The Housing Bubble

CNN Money reports from California. “The subprime mortgage meltdown has shaken the entire U.S. economy. But nowhere might the impact be as stark as Irvine, California. A year ago at this time, Irvine was home to 18 subprime lenders, including many of the leaders in the field, such as New Century Financial and Option One. Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, 4,100 good-paying white collar jobs were gone.”

“‘Honestly, some people are still sitting here with their jaws dropping, saying ‘How did it happen?’ It was just so fast,’ said Jacquie Ellis, CEO of the Irvine Chamber of Commerce. ‘Everybody was riding high, it was like fat city. All of a sudden you look around and think, ‘Joe across the street lost his job,’ or ‘Oh my gosh, Sally next door lost their job.’”

“By the end of the year, almost 9,000 subprime jobs were gone from Orange County. Many of these people have been unable to find new jobs.”

“When she was laid off in February, Patricia Guerrero was making $70,000 a year. Weeks later, with bills piling up and in need of food for her family, this middle-class mother did something she never thought she would do: She went to a food bank.”

“‘It brought tears to my eyes, and I sat there and I cried. I was like, ‘This is really where I’m at?’ she told CNN. ‘I go ‘no way;’ [but] this is true. This is reality. This is the stuff you see on TV.’”

“A former loan processor, Guerrero…so far has been able keep her house. She has had to take extreme measures to pay for her interest-only mortgage of $2,500 a month. In fact, her mother moved in with her to help pay the bills.”

“Guerrero is estranged from her husband and raising her two young children. She’s already burned through her savings to help make ends meet, and is drawing unemployment checks. Guerrero even applied for food stamps, but was denied.”

“In the last 12 to 18 months, said Daryl Brock, the executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank in California’s San Bernardino and Riverside counties, the agencies he supplies have begun seeing more middle-class families coming to their doors.”

“‘Our agencies have said there is an increasing number of people coming to them for help,’ Brock told CNN by phone. ‘Their impression was that these were not people they normally would have seen before. They seemed to be better dressed. They seemed to have better cars and yet they seemed to be in crisis mode.’”

“He added, ‘The only thing they can do is give us anecdotal evidence that they think it’s because of the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and the housing crisis.’”

The Bakersfield Californian. “Art, business, friendship and faith are fusing together Saturday to kindle the dreams of local painter Tim Kirkindoll and his buddy, self-defined Bakersfield-Los Angeles ‘bi-city’ real estate agent Shay Brandon Burke.”

“‘It was a fluke, a brainstorm, a daydream I had,’ said the multitalented Burke. ‘Why not combine an art show with an open house?’”

“‘As you know, there are lots of properties out there right now and prices continue to drop,’ said Burke, who works for Watson-Touchstone Real Estate. ‘So to sell a home you have to be as creative as you can to get a home seen and sold.’”

“‘There was a time, five years ago, when all agents did was put a house on the market and put it on the MLS and wait for the offers to come in,’ Burke said. ‘I’d get a buyer and they’d look at a home that was listed the day before, make an offer that day and there were already offers on it.’”

“But that is no longer the case. ‘What are you going to do to make my house stand out?’ is the question Burke said desperate sellers want to have answered up-front nowadays.”

“He said the two-story house, which has four bedrooms, 21⁄2 bathrooms, an office, a swimming pool, a play area for children and sits on a quiet cul de sac, would have sold for about $800,000 and possibly up to $1 million just two years ago. Now the going price for such a home is in the $500,000 to $600,000 range, Burke said.”

“Even though it is not a bank-owned home itself, foreclosures of other homes in the neighborhood have affected its price, he said.”

The Recordnet. “Home starts in California fell again in February because of ongoing problems in the housing and credit markets, the California Building Industry Association reported Wednesday.”

“According to housing permit data supplied by the Construction Industry Research Board, total housing starts in California dropped to 2,540 units in February, based on building permits issued. That was nearly a 60 percent decline from 6,326 permits the previous February, and it’s down 5 percent from 2,675 in January.”

