A pair of reports on the Long Island housing bubble. "The days of eye-popping monthly real estate gains are now the stuff of real estate lore. Though Island housing prices remain up year over year, Suffolk battled a moderate price drop in April and Nassau remained stable. Buyers have plenty of homes to choose from: The region's inventory skyrocketed more than 50 percent in the last year."

"'We're not getting as many offers as we were,' said Roberta Moldawsky, who specializes in the Great Neck area. 'The buyers seem to be holding off. We've got a lot of inventory and things are selling slower.'"

From NewsDay. "Welcome to the new world of real estate. Doesn't it look familiar? It's been nearly a decade since the housing supply was this high and annual price increases were this low. Residential inventory is increasing at a record annual pace."

"Put that together with increasing interest rates and you get the beginnings of a buyers' market, experts said yesterday. Residential inventory rose by 65 percent over the year in Suffolk County and 76 percent in Nassau County, each reaching levels not recorded as far back as the MLS records go, to 1980."

"And the housing supply ratio that shows how long it would take to sell out the inventory at the current pace stands at 10 months in Suffolk County and nearly nine months in Nassau, the highest levels since 1998 and 1997 respectively. In Queens, where the market is not entirely based on the MLS, and where demand is often higher, inventory rose nearly 88 percent."

"As the real estate market's prime selling season moves on, many are suggesting that it has been one of the slowest springs in the past six years. And that slowdown is likely to continue into the summer, experts said, pointing to the Federal Reserve's decision to increase short-term interest rates to 5 percent yesterday. 'We're in a buyers' market as soon as the Fed increases rates to 5 percent, so we're in a buyers' market now,' said Martin Cantor, the chief economist with Sustainable Long Island."

"The signs that sellers have lost the upper hand are already there, said Beth Marten, who heads a real estate agency that represents buyers. 'Buyers are starting to negotiate and sellers are starting to give,' Marten said. 'The seller is starting to blink.'"

"But other agents said the home buyer is not yet in full control. 'A correction is clearly evident,' said Joyce Styne, (broker) in Greenvale. 'However, there's still time left [for sellers] to catch the ring on the carousel.'"

"Styne noted that of 60 updated listings in her region yesterday, 34 had lowered their listed prices."

The New York Times. "In its over-the-top twist on the usual brokers' inspection, the open-house party may be the surest sign yet that the supersonic real estate market on Long Island is spiraling back to earth. Now it is the houses that are plentiful and the buyers who are scarce, and brokers are turning to increasingly splashy marketing tactics to drum up interest."

"So, instead of the usual noon-to-three weekday preview for agents or a Saturday open house for the public with balloons tied to a sign, Shawn Elliott staged something more like a bar mitzvah celebration for the Tall Oaks house."