The New York Magazine. "Jeremy Kushnier waited until last year to buy his one-bedroom in Morningside Heights. 'I just got tired of paying rent,' says Kushnier. 'I wanted to build some equity.'"

"So much for that: Sixteen months later, Kushnier’s selling his place and moving to Los Angeles. If he gets his price, $509,000, he’ll do slightly better than break even. But a little negotiation could wipe out his profit altogether. 'The tough thing is, the market went down,' says his broker, Désirée Halac. 'A lot of people are offering 10 percent less.'"

"If you bought recently and have to sell now, you may be in a position not heard of since the early nineties: You can actually lose money on a New York apartment."

"Some eager sellers are in the grips of an outside force like job relocation or a baby on the way. Others, like Corcoran’s Paul LeMarc Brown’s clients, have simply changed their minds. A year ago, LeMarc Brown handled a couple’s purchase of a Fort Greene co-op for $310,000. A few months after the close, they decided to visit One Hanson Place in downtown Brooklyn and fell hard for the redeveloped tower."

"Now their old place is available for $345,000, which will—again, if they are lucky enough to get their price—leave them with a profit of less than $5,000."

"Kushnier’s co-op doesn’t allow sublets so soon after an owner moves in—ruling out that option—and the expenses are piling up. 'It’s a financial burden,' he says."

The Boston Herald. "Three Greater Boston locales have dropped out of the exclusive 'million-dollar club,' areas where median-priced houses cost $1 million and up. Market tracker The Warren Group reported yesterday that Brookline, Dover and Lincoln’s median prices all fell below $1 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30."

"'What goes up must come down,' said Tim Warren of The Warren Group. '(Brookline, Dover and Lincoln) are all premiere communities where prices went up very far, very fast. But at some point, gravity takes over.'"

"Warren said median prices tumbled to: $944,750 in Brookline, from $1.1 million a year earlier; $897,500 in Dover, from $1.05 million a year ago; $875,000 in Lincoln, from $1.14 million in the same 2005 period."

"The pullbacks don’t surprise brokers. David Wluka, president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, said people who list homes for $1 million or more 'tend to have more flexibility on pricing. In most cases, (a few thousand dollars either way) isn’t as critical as it is to somebody selling a house for $300,000 or $400,000.'"

"Brookline agent Aliza Dash said she thinks her town’s prices have dropped because 'people aren’t willing to pay astronomical prices for average houses any more.' But Dash actually sees some benefits to the lower costs. 'It’s nice that we’re getting back to realistic prices - or at least prices that aren’t quite so outrageous,' she said."

From CNN Money. "As housing markets have cooled, buyers are making demands that wouldn't have flown during frothier times. 'The market has turned in the direction of buyers,' say Chuck Bartolo, a broker in Spencertown, New York. 'They're feeling empowered.'"

"In addition to agreeing to make more repairs, to lower their prices and to throw in extras to get deals done, sellers are also more willing to accept contingency clauses in the contracts that make the sale dependent on certain conditions being met."

"'A year ago,' says New York City real estate attorney, Neil Garfinkel, 'you couldn't get any contingencies written into a contract. They are now finding their way back in.'"

"Garfinkel doesn't expect the types or numbers of contingencies written into contracts to change if markets grow colder. He thinks the impact will be more on prices than on contract details. Right now, we're in a fairly balanced market, in his opinion, and that has certainly helped buyers out. 'There's much more parity,' he says."