It's Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. "The new color for this spring's housing market map is red, as more and more Dallas-area neighborhoods show declines in purchases from a year ago and lower overall sales prices. The biggest year-over-year price declines were in East Dallas, Far North Dallas, Northwest Dallas and Irving — all with prices 8% below where they were a year ago, according to data."

"But housing analysts don't see a similar housing shakeout in the works for North Texas. 'A crash would involve a loss of jobs, incomes going down and foreclosures,' said James Gaines, Real Estate Center chief economist. 'We are not doing a 2007, 2008 or 2009 crash again.'"

"'Buyers that were paying more than what a house was listed for are now paying closer to market value, said Paige Shipp, regional director of research firm Metrostudy Inc. 'What we were doing before was not sustainable. We would have fallen off a cliff.'"

"More neighborhoods saw first quarter declines in home purchases than in any year since 2009 — during the worst of the Great Recession."

"While real estate agents say Houston is still a hot market, the pace of home price appreciation has begun to slow, indicating a softening of prices. That rebalancing comes as many sellers’ expectations are still in tune with the hefty year-over-year increases of past years. It’s time, said real estate broker Mark Dimas, for sellers to have more realistic expectations when pricing their homes."

"'If people keep putting homes on the market at higher prices, inventory will continue to grow and eventually you’re going to have a buyers’ market and prices are going to start to fall,' Dimas said."

"According to the Fort Collins Board of Realtors , 217 new townhouse-condo listings hit the market from January through March, compared with 563 single-family homes; 142 sales closed, slightly below last year. While the market may have tempered, some sellers' expectations have not, Realtor Sean Dougherty said."

"He said two clients recently put in cash offers for the full asking price. Both sellers rejected the offers, preferring to wait to see if better offers came along. 'If they wanted more money, they should have priced their homes higher,' Dougherty said. The downfall of that approach is 'it already pissed off the buyer.'"

"The first signs of change came in the summer of 2018, which one realtor Curbed spoke with dubbed “the most competitive housing market in recorded history.” But that prediction didn’t materialize. Instead, homes started lingering on the market and home sales dropped, setting the stage for potential price drops. This trend has been strongest in West Coast markets that have become some of the most expensive in the country, including San Jose, California, San Francisco, and Seattle."

"The West Coast continues to see inventory pile up, according to Realtor.com’s March data, particularly in San Jose. Total active listings keeps skyrocketing, and homes that are on the market are staying there longer. Price cuts have spiked. The number of price cuts to homes listed in March jumped by a whopping 275.9 percent year-over-year in San Jose, by far the highest in the country. Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco, and Salem, Oregon, also saw price cuts jump by triple-digit percentages in March."

"A drop in property sales in San Francisco suggests a housing slowdown despite a booming economy, according to city Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu. 'We have seen a reduction in single-family homes that are being sold,' Chu said. 'There’s a lot of questions about why that is. Is it because inventory isn’t there? Are people not willing to sell? Are people waiting to sell at a different time? Are there not willing buyers? Hard to say exactly what the reason is, but we definitely have seen a lower number.'"

"A recent culinary renaissance has created 'flip-flop fine dining”'—a local term for high-caliber cuisine enjoyed with casual attitude and style. A significant price drop (almost 10 percent for single-family homes) in the central Oceanside area, from 2018 to 2019, makes the city even more appealing for buyers."

"According to StreetEasy’s 2019 Q1 report, sale prices in Manhattan dropped five percent to an average $1.1 million compared to last year. And Manhattan’s luxury tier, which StreetEasy categorizes as the top 20 percent of the sales market, also dropped nearly five percent year-over-year to an average of $3.9 million, marking the first time that category dropped below $4 million since 2013."

"Less than half of the 12,000 homes that were listed on their website during the spring of 2018 had sold as of February 2019. Of the homes that were sold, 70 percent closed below their initial asking price and buyers saw a median discount of more than five percent, the report showed."

"On top of the existing slow market, Grant Long, senior economist at StreetEasy explained that there was a deluge of new luxury residential stock coming online or in the pipeline that will further aggravate the supply issue. Combined with sellers who often overprice their properties, Long said it’ll take some time for the market to be strong again. 'It’s a tough case on the high end just because there’s so much construction there,' Long said."

"Lena Dunham has been very open in recent months about her desire to break her longtime roots in Brooklyn and move to Manhattan. And now she's willing to take a loss on her Williamsburg loft to make it all happen. The Girls creator and star just slashed the asking price of her digs by $350,000 to $2.65 million. Dunham bought the condo for $2.9 million in April 2018."

"Coos County, which includes Berlin, saw its median sales price drop by 12.9 percent to $105,000 year-over-year in March. For the January-through-March timeframe, Coos County was down 15 percent to a $96,000 median price compared with $113,000 for the first quarter of 2018."

"In New Jersey, we’ve all seen a home like this before. Overgrown lawn, broken window shutters, holes in the backyard fence. It’s an eyesore in an otherwise beautiful neighborhood. And it drives the neighbors who have to walk or drive past it each day absolutely crazy."

"More often than not, these homes have one thing in common; they are going through the lengthy process of foreclosure, and the end may be nowhere in sight. Sadly, the Atlantic City area reportedly has one of the highest foreclosure rates among U.S. metropolitan areas with populations of at least 200,000."

"Miami is full of over-the-top real estate listings. The latest to cross our desk is this seven-bedroom, eight-bath stunner situated on Miami Beach’s Di Lido Island, first on the market last October, the 7,828-square-foot house recently took a $1,200,000 price cut."

"Has the Bywater housing bubble finally burst? Judging by the price tag for this renovated bargeboard home ($289,000!), it seems the market is finally cooling down. Maybe it’s a result of stricter short-term rental laws; maybe it’s because all the post-Katrina transplants have grown disenchanted with New Orleans and moved on, or maybe this two-bedroom, two-bathroom home has very motivated sellers."