The Orange County Register reports from California. "The market for Orange County's existing housing isn't slowing down. Well, unless your selling a home for more than $2 million. ReportsOnHousing publishes an intriguing benchmark of the local market's selling speed, a 'market time' barometer that tracks the number of new escrows in the past 30 days vs. the supply of homes for sale. Countywide, market time was 78 days on Sept. 8 vs. 80 days a year earlier (and 98 days two years ago.) Once homes get pricier, the speed picture changes significantly: $2 million to $4 million: 342 days vs. 229 days a year ago – or 112 extra days! Above $4 million: 507 days vs. 347 days a year ago – or 160 extra days!"

"The current luxury trend has been evolving with a dramatic slowdown in the higher price ranges, says ReportsOnHousing's Steve Thomas. 'The luxury end above $2 million has been profoundly slower with a lot more inventory and considerably less demand.'"

The Press Democrat. "Sonoma County’s housing market experienced its slowest summer in five years, with sales falling 9 percent from a year earlier. From June through August, buyers purchased 1,384 single-family homes in the county, including 461 last month, according to The Press Democrat’s monthly housing report, compiled by Pacific Union International senior vice president Rick Laws."

"'This summer was very busy until we hit the Fourth of July and then it seemed to change a little bit,' said Brian Connell, managing broker at the Coldwell Banker office on Mission Boulevard in Santa Rosa. Since then, he said, 'our buyer activity has just become a little less frantic than it was before.'"

"The median sales price in August rose to $590,000. That amounts to a 9 percent increase from a year earlier. The sales slowdown is the latest chapter in a tumultuous decade for a housing market where home prices soared, crashed and rebounded. The median price hit a record high of $619,000 in August 2005, then sank to a low of $305,000 in February 2009. Starting in 2012, median prices have risen each year by an annual rate of 8 percent or more."

"Grace Lucero, director of investments for Vanguard Properties in Healdsburg, said it wasn’t that long ago that buyers who thought a home was overpriced would simply walk away without making an offer, partly because they thought someone else would still pay the price or even bid higher. But recently Lucero saw a change when she listed a three-bedroom, two-bath home in Cloverdale for $379,000, under its appraised estimate of $385,000. No buyer offered to pay full price."

"'I got three offers under asking price,' she said, each one in the $350,000’s. For her, such a change in strategy by buyers 'is a telltale sign of a little shift in the market.'"