It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "It was just last spring that home buyers in most of the nation were digging ever deeper into their pockets. And now, suddenly, they’re not. In Seattle, more than half of homes a year ago saw bidding wars, while less than a quarter are seeing them now. And supply in Seattle is up 60 percent compared to a year ago, according to Realtor.com."

"In Los Angeles, 68 percent of properties for sale saw multiple offers a year ago. That is now down to 38 percent. In Southern California overall, home sales in October were at the slowest pace for that month in seven years, according to CoreLogic."

"Inventory jumped in formerly hot markets like San Jose (+123 percent), Seattle (+96.5 percent) and Oakland (+60 percent). In Las Vegas, sales and prices were raging last year and last spring, but supply is now spiking and sales have ground to a halt. The inventory in November was up 54 percent from a year ago and sales were down 12 percent, according to the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors."

"In Denver, another market that was incredibly competitive last year due to very short supply and high demand, inventory in November jumped nearly 47 percent annually, according to the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. Sales fell 12 percent. The high end is seeing the biggest shift."

"'The power switched to buyers when negotiating on homes priced over $1 million, with 7.22 months of inventory,' wrote Jill Schafer, chair of the DMAR Market Trends Committee."

"Even in Dallas, where demand is still quite strong due to a healthy local economy, inventory is up over 15 percent, and 14 percent of listings saw price reductions in October, according to Realtor.com. 'I am seeing an increasing number of price reductions in homes over $500,000, as our inflated market has simmered, but not plummeted,' said Laura Barnett, a real estate agent with RE/MAX DFW Associates."

"The buy-at-any-price, get-it-while-you-can mind-set of home shopping a year or two ago has faded. 'Things are reverting to normal in Dallas-Fort Worth,' said Dr. James Gaines, chief economist for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. 'It's going to look so much different because you've had such boom times for the last six or seven years and we have gotten used to it. But that couldn't go on forever.'"

"'As far as being in the type of bubble we were a decade ago, the numbers don't support that,' said Chris Kelly, the new CEO of Dallas' Ebby Halliday Realtors. 'Yes, we have seen home values here go dramatically up in our marketplace, but not nearly what we have seen in some other places.'"

"Still, Kelly said some D-FW home sellers have been caught off guard by the shift in the local housing market. 'Some people are still expecting to get multiple offers and sell their houses immediately,' he said. 'When that isn't the reality, they think something is wrong with the market.'"

"Houston real estate agent Shad Bogany is helping a couple close on a new home for $60,000 less than its listing price — a discount of over 20 percent. 'Builders are super-discounting right now,' Bogany said. 'Because they’re trying to get rid of inventory.'"

"The discounts don’t just apply to new homes. The couple, in turn, had to cut the list price on their existing home by $10,000 in the hopes of selling it by the time they closed on their new place. Four out of every five Houston-area homes sold for less than their listed prices this November, according to the real estate startup Knock. The company predicts that share will continue to increase in 2019, placing Houston second in the nation only to Miami for this trend."

"The discounts are significant. In 2018, the average savings off original list prices in the Houston area were 3 percent. The company predicts that the homes currently listed on the market will sell at a discount of 5 percent."

"The tales of housing malaise stretch across metro New York. A Long Island home sat idle on the market until both its price and taxes were slashed. Buyers in Connecticut are asking to rent houses before purchasing them. Hoboken brokers lament their slow business."

"Now, the growing consensus is prices are headed in one direction: down. From the high-rises of Manhattan to the city’s manicured suburbs, homebuyers are pulling back as they reel from a triple whammy of costly hits."

"'Brokers ask me, ‘When is it going to get better?’ said Greg Heym, chief economist of Terra Holdings. ‘Better’ for this market, in this area, is lower prices.'"

"In New Jersey, many buyers appeared to brush off the new tax law, and sales remained strong until September, when mortgage rates shot higher, said Jeffrey Otteau, president of the valuation company that bears his name. The decline in purchasing power means prices will inevitably have to adjust, he said."

"'Sellers have gotten greedy,' he said. 'It’s easier to say ‘blame tax reform’ than to say ‘we need to take an honest look at the price you expect to get for your house.’ Sellers don’t get it.'"

"Closer to Manhattan, the slowdown is palpable, said Sharon Shahinian, a Halstead broker in Hoboken. 'All the agents are saying to each other, ‘Are you busy?' Shahinian said. 'Someone will say, ‘Oh my God, it’s so slow, and someone else will say, ‘I’m glad it’s not just me.'"

"'It’s a great time for buyers, so it’s not all doom and gloom,' Shahinian said. 'But you have to manage sellers’ expectations that what they could have gotten two years ago, a year and a half ago, they can’t get now.'"

"In November 2017, French investor Jean-Philippe Mango flew to Miami for a meeting with managers of Steinmauer Realty, a brokerage that was handling real estate investments on behalf of him and other French nationals."

"During the pow-wow to discuss the pending sales of several properties Mango and his partners owned, he discovered a Pompano Beach condo his investment group bought in 2015 had been lost to foreclosure a year later, according to a recent lawsuit."

"By the time Mango received a sixth and final progress report, the investments had severely soured. 'Many units that had been reported as profitable were suddenly reported as unprofitable,' the lawsuit claims. 'More importantly were the reasons why the units were no longer profitable: Renovation costs spiked and resale price estimates plummeted.'"

"In the last twelve months, home values in the Shawnee Mission School District have shot up by 11.2 percent based on November’s numbers. In real dollars and cents, that represented an increase of $24,000.00 in just twelve months ($215,000 to $239,000)."

"And because most home buyers did not receive an 11.2 percent raise this year, record home prices are now being rejected by today’s active buyers."

"So how do we know that home prices are being rejected? The number of SMSD listings in November that expired off of the multiple listing service, meaning they failed to sell, was up 70.6 percent when compared to the same month last year."

"Several NEJC area have already seen the median home price drop in recent months due to price rejection. In addition, the number of price adjustments is on the rise as well."

"So what is the message to current and potential home sellers? The message is loud and clear. Today’s market is for sellers who have a strong motivation to sell their home. A motivation so strong that it will cause them to price their home in-line with today’s market and not try to price their home like it is March 2017."

"This market is not for what I call 'tryers.' Tryers are home sellers who say, 'We will try to sell our home, if and only if we can get the price we want.' For the tryers out there, I hate to tell you but that ship sailed many months ago. Today’s market is more price sensitive than we have seen in several years."