The Staten Island Advance reports from New York. "Selling themselves was not something home builders had to do during the real estate boom just a few years ago, when new homes sold rapidly. But with housing inventory up and prices down, builders are beefing up the incentives. They're cutting prices and offering upgrades, and even gift baskets."

"'It's a Buyer's Market -- The Choice is Yours' was last week's ad, which ran only in the Sunday Advance and was endorsed by the National Association of Home Builders and the local Building Industry Association of New York City."

"'You always want to buy low and sell high,' added Larry Brinker, executive officer of the Building Industry Association. But for people who must also sell their home in order to buy another house, selling high is often the hard part."

"Buyers say they found the homes they wanted for what they considered reasonable prices, but they then had to sell existing homes, often for lower than they expected."

"'Having two mortgages for three months -- that was not fun,' recalled Jennifer Rinella, who bought a new home in Prince's Bay before she sold her high ranch just a few blocks away."

"She expects to close this week on her old home, which she sold after dropping the price to just below $600,000."

"'We've all been forced to raise the bar a little bit and the guys who are doing it are moving product,' said builder Robert Kelly., who is also a Realtor. 'The guys who aren't are not moving product.'"

"Annette Cartigiano got a welcome basket with a champagne bottle and gift certificates from local restaurants from her builder after she moved into a new home at the Tides of Charleston."

"Mrs. Cartigiano loves her new home but she said it took six months and several price cuts to sell her former house. She said a friend who also planned to buy in the Tides was nervous about her ability to sell her home and backed out."

"'It all depends what situation you are in,' she said. 'It's scary when you have your money on the line and you can't sell your house.'"

The Long Island Business News from New York. "The Long Island Association’s chief economist panned a National Association of Realtors’ prediction that home sales will recover in 2008, calling the outlook 'overly optimistic.'"

"Pearl Kamer of the LIA said Long Island’s housing fortunes would continue to sag into 2009, as part of a drawn-out market correction. 'We still have to liquidate a excess inventory of homes,' Kamer said. 'And as of Sept. 1, lending practices will tighten, so fewer buyers will qualify for mortgages.'"

"Through May, there were 18,749 homes for sale in Suffolk, up 26 percent from a year ago. In Nassau, 12,711 homes were up for sale, a 21-percent increase from the same period in 2006."

"It wasn’t all doom and gloom from the LIA’s economic fortress. Kamer said the slow market correction has actually helped the Long Island market. 'The worry has been that the bubble would burst,' Kamer said. 'Thankfully that didn’t happen, because a steep decline would have hurt consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of the Long Island economy.'"

The New York Daily News. "Carol David was sure her dream of home ownership was about to come true when she answered an ad offer to move into a house 30 days after making a $10,000 down payment. 'But it was the beginning of a nightmare,' David said."

"'The paperwork wasn't explained. It was just 'sign here, sign there,' she said. 'When I went home and went through it, I realized I had been tricked.'"

"David was expecting her mortgage would be $1,776 a month. In reviewing the paperwork, she discovered two interest rates, and when her first house note came due, she discovered she was to pay $6,069 a month."

"State Sen. Jeffrey Klein estimates that more than 50,000 New Yorkers stand to lose their homes to foreclosures from loans they took out in 2005 and 2006."

"Sara Ludwig, executive director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, said there also has been a concentration of foreclosures in Flatbush, East New York, Canarsie, Bushwick and Ocean Hill in Brooklyn. In Queens, the concentration is in Rochdale, Jamaica and St. Albans, Ludwig said."

The Boston Globe from Massachusetts. "Foreclosure actions against Massachusetts homeowners continued at a quick pace in May. The number of homeowners facing foreclosure auctions more than doubled in May compared to a year ago, according to the Warren Group. And the number of foreclosure actions initiated jumped 39 percent from a year earlier."

