Extraordinary indeed - thanks for tracking this down and posting it. The speed of the turn 'round is as startling as apparantly unexpected. BtW - as a related indicator Northeast marinas (think 2nd home) all have slips still available when for the past five years or so they've usually booked up with excess by Jan. (including '00 and '01).

Have you any feel for the size of the downturn in real estate related spending, direct and indirect, that's likely ? All MEW related monies go away of course but what about construction and related ?

Thanks for finding and posting!! Finally, someone from the real estate biz in Atlanta publicly acknowledging that the market here isn't "different" from everywhere else. People keep telling me they think Atlanta's different, but I've noticed prices dropping, more homes on the market, and foreclosures are high nationally since the rate of creative loans taken out the past few years is about 40%. It is interesting that Sonny's market is in the Alpharetta/Roswell area and is still doing poorly since that's where the majority of high-paying tech jobs are. That says a lot.

We almost bought a house last year but backed out. We lost half our earnest money even though I thought there was a bit of collusion ("fraud") going on between our realtor, mtg broker, and appraiser. Now I feel justified in our actions. At this point, we're willing to rent and wait. We're saving more money anyway as we have fixed expenses by not owning.