“Home starts in San Joaquin County slowed to 46, the lowest monthly level in years, based on building permits pulled in February. That was an 82 percent drop from 249 in February 2007.”

“Kevin Kimball, senior VP of KB Home’s Central Valley region, said it’s tougher for home buyers to get loans today, but that’s because of tighter lending standards, not a lack of cash to lend during the current credit crunch.”

“‘The buyer is going to have to do a lot more work to get a loan than they would have 18 months ago,’ Kimball said. ‘The money is there if they’re willing to work for it.’”

The Contra Costa Times. “New-home starts plunged in the East Bay during February, and the setback in this region was far worse than the decline in California, researchers and home builders reported Wednesday.”

“Measured by building permits, housing starts for single-family homes, condominiums and apartments fell 60 percent in the East Bay in February, compared with the same month the year before.”

“Permit activity plummeted 83 percent in San Joaquin County and 60 percent in Solano County.”

“Single-family home permits weaker fell by 63 percent in the East Bay and Solano County, by 82 percent in San Joaquin County and by 60 percent in California.”

The Times Herald. “The worst may be over for the Vallejo area real estate market, local experts said Tuesday. Locally…experts say sales seem to be picking up, though prices are still not increasing.”

“That the local situation differs from what’s going on statewide doesn’t surprise Solano Association of Realtors president Lori Collins.”

“‘Each area really represents sort of a microcosm, and different areas behave differently,’ Collins said. ‘The market is actually booming in San Jose and San Francisco, and it’s picking up here, but it’s not crazy here, yet.’”

“The downward trajectory of median home prices in the area has slowed, said Collins and Benicia mortgage broker and City Councilman Alan Schwartzman.”

“‘Sales in the Bay Area have been increasing for the past four months,’ Schwartzman said. ‘We’re seeing multiple offers going on, mostly in the lower-range, bank-owned properties. And that’s good. It seems like things are getting better. Or maybe we should say things are bottoming out.’”

“It’s holding steady at $340,000 and a typical home is staying on the market about 128 days, Collins said. Half the homes for sale in the area, however, have had price reductions, she added. Collins said she attributes the change to the relatively affordable price of existing homes, especially in Vallejo.”

“‘I think prices are finally getting down to a place where they make more sense,’ she said. ‘We’re seeing more investors in Vallejo. They’re finding they can buy a home and still make a profit on rent.’”

From My 58.com. “Homes are selling again in Northern California, but it’s taking slashed prices and curbside auction sales to do it. A group of homes went on the auction block Tuesday morning in Southport.”

“A 4,000-square foot luxury home that once appraised at $575,000 sold for $374,000. One buyer purchased a condominium priced at $90,000 for $55,000. He said it was for investment purposes and to rent it out.”

The Record Bee. “The real estate story is a little different in Lake County. Real Estate agents say the buyer profile hasn’t changed much throughout the real-estate rollercoaster ride.”

“During the past seven years, a high rate of home sales at high prices was followed by a leveling out in sales that then dramatically slowed along with a drop in prices.”

“Spurred by the bleak housing market, the overall economy is in recession, with unemployment in the county at 9.6 percent last month, up from 9.4 percent a year ago. Area real estate agents and lenders say that many working and middle-class families, the back-bone of the county’s working economy are moving out and less are moving in to the area.”

“‘The funny thing is prices continued to rise, then in 2007 things leveled out. Now things have dramatically slowed and prices are dramatically dropping and the numbers of transactions are dropping,’ said broker Byron Whipple. ‘Overall the economy is affecting everyone. The excess income isn’t there right now. That vacation home the buyer could have afforded a few years ago they can’t afford now.’”

“Former real estate and lending agent Monna Hull got out of the business after eight years. Because of high debt and low appraisals, it was ‘just horrible for me to have to say no to people I’d had a business relationship with for so long,’ Hull said of trying to help her former clients re-finance homes.”

