The sound you here coming from Miami is of the condo crash. One advantage of a credit crunch is that those who have saved can now find good deals on housing. Consider the situation of the condo market in Miami, which rivaled Shanghai and Dubai in terms of new construction during the boom.

"It's painful and scary," Natalie Luongo, 31, said. "We saw the frenzy, and we bought in. Now we're paying the consequences."

Just how many other speculators face the same dilemma in the nation's most glutted condo market will become clear during the next two years. That is when 25,000 new condo units, most of them rising in or near Miami's downtown, will flood an area already saturated with 23,000 condos listed for sale. An additional 40,000 units have been approved, but analysts doubt the majority will break ground. (See map with condo locations.)

Orlando and other Florida cities -- Naples, Fort Myers, Tampa and Sarasota among them -- also have huge condo gluts. With 4,440 condos listed for sale, Orlando has an unprecedented 29-month supply, and last month sales plummeted 64 percent lower than a year ago.

[Full article here.]