"Foreclosure petitions, the first step in the foreclosure process, rose to 2,164, compared to 1,553 a year ago, and were also slightly above April levels. It was the eighth consecutive month that foreclosure notices topped 2,000."

"'The Bay State has not yet seen this problem peak,' said Timothy Warren, chief executive of Warren Group. '"It becomes evident that homeowners are finding it difficult to refinance their mortgage or sell their homes before they reach auction.'"

"Foreclosure actions have soared this year. The 6,419 auction notices through May nearly matches 6,720 for all of 2006. Larissa Duzhansky, regional economist at Global Insight, a Waltham, Mass., forecasting firm, said the foreclosure problem will keep downward pressure on the housing market."

From Fosters Online in New Hampshire. "Foreclosures in Rockingham County have more than doubled in the first half of this year and officials cite predatory lending and a slower real estate market as the cause."

"Register of Deeds Cathy Stacey said through the end of May, the county has seen 163 foreclosures compared to 74 during the same period last year. In Strafford County from January to June, there were 85 foreclosures compared with 49 last year, according to Registrar of Deeds Leo Lessard."

"'You have some shady practices happening, where you're lending money to borrowers who from the get-go couldn't afford what they were getting into,' Stacey said."

"'We haven't seen this type of activity since the '80s,' she said, referring to the savings and loan crisis."

"There have been more liens filed on properties in Rockingham County — 711 through May of this year compared with 450 during a similar time period last year."

"'You have the whole issue with the real estate market not moving and the subprime lending. On top of that, you have the emergency of people who are overextending themselves via credit cards and those companies are coming in and attaching properties. It's kind of a double whammy,' she said."

The Pawtucket Times from Rhode Island. "Are you still having trouble finding somewhere you can afford to live? If so, you're not alone. Despite the recent downturn, Rhode Island still has a healthy real estate market in one important respect: every seller is able to find a buyer, even if they may not be able to get the price they want."

"But even after a few months' slide, the reverse isn't true: some buyers still can't find anything they can afford."

"According to national statistics from the Federal Reserve, around a quarter of total investment in real estate is speculative. These are purchases made not to provide a home to anyone, but in order to resell at a higher price."

"For a local analysis, I obtained records of all the real estate sales in Providence between 2003 and 2006: 14,967 records. About a quarter of the sales records were for properties sold at least twice in the period, and 5.5 percent were property flips, where the buyer held the property for less than six months."

"That doesn't sound like a huge number, but in many neighborhoods, the number of short-term investors was much higher. In plat 43, which covers part of the West End, about 40 percent of sales between 2003 and 2006 were sold again before 2006. One hundred and ninety-seven properties there changed hands during that time, but 87 of them were involved in 220 sales."

"The data also show that resale activity is clearly related to the level of prices. I ran some simple statistical tests on the property and saw that resold property went for 15-25 percent more money compared to its assessment than property that was only sold once in the study period."

"What's more, only one reseller in nine made any significant improvements to the property while they held it."

"In dollar terms, approximately 21 percent of real estate investment in Providence was investment made for short-term gains alone. That is, 21 percent of the money spent on city real estate in 2003 was spent on property that was sold by 2006, and usually long before. This is a huge proportion, and still misses all the investors who waited just a few months more."

"Real estate agents will tell you that the prices went up because there was so much demand, and in a way that's true, but the extra demand was from the one buyer in five who was only shopping for a short-term investment, not for a home."

"The short version of all this is that if you have trouble finding an affordable place to live, or if you are feeling the pinch of the downturn in housing prices, a large part of the blame rests with people who see buying and selling houses as a way to make money rather than as a way to find somewhere to live."

"The real estate boom has busted and things are settling down now, but people whose memory only reaches back to the 1980s will remember that we had a nearly identical real estate frenzy then. Its aftermath was similar to what we're seeing now: people stuck with unaffordable mortgages, foreclosures, rising rents and an increase in homelessness."

"Unfortunately, this is what we have to look forward to in the coming months and years."