“‘I was just struggling and couldn’t make it, so I quit,’ Hull said. ‘I’m working at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena it was just financially the best thing for me to do. It’s a lot less stress,’ she added.”

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. Associated Press, “Lennar Corp., one of the nation’s largest homebuilders, said Thursday it swung to a loss in the first quarter as it absorbed charges to write down asset values and costs, while new home sales and prices sank. Sales fell 62 percent to $1.06 billion from $2.79 billion in the year-ago period. The average selling price fell 8 percent.”

“Deliveries of new homes were down 60 percent to 3,596 homes. New home orders were down 57 percent to 3,045, with a cancellation rate of 26 percent.”

“For Lennar, the average sales price of homes delivered dropped to $278,000, down from $303,000 in the year-ago period, partly due to higher sales incentives offered to homebuyers. The company averaged $48,000 in incentives per home delivered in the first quarter, compared to $45,500 per home delivered in the first quarter of 2007.”

“‘Home inventories have been expanding due to the high number of foreclosures, negotiated ’short sales,’ and stretched homeowners looking to sell homes they can no longer afford’ said CEO Stuart Miller. ‘While sales are occurring and clearing prices are being reached, the pace of overall housing inventory growth is exceeding absorption at the current time.’”

“The news comes a day after the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes fell in February for the fourth straight month, pushing activity down to a 13-year low.”

The LA Times. “Driven by a ‘brazen obsession’ with generating sub-prime mortgages, Irvine’s New Century Financial Corp. engaged in improper accounting that overstated its profit and allowed top executives to reap millions of dollars in inflated or undeserved bonuses, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court examiner said in a report released Wednesday.”

“Michael J. Missal’s report said senior managers ‘turned a blind eye’ to the ‘ticking time bomb’ created by the high-risk lending in 2005 and 2006. At the same time, Missal said, New Century’s auditor, KPMG, contributed to the problems by failing to exercise due care in reviewing its books, leading to material misstatements in New Century’s financial reports.”

“Certain…bonus payments to executives may be recovered ‘under unjust enrichment and bankruptcy law theories,’ he said.”

The New York Times. “The 580-page report documents how New Century lowered its reserves for loans that investors were forcing it to buy back even as such repurchases were surging. Had it not changed its accounting, the company would have reported a loss rather a profit in the second half of 2006.”

“The company first acknowledged that its accounting was wrong in February 2007 and sought bankruptcy protection less than two months later as its lenders stopped doing business with it. New Century was the first large mortgage company to fail and its quick demise marked the beginning of the end for the heady era of cheap money that helped home prices soar.”

“The report described New Century, once a Wall Street darling, as a company bent on making loans, layering ‘the risk of loan products upon the risks of loose underwriting standards.’”

“Some 70 percent of the loans originated by New Century featured low initial ‘teaser’ interest rates designed to increase after a period of time. The report said 40 percent of the company’s loans were so-called stated-income loans that don’t require borrowers to verify their income.”

From Bloomberg. “FGIC Corp.,the bond insurer owned by Blackstone Group LP and PMI Group Inc., said it’s walking away from an agreement to provide $1.9 billion in guarantees on mortgage-linked securities because Credit Agricole SA and IKB Deutsche Industriebank didn’t live up to their side of the deal.”

“FGIC ‘has no further obligation’ because certain responsibilities weren’t met and IKB, the German bank that’s had to be bailed out four times since July, misrepresented its condition, the insurer said in a statement today.”

“‘These guys should have a new motto: Heads we win, tails we rescind,’ said Julian Mann, the VP for fixed income at First Pacific Advisors LLC, which manages $3.4 billion of bonds.”

The Union Leader. “Joseph Vignolo says he had no trouble making ends meet before he was laid off about five years ago. Last fall, he says, his savings ran out and he and his family couldn’t keep up with the mortgage payments home. After months of delinquency, the home was foreclosed on and put on the auction block.”

“Yesterday, Vignolo protested as a brief auction was held at the property. During the brief event, the home was sold back to the bank, according to an auctioneer from Quincy, Mass. The property has an assessed value of $319,900, according to property records.”

