Contemplating the wasteland of vacant houses in the southwest Florida community of Cape Coral, economist Hank Fishkind opined this week that some of this housing won't be sold "at any price."

That frightening prospect — two-for-the-price-of-one houses that produce only apathetic yawns — is the dark flip side of the buying frenzy of three years ago. And nowhere is it worse than in Lee County.

Fishkind predicts Florida foreclosures will peak this year, then recede as a force for evil in the housing market. He assumes Lee County will suffer 85,000 further foreclosures this year. By contrast, the much-more-populous Hills­borough County anticipates 40,000 new foreclosure cases.

Hillsborough's comparatively "happy" foreclosure forecast allowed Fishkind this week to announce the bottom of the Tampa Bay area housing market, though he assumes we'll grovel on that bottom for a couple years.

I can't help thinking he's overly optimistic based on household formation statistics for Florida. We gained 128,814 new residents last year, but that was built on immigration and natural increase, i.e., babies. We suffered a net outflow of 9,286 U.S. citizens. Pinellas was second biggest population loser among the state's 67 counties.

From where will come the homesteaders during a recession that's hit Florida harder than most states? Maybe Fishkind has a secret file I'm not privy to.

Don't look for the government to rescue us. Congress has flopped trying to play Zorro with bad mortgages. According to the Associated Press, the Hope for Homeowners program, designed to let 400,000 troubled homeowners swap risky loans for traditional 30-year fixed-rate loans, has refinanced only 25 loans since it started in October.

At that pace it will take 5,000 years to help the promised 400,000. Hope you got the extended warranty on the Owens-Corning shingles.