A Cuban housing market? Gov't is lifting a taboo

HAVANA (AP) - Each morning before the sun rises too high, Cubans gather at a shaded corner in central Havana, mingling as though at a cocktail party. The icebreaker is always the same: "What are you offering?"

This is Cuba's informal real-estate bazaar, where a chronic housing shortage brings everyone from newlyweds to retirees together to strike deals that often involve thousands of dollars in under-the-table payments. They are breaking not just the law but communist doctrine by trading and profiting in property, and now their government is about to get in on the action.