“Vignolo’s wife and 16-year-old daughter have already moved out, but Vignolo remained at the property after the auction. He said he’ll stay put until he’s forced out, but he won’t resort to violence.”

“‘Instead of ‘the British are coming, the British are coming,’ it’s ‘the bankers are coming, the bankers are coming,’ he said, standing in his driveway before the late-morning auction.”

“No one attempted to remove Vignolo from the property yesterday morning. He started an argument with the auctioneer and accused one man who came of being a real-estate flipper.”

“His actions may be unique, but Vignolo’s situation is familiar to many throughout the country. New Hampshire saw a 96 percent increase in foreclosures last year, and the trend is expected to grow this year.”

“Vignolo said he could’ve made a deal and walked away with money, but he decided to make a statement instead. He said he shouldn’t be forced to leave the home where his family has lived for years. ‘It’s not about the money. It’s not about the money at all,’ he said. ‘It’s about the principle of the thing.’”

The Wall Street Journal. “This week John McCain and Hillary Clinton both used the housing-market upheaval to offer a window on what their Presidencies would look like. The contrast in philosophy and program is something voters should pay attention to.”

“Mr. McCain’s approach is his description of how we got into this mess. He doesn’t merely blame Wall Street or ‘predatory’ lenders, though he does fault both along the way. Instead, he offers a largely accurate description of how the housing and credit bubbles arose, driven by lax lending standards fed by a belief that housing prices could only go up. Then add some financial innovation that is now being stress-tested — and found wanting.”

“The major flaw in this presentation is that it leaves out the Federal Reserve, whose far too easy monetary policy helped to create the subsidy for mortgage and other debt in the first place. But the virtue of Mr. McCain’s overall diagnosis is that it doesn’t treat all borrowers as victims, and instead assumes that everyone shares some responsibility for getting wrapped up in the housing mania.”

“Refreshingly, too, the Arizona Senator framed his policy response around personal accountability for bad choices. He thus rejected one favorite Bush White House-Democratic idea of the moment, which is to lower or drop the downpayment requirement for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration.”

“As Mr. McCain pointed out, such no-downpayment loans were part of the mania problem. One reason the FHA has fewer subprime problems than private lenders is that its borrowers had skin in the game.”

“What he does seem to understand…is that most Americans are responsible borrowers who don’t want to underwrite the losses of those who aren’t. In that, he is politically smarter than Senators Clinton and Obama.”

“McCain defended his housing plan today. ‘We may have to do more, but to raise taxes as Senator Obama wants to do or some kind of massive bailout, that is a needless expenditure’ of taxpayer dollars, McCain said.”

“Obama today reiterated his call for reworking existing subprime loans into affordable, long-term fixed loans and creating a foreclosure prevention fund to help keep Americans in their homes. He has pledged that as president, he would seek a mortgage-tax credit for homeowners and crack down on mortgage fraud and predatory lenders.”

“Obama mocked John McCain on Wednesday for urging government restraint in responding to the mortgage crisis, saying the Republican would ‘just sit back and watch’ as millions of Americans lost their homes.”

“‘We’ve been down this road before, (he said). It’s the idea that government has no role at all in solving the challenges facing working families — that all we can do is hand out tax breaks for the wealthiest few and let the chips fall where they may.’”

The Denver Post. “Developers of downtown condominium projects are raising their prices, even as much of the metro area is in the midst of a housing slump. Great Gulf Group will raise prices soon for the 200 residences in its 51-story tower by up to 5 percent.”

“‘It’s typical of any project to raise pricing as units sell,’ said Dee Chirafisi of Kentwood City Properties. ‘It really reinforces the value for the early investors who got in months ago. They have some instant equity, and they know the pricing is heading in that direction rather than the developer doing discounts.’”

“Many potential buyers have not reserved or put condos under contract because, given the broader housing market, they’re waiting for prices to drop.”

