A report from Realtor.com. "After years as one of America's hottest housing markets, California is showing some chinks in its armor. Many overzealous sellers who listed their homes at unrealistically high prices are now being forced to reduce them. The state experienced the nation's biggest increase in the number of homes seeing list price reductions. Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, saw the biggest jump in the number of homes on realtor.com seeing price reductions."

"There, the number of homes where prices were lowered zoomed up 171% in August, even as the number of listings surged 77%. The likely culprit: rampant overpricing. Santa Clara–based real estate broker Rick Smith is seeing the most price reductions for higher-end properties in the $3 million-and-up range. But prices on homes located farther away from the bigger companies are also falling. 'People are concerned if we hit peak and I buy now, what happens?' says Smith, of Windermere Real Estate. So they're waiting to see what happens."

"Median prices in Seattle, the birthplace of tech behemoth Amazon, aren't coming down. But that doesn't mean sellers these days can slap whatever price tag they want on their residences—and add some extra zeros. Many may have gotten overzealous in what they wanted to fetch—the number of listings on realtor.com with price reductions was up a whopping 76% in August year over year. That's the second-biggest jump among the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country."

"'A lot of people think that the market is peaking and are looking to potentially cash out' while they can still fetch the most money, says Windermere Real Estate's chief economist, Matthew Gardner. 'We've been on double-digit price growth for years, and that is clearly unsustainable.'"

"Then there are the smaller cities, like Austin, TX, and Nashville, TN, that burst onto the national scene just a few years ago—poster children for the supercharged housing recovery. And then, despite all the hype, list prices did the unthinkable—they began to fall."

"Four years ago, real estate agent Jason Bernknopf was seeing move-in ready homes in desirable central Austin fetch six to 10 offers. Two years ago, similar homes were getting two to six offers. Lately, multiple offers are more rare. 'Now things don't go in the first day necessarily. You have to wait three to four days,' says Bernknopf. 'Sellers are having to reduce some of their prices.'"

"It's time to address the T. rex in the room: Could lower price appreciation, an increase in inventory, and more price cuts on individual homes spell imminent disaster for the U.S. real estate market? Could we actually be primed for another housing bubble?"

"'It’s hard to see this as the bubble popping in any way close to what we saw 10 years ago,' says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. 'I see it more as a deflating, letting some air out of the balloon ... [so there isn't] a bigger pop down the road.'"