WPTV reports from Florida. "The 'For Rent' sign is hanging in more and more places these days, as homeowners open their doors to strangers to help close their budget gaps. 'Everything's here. Ready to move in and very comfortable,' said homeowner Gary Friedman. He's now turning his guest room into a rental. Friedman is offering everything, right down to linen sheets. 'Were ready to have somebody move in here and go to sleep immediately,' said Friedman jokingly. 'Be comfortable.'"

"He and his partner of 27 years are looking to boost they're monthly income by $650. They've been watching as their Lake Worth home struggles to sell, at a time when money is tight."

"'I think within hours of us purchasing this house, everybody stopped buying houses,' said Friedman. 'Everybody said 'Thats it.'"

The Associated Press. "New figures out Tuesday showed home prices fell by a record 15.8 percent in May from a year ago. In fact, nine cities posted record declines, including Miami near where Sharon McKenney, 55, and her husband are trying to sell their four-bedroom, waterfront home."

"They were asking $550,000 for their home in Palmetto Bay, a bargain, McKenney thought, compared to neighboring properties listed around $625,000. But there have been no offers, so they cut the price to $545,000."

"'I'm frustrated, however I still feel like it's priced very well, and I don't see myself lowering it,' McKenney said. 'The thing of it is, there's so many (homes) on the market, people keep thinking, if they keep looking they'll find something better, something cheaper.'"

The News Press. "The housing bill signed by President Bush on Wednesday won't help Southwest Florida homeowners hit hardest by the economy. 'This is one of those feel-good government intervention programs with only a marginal real impact,' said said Charles Costello, a mortgage broker in Fort Myers."

"The new loans do have strings, including required mortgage insurance and stipulations against taking home equity loans."

"'For five years you're allowed no home equity loans, and which average family doesn't need a home equity loan for liquidity?' said Fort Myers-based bankruptcy attorney Charles Phoenix. Regulations will also have to deal with the issue of existing home equity lines, he said."

"In addition, any homeowner in the program who sells his home within five years must share any profit with the FHA based on a sliding scale. 'What's the point of owning your own home when you can't benefit from the profit? You're probably better off renting,' Phoenix said."

"Fort Myers resident John Lee is baffled his city property taxes will not drop as much as he had expected. 'It doesn't seem like that much of a decrease considering the fact that our property values have declined a lot more than that,' said Lee."

"The average resident will end up paying the city about the same as last year. 'My feeling is they're going to get you one way or the other,' said Lee, who bought his house in 2005."

The Naples News. "David Farmer, assistant chair of ULI Southwest Florida and principal of Keystone Development Advisors, LLC, said a significant amount of the sales he has seen in recent months are investors buying several properties at once."

"Farmer emphasized just how low prices have dropped. A three-bedroom house in Golden Gate Estates, with two bathrooms and a two-car garage, recently sold for $74,000, he said."

"'You could not even begin to build that house for three times that, but yet it sold,' he said. 'That's going to continue on.'"

The St Petersburg Times. "Deeply in hock to banks in the housing downturn, Tampa's Smith Family Homes has gone out of business, ending a 10-year run for a family partnership that raised rooftops in some of the region's premier communities."

"Smith Family was stuck holding lots and finished homes worth less on the market than was owed to the bank, said Scott Stichter, the company's bankruptcy lawyer. A last-minute deal with an investor to infuse more cash into the business fizzled."

"Some recent home buyers are receiving certified letters from contractors unpaid by Smith. They include Dominic DeQuarto, who closed on a Smith home on April 29 in Pasco County's Grey Hawk neighborhood. Work interruptions plagued the project, DeQuarto said, and now he's getting lien notices from various carpet installers, concrete guys and stucco contractors."

"'This was the most stressful process for building a home ever,' DeQuarto said."

"In its quest for financial health, the Tampa Bay area home building industry is grappling with a giant scab on the landscape: 31,900 vacant home sites waiting for buyers."

"New-home closings in the region fell 42.6 percent this spring vs. the same time last year. But that's nothing compared to the glut of vacant lots, enough home sites to last builders 51/2 years at current sales rates."

"Hillsborough County's supply is 49.6 months, or more than four years. Pasco and Pinellas counties have nearly five-year supplies. And Hernando County's lot supply is 136 months, or 11 years."

"It gets worse: Citrus County has a 508-month supply. At current sales, it would take 42 years to burn off all its finished home sites. Citrus' new-home market has fallen off a cliff, with only 95 homes starts in the past year amid a surplus of 4,018 developed home sites."

"In a glimmer of good news on the lot front, developers have largely ceased paving former cow pastures, orange groves and forests. 'Hillsborough finally stopped adding lots this quarter,' said Tony Polito, who compiled the new-home report. 'The other counties stopped adding lots months before that.'"

"Up and down State Road 54, from Trinity to Wesley Chapel, the economic trend becomes evident: For lease. For sale. For lease. For sale. Those signs are not for houses. They are for office space."

"'There's a lot of office space out there,' said Matt Shaw of Prudential Commercial Real Estate. 'It's a tough time to be a landlord.'"