“‘I think the public was anticipating that would happen because of everything they hear about the market,’ she said. ‘But raising the prices is the way to get projects sold. You’ve got to give people deadlines.’”

“Among the other reasons for price increases on new projects are unexpected costs for building the project, leaving the developer no choice but to raise prices. Another is when the market allows it — and that seems to be the case with downtown condos.”

“‘If the market is telling you there is more than enough demand for the supply you are providing, that gives you the opportunity to raise prices,’ said Byron Koste, director of the real-estate center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.”

“Koste said downtown is distinct from the rest of the metro market, where prices and sales have been dropping for months. ‘It’s a good place to consider investing,’ he said. ‘They’re not making more downtown.’”

From Realty Check. “A week ago last Monday, when several employees of Bear Stearns were leaving the building with cartons and plants, Ray Schmitz, an associate broker at Coldwell Banker Previews International in New York City, was standing outside the building, handing out his business card.”

“Schmitz says he’s waiting for the fallout, not just at Bear, but up and down Wall Street and beyond. The housing bubble that inflated hedge fund coffers is now doing just the opposite on the way down, and that threatens the up-‘til-now unshakeable Manhattan real estate market.”

“‘Time on the market has increased,’ admits Schmitz, ‘and there’s been nervousness.’”

From Reuters. “Less than 48 hours after news broke that Bear Stearns would be bought for a fire-sale price, the wives of two of the firm’s senior investment bankers called their high-end interior designer to cancel their contracts.”

“‘We only had about $50,000 worth of final touches,’ to go, ‘and the wife called me last week and said stop,’ said an interior designer, Darren Henault, whose work has been featured in magazines like Vanity Fair and Elle Decor.”

“‘She said that they’re not poor, and are never going to be poor,’ Henault said, ‘but their capacity for discretionary income for things like window valances just went out the window.’”

“The wife of one of the Bear Stearns banker had planned to spend about $300,000 on the couple’s apartment in the next three months, Henault said.”

“Tom Martignetti, who owns the brasserie Bar Martignetti and a nightclub in New York, said sales of bottles of Champagne and vodka had tumbled about 25 percent since last year. To secure a table at his clubs, customers must buy three or four bottles at $300 to $550 each. The financial sector accounts for about 90 percent of these sales, which make up the bulk of a nightclub’s revenue, Martignetti said.”

“It is now easier to get a table at a top restaurant at the last minute midweek, due to the decline in reservations from the financial industry.”

“‘The nightlife and restaurant industry is based on celebrating,’ Martignetti said. ‘And a lot of my customer base has lost their jobs or are worried about losing their jobs - so nobody is celebrating.’”

“Businesses around Bear Stearns’s New York headquarters, including a nearby Audi car showroom, said fewer bankers were browsing on their lunch hours.”

“Daniel Crowley, a sales associate at Charles Tyrwhitt in the Bear Stearns building, said foot traffic past the high-end suit retailer had diminished, and traffic is a ‘huge’ component of sales since an attractive window display can lure customers.”

“Kenneth Kleinart of Floral Impressions in New York said he had not yet seen any slowdown in flower orders. ‘A few people have ordered flowers’ for Bear offices ‘just to cheer them up,’ he said. ‘They say it’s like a morgue over there.’”

“Home sales slumped this year in Greenwich, Connecticut, as North America’s hedge-fund capital experiences the effects of the credit crisis that has slashed Wall Street payrolls and profits.”

“January and February home sales fell 29 percent to 75 houses in the town that’s home to more than 100 hedge funds, property broker Prudential Connecticut Realty said yesterday.”

“There were 106 sales in the year-earlier period for the town that’s an hour’s drive from Manhattan. The total value of properties sold dropped 18 percent to $215.1 million, according to the report.”

“Financial sector jobs radiating from Manhattan are the primary driver of Greenwich real estate, according to brokers. Located about 35 miles northeast of Manhattan, the town of some 61,000 people has attracted financiers including…former Citigroup Chairman Sanford Weill.”

“Sales of houses for less than $2 million fell 26 percent to 42 single-family homes and sales of residences for more than $2 million declined 33 percent to 33, according to Prudential.”

“Former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince put his five-bedroom Tudor-style home up for sale there for $6.15 million in January, three months after stepping down as head of what was then the largest U.S. bank.”

“‘There is just no urgency, either for buyers or sellers,’ said John W.M. Cooke, a Prudential broker who tracks the data. ‘It’s sort of a standoff here really, except if you are buying $5 million houses.’”

The Orlando Sentinel reports from Florida. “She misses her grandchildren, who live in Winter Park, but Ann Ortstadt had to move away. She couldn’t afford Central Florida. The grandmother of two now lives in Atlanta, which ranked second in population growth last year, according to today’s U.S. census report. ‘Although prices in Central Florida have come down a lot, it is still very expensive compared to the rest of the country, especially when you add in taxes and the cost of insurance,’ said Dan O’Hara, a Maitland real-estate agent and mortgage broker with 24 years of experience.”

“O’Hara said many residents moving out of Florida are finding it hard to sell their homes, which have depreciated greatly. Often, these residents are forced to rent in the city they move to, putting them in limbo, he said.”

“Ortstadt decided to move to Orlando in 2004 when her first grandchild was born in Winter Park. She sold her Atlanta home and bought a house with a pool in Winter Springs. ‘I enjoyed Florida living,’ she said.”

“But her annual taxes and insurance totaled more than $6,000 a year, she said. ‘Finally I said, ‘Oh, this is not going to work,’ Ortstadt said. ‘I had to choose between being close to them or not worrying about how I’m going to pay my bills. It was really tough. I’m the kind of grandmother who likes to put my arms around my grandkids.’”

From NBC 6.net. “The South Florida area leads the nation in the drop of home sale prices. A home with professional appliances and a slate floor that was designed by the owner, who is in restaurant management, barely attracts one buyer visit on a weekly basis. There are 350 other homes for sale in the Grove.”

“‘Maybe two years ago it would’ve been around $660,000, $620,000, $650,000,’ Realtor Michael Mahar said. ‘Now I’ve dropped the price to $499,000.’”

“‘It’s an excellent deal and in Coconut Grove for under $500,000,’ Mahar said. ‘This is as good as it gets.’”

“Mahar said it’s been a tough two years. ‘Just watching it drop and drop,’ he said. ‘And now I have to sell it.’”

From Local 10.com. “The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Schiller index for January 2008 showed sharp drops with prices down 11.4 percent nationwide. Miami and Las Vegas tied as the worst performing cities in the nation with prices falling 19.3 percent.”

“In Miami, homeowner Zoe Lemus recently dropped his asking price by $100,000 in the hopes of attracting a buyer. ‘People like it, they want to buy it, they just don’t have the money,’ said Lemus.”

“‘We’ve got another 20 to 25 percent to go,’ Deerfield Beach Jack McCabe real estate analyst told Local 10’s Mark Joyella. McCabe said South Florida’s home prices rose so dramatically at the height of the housing bubble that it will take longer for prices to stabilize.”

“‘You’ve got a situation where prices have to come down so people can afford homes, and that’s where we’re at. We’re going through this correction cycle. It’s a very healthy thing,’ said McCabe.”

From Bloomberg. “Miami-area homeowner Richard Welch is spending $70 less on groceries a week after his house lost $145,000 in value. Rita Roland cut off 11 inches of hair to save on salon trips, and Victor Parris stopped drinking his favorite brands of dark ale.”

“The residents of Melrose Cove, a Miramar, Florida, subdivision 23 miles north of Miami, are cutting back after regional house prices tied with Las Vegas in dropping more than any other U.S. metropolitan area in January.”

“‘Absolutely, I feel less wealthy than I did in 2006,’ said Welch. He said he and his wife, Barbara, are slashing spending by 30 percent, including canceling their cable television.”

“Welch said he bought his house for $201,000 in 2001, and watched its value climb to $595,000 by early 2007, then drop to $450,000. He took out a home equity line of credit in 2006 to refinance a second mortgage with a variable rate.”

