Who's the real culprit

He is right to a point.  Countless mortgage programs have disappeared over the past few months, and many have been tightly restricted.  The old fashioned borrower who has some down payment, decent credit and is documenting their income is still able to buy a house and may be pleasantly surprised at how great rates are right now along with how great homes are priced in many areas as well.  The borrower without a down payment, credit issues, or who needs to go light on the income or asset documentation will find it much harder to buy a home right now if they are even able to do so.

The credit crunch is hurting not only our regular business but our international business as well. Here in Central Florida I work with a lot of Foriegn Nationals who have cash to put down with great credit and I have struggled finding lenders who will write international loans. As I see it, these foriegn buyers have the cash and assets to buy here in our market. If we can't get them financed we will miss out on an opportunity to get solid buyers into our markets. These lenders pulled back to far and now need to loosen up just a little bit so we can move inventory.

John, everything goes in cycles.  Lenders have now switched from being excessively liberal to being excessively cautious...

Brian is right, it all goes in cycles. Its healthy for the marke to go thru this.

John:

There are many factors contributing to the decline.

To a point I agree but there are too many homes out there that are now REO and everyone has gotten "gun shy".

It is human nature. When ever something bad happens, we over react to compensate for our mistake. How many car accidents happen because of over correcting. I personal think, they will bring things back in check soon and we will be fine. People thought the world would end in the early 80's when interest rates in 20%, but homes were still selling and we survived that.