With a house languishing in the real-estate doldrums of southwestern Ohio, Edward F. Leonard III and his family have lived apart since he took over as president of Bethany College, in Kansas, nearly a year ago. Their situation is like that of many faculty members and administrators frustrated by housing prices across the country. Existing-home sales dropped 15.9 percent from a year ago, the National Association of Realtors announced in June, and sales of new single-family houses were down 40 percent in that period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Nationwide, the value of many homes has also plummeted. This article reports that the real-estate slowdown has proved a challenge for faculty members, administrators, and recruits unwilling or unable to sell their houses during a market slide whose bottom economists can only guess at. Still, the buyer's market yields a silver lining at many colleges--a slight reprieve for first-time home buyers. For some institutions, the collapsing real-estate market would be a great recruitment tool--if their state economies weren't also ailing. But lower prices have been advantageous for first-time home buyers at other institutions.