The Baltimore Sun reports from Maryland. "An increasing swath of the Baltimore region is caught up in a housing slump that is getting worse and appears to have further to fall. Average home-sale prices in the first six months of the year fell in a little more than half of Baltimore's suburban communities and a third of city neighborhoods, while sales volume in the region was the lowest for the first half of a year since 2000, a Sun analysis found."

"In the well-to-do Anne Arundel community of Severna Park, for instance, average prices fell more than 10 percent compared with the first half of last year, to about $550,000. That is a $70,000 drop in a year."

"'I call it Economics 101,' said Marc Witman, who has been a Realtor since 1989. 'The buyers that are out there are sitting on the sidelines, saying, 'I don't see the value out there; I'm not buying.' If your house has been around for quite a while and it's not selling, it's the price.'"

"'The market is saturated,' said Dahlia Kaminsky, a Realtor who does most of her business in neighborhoods near Baltimore's Patterson Park. 'It's a great time to be a buyer, let's put it that way.'"

"Miriam Kelly bought a house in Pikesville at the beginning of last year for $272,000, intending it for her elder daughter. But the daughter married and moved to Hawaii, so Kelly put the four-bedroom home up for auction this month. It sold for $246,000, a loss of nearly 10 percent."

"Kelly was fortunate that she didn't have a mortgage on the property. 'Look, you don't make money on everything,' she said. 'Prices are dropping simply because the interest rates are going up.'"

"Sedgrick Williams figures the end to easy credit is hurting his efforts to sell a ranch-style house in Randallstown. The three-bedroom home has been on the market a bit more than two months. Few people have come to see it. No one came to two of the open houses."

"Williams is asking $255,000, down $10,000 from his original asking price, and is offering to install appliances of the buyer's choice at his expense. 'I think I would have been better off if I sold last year,' said Williams. He paused, then added: 'I definitely would have been better off.'"

"The waning of summer has brought on the end-of-season sales in Maryland's beach resort town. And in a sputtering housing market, Ocean City's real estate is in the mix, too."

"The banners tell the story. They're hung across pastel-colored buildings along Coastal Highway: No closing costs. 100 percent financing. 5.75 fixed. Reduced prices. Now, several projects sit partially sold, hoping to lure buyers with reduced prices or incentives."

"'Unless it was already started and potentially couldn't have been stopped, there's no builder out there looking to build spec inventory and continue to flood the market,' said Chris Jett, an agent in Ocean City."

"The number of condos for sale in Ocean City had nearly doubled as of the end of July (the latest report available) to 1,667 from 843 listings at the height of the market in July 2005, according to the Coastal Association of Realtors."

"This month, 541 units were available in new condominium projects, according to Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. Still, developers continue building condos in more than half a dozen projects launched before the downturn, totaling about 700 more units under construction."

"At South Beach Boardwalk, a new luxury building on the Boardwalk with a rooftop pool, three-bedroom, oceanfront units can be had for $1.2 million, reduced from $1.46 million, with no closing costs. The Bella Vista, which has sold 10 of 40 units so far, has shaved as much as $90,000 off the bayside condos that now start at $499,900."

The News Post from Maryland. "Some Realtors think the slowdown in new construction will bring more people into the existing home market. There are more than 2,000 homes listed for sale in Frederick County."

"'This month there were 2,214 foreclosure events, which is the highest number on record since January of 2005,' said DLLR Secretary Thomas E. Perez. 'Nationally, Maryland has been on a steady slide in the wrong direction. In less than one year, Maryland has jumped from 40th to 16th in the nation for the number of foreclosure events.'"

"According to RealtyTrac, Maryland saw a 146 percent increase in foreclosure events. The statistics are staggering, Perez said, when comparing July of 2006 to July of 2007, which saw foreclosure events increase 575 percent."

"Villages of Urbana residents have different reasons for foreclosure, according to the court documents they filed. In at least two of five foreclosures the county initiated in July and August, homeowners ended up owing more money than they agreed to pay for their house."

"A couple bought a house on Hope Commons Circle for $357,750 on June 30, 2005, according to land records. Over the next two years, they paid $35 against the principal. Because the interest was nearly 7 percent, they owe $368,919."

"Susan Szajna, the association manager of Community Association Services Inc., said she does not know why people are foreclosing. 'I really don't want to know what someone's personal situation is,' she said. 'When people get in that kind of situation when their life is such a mess, they usually don't want to talk about it.'"

"A recent spike in the number of foreclosures has prompted the Villages of Urbana Board to take action. About $2,000 of the million-dollar homeowners' association budget is going to be spent on tending to yards abandoned by residents, said Szajna."

"'Between delinquencies and bankruptcies, our workload has quadrupled,' Szajna said. 'Probably six or seven homes have gone to foreclosure in the Villages and two are pending.'"

"The board's decision at a meeting last month to trim bushes and mow unkempt lawns so yards don't look run down sparked mixed reactions Wednesday among residents."

"'I think it's good to keep the community up, but why should we have to pay for that?' Jennifer Ginsburg asked. The bank or the mortgage company benefiting from the sale should pay for it, she said."

"At Rines Tavern Lane, where the distance to the Villages' shopping center is a half block walk, a townhouse that cost its owners $320,000 in 2005 is in foreclosure. It is due to be sold Aug. 8 at a public auction."

"Bob Faulkner can see Rines Tavern Lane from his front porch. He said the board's decision to keep things tidy makes sense. 'I'd rather have the yard neat coming out of the homeowners association rather than it be an eyesore,' he said. 'That's what we pay for.'"

The News Journal from Delaware. "Some of Delaware's smaller banks have suddenly found themselves in demand with home buyers after years of being shunned for mortgage lenders that offered better rates."

"'With the liquidity issues, they [the mortgage lenders] are having to cut back and sometimes even close,' says Stephen Fowle, chief financial officer at WSFS Bank in Wilmington."

"In the past week alone, Fowle said, he has seen referrals for mortgages increase, often from buyers with pre-approvals from now defunct mortgage companies like American Home Mortgage. 'They're saying, I want to close and I need help.'"

"When the housing market slowed and foreclosures began piling up, investors realized they may have bought into more risk than they'd realized."

"'In theory, securitization spreads all that risk around ... so it makes us less vulnerable,' says Jay Bryson, global economist at Wachovia Corp. 'What we're finding out now is everybody feels a little bit of the hurt and they don't like it ... so they're pulling back on their lending opportunities.'"

"'There are people who literally would have been approved a year ago or six months ago who we can no longer get approved for a mortgage,' says Ann G. Riley, president of Gilpin Mortgage Co. in Wilmington. 'We have advised borrowers as well as real estate agents that if someone was pre-approved six months ago, we need to pre-approve them again -- because that product might not be there anymore.'"

The Fayetteville Observer from North Carolina. "Developers have been building often luxurious homes in anticipation of up to 45,000 people coming to the Fayetteville area by 2011 through base realignment. Some in the housing industry say the war, BRAC, a credit squeeze and a sluggish economy have led to overbuilding and a glut of houses on the market."

"Figures from the Fayetteville Association of Realtors MLS appear to support that analysis. Those figures show 889 existing homes and 319 new homes on the market in July, an increase of 183 residential listings and 21 new constructions from a year ago. The average time it takes for a new house to sell has increased from 18 months at this time last year to 21 months today."

"Developers are stuck with empty homes that won’t sell. 'It got this way the last two to three years,' said Bill Richardson, president of Richardson and Sons Construction. 'The BRAC thing has brought on a lot of it. Everybody got a little bit ahead of themselves.'"

"'On the Cumberland-Hoke line,' he said, 'there are subdivisions that have got hundreds of houses. And in one of them, they didn’t have one sold. But there’s a hell of a lot of houses out there. More houses than I’d be wanting to sit on.'"

"Developer Watson Caviness, who has been in business for 12 years in the Fayetteville area, blamed the media for giving the local housing market a bad rap of late. Reports of a bad market, he said, have been exaggerated."

"'It certainly is slow. It certainly is off,' he said. 'I have seen a lot of indicators that the fall could be a good market.'"

"Builder Loyd Landry said 200 to 300 builders can be found within 60 miles of Fayetteville. 'And that’s what’s killing the market,' he said. There’s an 11-month surplus of some homes that sell within the same price range, he said."

"Richardson said his company is not building homes during this weak market stretch. 'I think it’s overbuilt right now,' he said. 'It’s a cycle around here. Only this time, they’ve overbuilt more than in the past.'"