"Investors with plenty of money had seen the housing boom and figured they could turn a profit with professional office buildings to support the residential growth. 'We're in a position we're in now because money was so easy to get,' said Johnny Wild, owner of Wild Realty & Investment. 'At a time, it was a frenzy.'"

"But millions more square feet of office space are in the project pipeline. And even some real estate agents, who tend to emphasize the upside of building trends, say they are surprised by how much office space continues to come on line."

"'I can't believe they're still building,' Shaw said."

From TC Palm. "Residential builders in the largest and most populous county of the Treasure Coast slowed the pace of new home construction to match the downturn of demand. Metrostudy found that construction began on only 60 single-family homes in St. Lucie County, down from 95 in the first quarter."

"A total of 286 units were under construction at the end of the quarter, the lowest number since the second quarter of 2001. There were 918 finished vacant units in the county at the end of the second quarter versus the end of the first quarter."

"Jack McCabe, CEO of McCabe Research and Consulting, said builders in St. Lucie County have cut back because of exorbitant levels of inventory. 'It makes no sense for them to build on a speculative basis,' McCabe said. 'Building like they did in the boom years is a recipe for disaster.'"

"'The low-end and the high-end homes are doing OK. It's the middle-priced homes that are really getting murdered,' said Don Santos, past president of the Treasure Coast Builders. 'The problem now is finding creditworthy buyers willing to buy new construction.'"

"The Indian River Realtors Association reported 137 existing single-family homes sold in June, down from 154 in June 2007. At the same time, the median sales price of those homes was $160,000 in June, down from $255,000 in June 2007. The median sales price for condominiums fell from $287,500 to $152,000 year to year."

The Orlando Sentinel. "An Orlando real estate agent arrested this week has been charged with mortgage fraud and grand theft. Orange County Sheriff's detectives said Garry S. Martin, 35, forged signatures on various documents and wired home-sale proceeds to bank accounts that he controlled. Investigators said the fraudulent sales in 2006 involved one sale that netted $172,804 and another one that totaled $253,484."

"Martin, a licensed real estate broker, was taken into custody at his office on Monday and booked into the Orange County Jail."

The News Journal. "More than two dozen potential condominium owners have filed lawsuits in circuit court against one of the area's newest developments -- Halifax Landing on South Ridgewood Avenue in South Daytona -- and more may be coming."

"The 26 complaints, filed since mid-May, allege the developer significantly changed the project between the time units were reserved and contracts signed in 2005 and 2006, and when units were recently finished and buyers asked to close. Buyers want out of the contracts and deposits refunded. The first two units were closed earlier this month for $420,532 and $547,000."

"'The lawsuits are not unique to Halifax Landing. It's happening all over the state since the market fell,' said Scott Cichon, representing Halifax Landing. 'The investors, flippers and speculators bought several years ago to make a profit reselling them. Now, they want to shift that risk back onto the developers. But they signed contracts and are not willing to take their lumps like everyone else.'"

"The contracts are void, however, because the changes are 'material' and 'adversely impact' the buyers, two legal standards required to break a condo purchase contract, said attorney Ben Zaeri, representing 10 clients suing Halifax Marina."

"'When you buy a Mercedes, you don't want an Escort,' Zaeri said. 'It's no surprise the real estate market has tanked, but that is not the motivating factor. My clients, for the most part, wanted to move in and get use of the property.'"

The Dunfermline Press. "Steven Pagdin (26) and his wife Alana (27) put their semi-detached house on the market over a month ago but have not had any viewers for the property, which is available for offers over £115,000."

"Steven has even thrown his car into the deal - a three-year-old Mazda6 - in an attempt to sell the house by September, when he is due to start his new job in Panama City, Florida."

"A designer in the oil and gas industry who currently works for Oceaneering Multiflex in Rosyth, Steven has secured a job with a sister company in America. 'But,' he said, 'unless I sell my house, we can't go. We have already agreed to go over to Florida to live. We have got our visas and everything else. It's just a case of hoping the move isn't going to be scuppered because we can't sell the house.'"

"Last week, the Press reported on the major impact that the credit crunch and housing market slump are now having on home construction and sales in West Fife, with job losses in the building trade already reported."

"Steven, of Birrell Drive, wondered, 'Is the credit crunch affecting the way people are thinking? Are they thinking that the housing prices are going to crash? I don't know. It's usually quite a popular estate but for some reason the houses round here just aren't selling.'"

"'I suppose you would have to eventually lower the price but there's got to be a cut-off. If you're having to knock off too much it might not be worth going over (to America) in the first place,' he said."

"The couple, who were due their second child on Tuesday, bought the house five years ago when the market was more buoyant and houses were snapped up within a matter of days. Steven explained, 'We went to view the house on the Friday night, put an offer in on the Monday and the house was sold on the Tuesday.'"

"'Now it seems to be that people are wary of buying a house in case the value comes down the next month and they lose £10,000 on the house they've just bought,' Steve said."

"Alana added, 'We're a bit stressed out about it. They want us over in America as soon as possible.'"