“Eight of Melrose Cove’s 153 single-family homes are in foreclosure, Welch said. Fifteen percent of the other households are delinquent on quarterly homeowners’ dues, he added.”

“Roland left Los Angeles and moved to Melrose Cove in 2004, lured by the lower costs and slower way of life. She bought a three-bedroom house, her first, for about $350,000 and intended to sell for a higher price after five years, she said. Her house hasn’t appreciated since January 2007, when it was worth about $425,000.”

“‘I looked at my house as a bank account that was going to accrue interest on a daily, monthly, annual basis,’ she said. ‘I’m looking at not gaining money on this stock that I call a house, and may actually lose money.’”

“Martha Rodriguez said her husband’s sister bought the house next door for $330,000 with no down payment in 2006. Her sister-in-law, a manicurist from New York, moved out of Melrose Cove in August after her monthly house payments jumped to $3,000 from $1,900 and the property fell into foreclosure, Rodriguez said.”

“Next door to Parris is a home that’s been in foreclosure since last year. Parris stopped buying Guinness and Royal Extra beers for himself or a round for friends, which used to cost $50 to $60 every Friday night. He’s also giving up weekly dinners to save more of his $69,000 salary, Parris said.”

“Annette Aquino put her three-bedroom home up for sale after a divorce in October 2007. She’s dropped the price from $400,000 to $370,000, and is dismayed to be getting offers between $250,000 and $300,000.”

“In 2006, Aquino and her then-husband spent $2,500 for a vacation to Puerto Rico. Last month, she bought two tickets to New York City on Spirit Airlines for $77. Total cost of the five-day trip that included a stay at a friend’s place: $200.”

“‘I’m not in the same situation as those people in foreclosure,’ Aquino said, knocking on her wooden kitchen table. ‘But the way it’s going, I could be.’”

The St Petersburg Times. “Felix Amon dreamed of building taller than Trump, but now finds himself hammered by the slump. Poor sales and tighter credit have forced Amon, based in Daytona Beach, to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for his Tampa Tower 2 project.”

“Amon’s is the third Tampa condo project to declare bankruptcy this year. Even the best-known local condo project, Trump Tower Tampa, has threatened bankruptcy should its financing efforts fail. The 52-story building, licensing its name from New York tycoon Donald Trump, has yet to get off the ground.”

“‘Just remember what’s happened to Trump Tower, and all the other projects,’ Amon said. ‘All the buyers ran for the hills.’”

“Amon said the bankruptcy filing doesn’t apply to another of his local condo buildings, Clearwater’s Station Square. The downtown redevelopment project on Cleveland Street offers 126 units and a rooftop pool. ‘Station Square is just about finished,’ he said. ‘Luckily that was sold before the crisis started.’”

The Tallahassee Democrat. “When Florida’s Realtors hosted lunch in the Capitol courtyard Wednesday, they were hoping for good news to go with their Chinese chicken salad. Elected officials gave them a feast.”

“Gov. Charlie Crist reported Floridians experienced a 16-percent reduction in home insurance ‘in the last year.’ He also cited a ‘fantastic’ lowering of property taxes, anticipating ‘a $25 billion reduction over the next five years.’” “‘It’s not enough, but it’s a heck of a start,’ he said.”

“‘We’ve reached the turning point (in home sales),’ said Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink.”

“U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez gave a national perspective. ‘We have a real crisis on our hands,’ he told the Realtors about the residential real estate market. ‘We need to do something to draw down the inventory of unsold homes.’”

“Realtors travel to Tallahassee each March for the FAR’s Legislative Days. About 800 members attended committee meetings and conferred with their legislators during the two-day gathering.”

“Realtors noted other signs that real estate sales’ downward trend is reversing. Summer Greene from Broward County said her area has seen a 16 percent increase in pending transactions.”

“‘It’s like everybody woke up Feb. 1 and said, ‘Enough of this,’ she said.”

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