The Boston Herald looks at home sales reporting. "A bad storm is brewing in the once high-flying real estate market, and the Boston area, is right in the eye of it. For many hapless home sellers, desperately scrambling to find living, breathing buyers, this tempest appeared to come on as quickly as a Gulf Coast hurricane. Or did it?"

"The monthly home sales reports put out by the Massachusetts Association of Realtors for years have been the main indicator of the health of the Bay State’s real estate market. And as recently as last fall, the trade group was crowing about near-record sales."

"However..a steady decline in home sales across the state began in the spring of 2005 and has been building steam ever since, data released by the Boston-based Warren Group shows."

"Year-over-year declines in home sales of roughly 10 percent or more began in April 2005 and continued steadily, hitting nearly 14 percent in October and nearly 27 percent in July. Meanwhile, median home prices peaked at $364,000 as early as June 2005 and began dropping steadily after that."

"By last summer, let alone last fall, anyone following the Warren Group data would have been well aware of the real estate storm clouds on the horizon. Yet, except for a few experts and insiders, no one was."

"As the real estate market began to turn sour last year, MAR was still the main source of statistics for most news outlets. And the Realtors group saw more evidence for optimism than concern."

"No increase was too modest to celebrate. A 0.5 percent increase in single-family home sales in September. Roll out the barrels. 'Sales of single-family homes remain strong last month, climbing to their second highest level on record for the month of September in state history,' the group touted in a section of its Web site called 'talking points.'"

"That was a badly timed fit of happy talk. Since October, the market’s downhill trajectory has been too steep for anyone to ignore, with prices, not just the number of sales, falling."

"But there are no apologies from David Wluka, MAR’s president. And Wluka further contends that MAR has always offered a sober appraisal of the market."

"Not everyone is convinced of that, though, including Wellesley College’s Chip Case, one of the nation’s top experts on the residential real estate market. 'They (Realtors) have a stake in high (home sales) volume,' Case said. 'They care if people are trading. They have a huge stake in optimism. When optimism goes away, people don’t spend money on big-ticket items.'"

The Worcester Telegram. "Foreclosure actions initiated against Massachusetts homeowners rose 56 percent in July, to 1,348, compared with the same month a year ago. For the 12 months ended July 31, foreclosures statewide were up 43.5 percent, to 14,552, with Barnstable, Bristol and Suffolk counties posting the biggest increases."

The Sun Chronicle. "North Attleboro recorded 61 foreclosure cases in July, up 118 percent from July 2005. 'The vise grip of rising interest rates and soaring energy costs are squeezing thousands of Massachusetts property owners out of their homes,' said Jeremy Shapiro, presidentof ForeclosuresMass.com. 'The dramatic increase in foreclosure filings is symptomatic of our slumping housing market and tightening economy.'"