previous listings that show the bank at one time asking $259,900."

The Atlanta Journal Constitution in Georgia. "Caleb Atkins gave himself a heckuva birthday present Sunday: a two-bedroom, two-bath condominium on the top floor of the Tribute Lofts building east of downtown Atlanta.'

"Tribute sold 26 units in an unusual one-hour auction Sunday at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center. The developers, Greg and Brian Wohl, decided to go the auction route because the condo market is so sluggish."

"'I'm about to go and celebrate pretty heavily,' said Atkins, a Georgia Tech graduate who works in Suwanee and turns 25 on Friday. 'I prefer to live where I play.'"

"Even before learning of the auction, Atkins was planning to buy a Tribute condo and say goodbye to his house sharing in Virginia-Highland. 'But two days before I was to make that offer, the auction was announced,' he said. 'We freaked out. The two-bedroom unit that I couldn't afford, I could afford now.'"

"Atkins is a homeowner for the first time. He paid $263,000 - the highest price at the auction - for the 1,306-square-foot unit. Atkins pointed out his winning bid was '30.77 percent' less than the original asking price of $379,900."

"Four more units were not offered for sale when the sellers ended the auction ended early; they feared prices might go too low as the crowd thinned. The project still has about 40 market-rate units left to sell, which will be reduced in price as a result of the auction, Wohl said."

"The cheapest sale was $132,000 for a 795-square-foot one-bedroom unit that originally was priced at $183,900."

"Paul Nichols, a 30-year-old Georgia Tech graduate, earned a round of applause as the first winning bidder. He paid $144,000 for his one-bedroom unit. Nichols said he plans to move there from Buckhead and enjoy the seventh-floor view while waiting for his new home to appreciate."

"'And if it doesn't,' he said, 'America is in trouble.'"