A report from the Tennessean. "Some things are more predictable than others. The topic and timing of this week’s column is one of those. For the last several years, David and I have attended a late summer conference in steamy Austin, Texas. Keller Williams Realty International’s (KWRI) Mega Agent Camp is routinely packed full of insights. One of the most valued presentations is always the market update presented by KWRI chairman and co-founder Gary Keller. As always, Keller’s presentations take an historical look at where we have been and then challenge us to draw reasonable assumptions about the future. The starting point was a broad-based question posed to all in attendance: Where are we in the housing cycle?"

"Nationally, the current market is at its peak or beginning a downturn. The market traditionally works its way through the cycle every seven years, so this should come as no surprise. The indicators of a downturn have already begun to surface in several markets across the U.S.; fortunately Middle Tennessee is lagging behind. Increasing days on the market, flat or increasing inventory, coupled with a slowdown in sales units and drop in average price are indicators that a downturn is imminent."

Bloomberg on California. "Stacey Smith and her husband looked at about three dozen homes in the San Francisco Bay area and lost a bidding war before finally purchasing a four-bedroom house in June for $1.5 million -- 40 percent more than the asking price. Their search wasn’t in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. It was just across the bay in Oakland, which has supplanted its pricier and better-known neighbors to become the region’s most heated real estate market."

"'Something we had to wrap our head around really quickly was the fact that we were automatically going to bid at least 30 percent over asking,' said Smith, a 50-year-old strategy consultant who moved from San Francisco in search of more space for her family’s three kids. 'It’s the new normal.'"

"The median home price in Oakland has soared 178 percent since 2011, almost double the gain in San Francisco, Paragon Real Estate Group data show. 'Most markets would be pleased if they averaged asking price, or 1 or 2 percent over asking price,' said Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at Paragon. 'To see things averaging 9 to 17 percent over asking price is virtually unheard of. It’s the highest I’ve ever seen.'"

From Community Impact on Texas. "Previously the top single-family housing market in the U.S., the Greater Houston area fell behind the Dallas-Fort Worth market early this year, according to Metrostudy. The Houston market had 27,263 new homes under construction during the first quarter of this year—down 3,089 from the same time period in 2015. Similarly, the Conroe, Montgomery and Willis area saw a decline in new home construction during the second quarter of this year."

"'We built a lot of new communities with the goal of capturing some of the people that would be relocating to work at the new ExxonMobil campus, but that has not materialized in the volume that we thought it would,' said Metrostudy-Houston Regional Director Lawrence Dean. 'While the new home market is still going strong, we probably built too many new subdivisions and too many lots at the same time. It will take a little bit longer to build and sell the homes than we thought.'"

"'It has been a pretty significant shift in the market,' Gracepoint Homes President Tom Cox said. 'The buyers that are above $450,000 are very discretionary buyers, and they are in a significant holding pattern right now.'"

"Additionally, homeowners who are looking to sell their homes are having a difficult time in the current market because homebuilders offer incentives to sell their inventory, such as paying bonuses to real estate agents and covering closing costs for homebuyers, said The Woodlands Realty Realtor Marisol Luyckx. 'Homebuilders give a significant amount of incentives to real estate agents as well as buyers, so it is difficult to compete when you have a home for resale,' Luyckx said. 'That is when you know that [builders] are desperate to get rid of their inventory. If [homes] were selling quickly, they wouldn’t offer those things.'"