Some housing bubble reports from the northeastern US. " Home price declines have come to Long Island. Recent data on home sales in Nassau, Suffolk and Queens show that houses in certain communities are fetching less than they did a year ago. A Newsday analysis found median sales prices in three of the service's zones, Huntington Town; North Hempstead and northern Oyster Bay; and northeastern Hempstead, Bethpage and Farmingdale, declined from May 2005 to May 2006."

The Times Herald-Record in New York. "Gather the children 'round, and tell them to listen up. They're about to become witnesses to something that hasn't happened here since the last millennium. It's called a buyer's market."

"Just a few years ago, Orange County had one of the strongest seller's markets in the entire country. Buyers and sellers started acting like prices would keep going up indefinitely. People who think that way are hardly ever correct. That's why it's called a housing cycle."

Also in New York. "Rockland's once-hot real estate market continued to cool in the second quarter. The inventory of available homes rose to 1,607 units, nearly double the number that were listed for sale just two years ago."

"'We're in a shifting market,' said (realtor) Kevin Joyce in Pearl River. Homeowners who were once debating whether to sell have now entered the market, pushing the number of houses-for-sale higher. Rising inventory isn't a sign that homeowners need fear that prices will soon plummet. 'I don't believe that there's a bubble-bursting happening,' Joyce said. 'I just think there's a realistic leveling of the marketplace for both buyers and sellers.'"

The Journal News. "While rising interest rates are slowing sales of homes in the Lower Hudson Valley, a sampling of open houses over the weekend shows how hard it is to generalize about buyer interest. When they opened the doors to potential homehunters Sunday afternoon in in Yorktown, Greenburgh and Nanuet..all three houses had had their prices lowered in recent months."

"Real estate statistics portray a market in which buyers have more listings to pick from than a year ago and are taking more time to decide. In Rockland, the inventory of single-family houses rose by 57.2 percent at the end of the second quarter, to 1,607, the Greater Hudson Valley MLS said yesterday."

"As Andrea O'Brien showed the first couple through the house, she kept up a monologue of its finer features. Asked about the size of the tax bill, O'Brien's voice softened as she pointed it out on the data sheet. It's more than $10,000."

"Some of the visitors said they were unimpressed with the shape the house was in, given it's half-million-dollar price tag. Carla Anderson, who owns a two-bedroom condo nearby, took a look around with her mother. Prices 'are not coming down enough, as far as I'm concerned,' her mother added."

In New Jersey. "The 'For Sale' sign has been up for three months. But your four-bedroom colonial is just not selling. In America's cooling housing market, it's a story many home sellers in New Jersey can relate to these days. Housing activity is slowing across the state, and the inventory of unsold homes is expanding."

"'You have this standoff between buyers and sellers who tend to be as much as three-quarters of a year behind the market,' said Jonathan Miller of a real estate appraisal firm in New York. 'Sellers have been trained over the past five years to stick with their prices and be firm, and yet now you have buyers on the other side saying they want a deal.'"

"As of June, the supply of homes on the 12-county northern New Jersey market is 69 percent higher than it was in June 2005, climbing from 23,584 homes to 39,829, according to Jeffrey Otteau. Middlesex County saw the largest year-over-year surge in inven tory, with the supply of homes on the market climbing 99 percent."

"Home-sales volume also is slowing in the state, declining 18 percent through May from one year ago. In northern New Jersey, the slowdown has been more marked. Comparing the first six months of 2005 with the first six months of this year, sales volume declined 20.9 percent according to the Garden State MLS."

"Otteau also believes 'the chorus of voices predicting this collapse and the attention they have received from the media' are playing a big role in bringing the housing market to its current state. 'As always, perception becomes reality,' he said."

From Connecticut. "Antares Real Estate wants to entice more tenants into buying their condominiums at two complexes the company recently purchased by offering to lower the purchase price, a spokesman said. 'This is an all-out effort to make one last-ditch effort to prove to current residents that owning is better than renting,' said Frank Marino."

"Andrew Kleinman, who lives at Greenwich Oaks, said he sees the price reductions as a sign that Antares is not selling as many units as the firm had initially planned. 'They're really starting to show it by coming back and offering people lower prices,' said Kleinman."

"Kleinman said that Antares' new reduced prices are still too high. 'If you take a look and see what's going on, there's a lot of properties that are just sitting,' he said. 'Nobody wants to lose money.'"