The Journal News reports from New York. "In Westchester, the median price for houses was $635,000, down 2.3 percent from a year earlier and the second quarter in a row of year-over-year declines. Real estate agents said buyer resistance to high prices in the county had helped drive them down; last quarter's median was well below Westchester's record of $716,126 set in the third quarter of last year."

"'Most of the new stuff is coming on with reasonable prices,' said J.P. Endres, president of David Endres Real Estate in New Rochelle."

"Westchester and Putnam are seeing growing inventories of property for sale, but as a smaller market, Putnam may be feeling the effect to a greater degree. The number of single family houses for sale at the end of last quarter, 942, was up 48 percent over three years earlier."

"The number of months of inventory in Putnam, a measure of the amount of time it would take to sell all the houses for sale in the county, reached 20 in the first quarter. It's the biggest first-quarter number since 1998, when it stood at 22."

"Michael Barile, a retired builder, said he sees a disturbing trend in the growing number of foreclosures in the county. About 90 percent of the properties are being taken over by the bank at foreclosure sales, and at some point they're going to wind up back on the market, he said."

"'When I built in the 1970s and 1980s, you never saw inventory over 500,' he said. His daughter has been trying to sell a one-bedroom house in Carmel for $209,900. It's been on the market two months, even though she cut the price by $10,000, he said."

"Buyers are finding that getting financing is not as easy as it was a year ago. 'To get approval is not very easy now,' said Sonia Velasco, broker in Yonkers. 'They have so many foreclosures coming up that they're really making sure the buyers are really qualified and are able to keep the house.'"

The Gotham Gazette. "A crush of foreclosures in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx is raising alarms and leading many to call on city and state authorities to do more to go after the unscrupulous people at mortgage brokerage firms, at banks and on Wall Street who, they say, are fueling the problem."

"Through March, more than 1,200 foreclosures had been filed this year in Queens on one- to four-family properties, a 57 percent increase over the same period last year. About 3,600 were filed in all of 2006 in the borough, according to the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project."

"In Brooklyn, over 1,100 foreclosures had been filed from January to March compared to about 3,300 for all of last year."

"The rates of subprime lending here are higher than the national averages. About 23 percent of home purchase loans are subprime, up from just 6.5 percent in 2002. Nationally, the proportion of home purchase loans that are subprime is 17 percent."

"Queens attorney Oda Friedheim sees the city’s numbers as ominous. 'The subprime market is going bust and so we will see more foreclosures,' she said."

"Kevin Squires, a loan officer at a Queens mortgage company, said the first scenario is common as homeowners are bombarded daily with offers to refinance their homes. The advertisements blare across virtually every medium."

From Newsday. "Thomas and Joy Geist have lived in the same house in East Meadow for more than 50 years. Currently, however, the Geists' house is a source of family worry. The couple, who paid off their original mortgage 30 years ago, are struggling to make monthly payments on a new $280,000, 30-year mortgage that their lawyer is contending should never have been made to them."

"'How can you give a 30-year loan on a paid-off house to an 82-year-old person?' the plaintiffs' Manhattan-based lawyer, Jacob Zamansky, said in a recent interview. The suit accuses members of the mortgage industry, including a Glen Head bank and two Long Island-based mortgage brokers, of ignoring numerous 'red flags' signaling that the loans shouldn't be made."

"With home foreclosures rising nationally, lawmakers are considering legislation that would impose suitability requirements on the mortgage industry."

"The effort is hotly opposed by the industry. 'It's a bad idea, because rather than protect borrowers, it would prevent borrowers from getting access to credit,' said Kurt Pfotenhauer, a senior VP for the Mortgage Bankers Association."

The Times Union. "Home foreclosure filings in the Capital Region surged in the year's first three months, according to newly released statistics. The five-county region's first-quarter foreclosure filings climbed 93 percent when compared with the same period last year, according to RealtyTrac."

"Foreclosures in Albany County jumped 109 percent, while filings in Rensselaer County spiked a staggering 218 percent. Rensselaer County, in fact, had more foreclosures filings in 2007's first three months (54) than it had all of last year (51)."

"'We're getting more and more calls from people in a panic,' said Bobbi Carter, director at a nonprofit that works to keep defaulting mortgage holders in their homes. TRIP had 33 mortgage-default clients for all of 2006, Carter said, and has already had that many for the first three months of this year."

"Those working with local homeowners facing foreclosure say they are seeing a large number of middle- or higher-income families in trouble. Guy Criscione, an Albany bankruptcy attorney who said he's seen an 'unbelievable' number of foreclosure clients in recent months, said many are couples with combined incomes of over $100,000 who still can't make mortgage payments."

"Sandra Demars, an attorney in Albany, said some of the office's foreclosure clients are unable to cover rising tax payments, while others, facing spiking housing costs, borrowed at levels they can't afford."

"The RealtyTrac information, Demars said, 'is reflective of what we're seeing and what we were afraid was going to happen.'"

"Observers found the sharp increase in the Capital Region troubling, and worried it might be a warning of worse numbers to come."

"'We are so not at the apex of this problem,' said Kirsten Keefe, a lawyer with the nonprofit Empire Justice Center in Albany."