Luxury home market looks especially soft

There are some signs of life in the housing market, with many of the hardest hit regions showing strong sales growth in terms of volume even as home prices fall.

But at the high-end, things are still looking pretty dismal. Average days on market for high-end homes has been soaring and that's generally looked at as a sign of excess inventory and limited demand. Expensive markets like Manhattan held up really well in the early part of the downturn but they're now showing signs of weakening.

It's not at all surprising that the luxury home market is entering the toilet and there are a number of reasons that it could stay dismal for quite some time. Here are a few of them: