The Times Union reports from New York. "If demand for a product drops, then prices being paid for it fall, too. That's Economics 101. Yet in the Capital Region, the number of homes sold in the last six months has declined significantly, but the median price being paid for those homes has not decreased, at least in most areas."

"Salvatore Prividera, spokesman for the New York State Association of Realtors, pointed out that lenders, spooked by problems in the subprime mortgage market, have become less willing to offer loans to potential borrowers with shaky credit or low incomes."

"The effect of that, he said, is that fewer really cheap homes are being sold, which has an effect on the overall median price. It keeps prices higher."

"It's also possible people are using the declining market as a way to buy slightly larger homes than they previously would have been able to afford. That, too, would keep the median price from dropping."

"To be sure, prices have fallen in some areas of the Capital Region: Saratoga County, home to the area's most expensive housing, on average, saw a 5 percent drop in the median sale price in the first half, to $250,000. At the same time, the number of homes sold dropped 15 percent."

"'There's price adjustment in the Saratoga market much more so than in the Albany market,' aid Douglas Engels, GCAR president. 'That's the free market bringing things back in line.'"

"An increase sometimes can be a decrease. The 1 percent year-to-year median price increase in Rensselaer County, for example, is below the rate of inflation. That means, in real dollars, home prices in Rensselaer County have fallen."

"And they may continue to fall. Many observers don't expect the Capital Region's trend of slackening home sales to end soon. 'I think the market will continue to slow for the rest of the year,' Engels said. 'Not by any means are we going to turn this around in August and September.'"

The New York Daily News. "America's mortgage meltdown is a national scandal, with dozens of mortgage companies going belly up and millions of families now at high risk of losing their homes to foreclosure."

"Edward Jordan...was talked into refinancing his home to cover a money shortfall - only to discover that the initial 1% rate changed to 8% after just two months, increasing his monthly payments from $1,347 to more than $2,600."

"In New York City, there were just under 7,000 notices of foreclosure filed in 2005, a number that jumped to 9,000 last year. This year, the number is well on its way to surpassing 14,000, according to Sarah Ludwig, executive director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project."

"'It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In the last quarter of 2007, all hell is going to break loose,' says Ludwig, noting that a lot of risky loans are set to be repriced upward starting in October."

The Queens Courier from New York. "Queens residents, especially those in the southeast portion of the borough, continue to suffer from a record-high number of foreclosures, primarily because of subprime mortgages."

"City Comptroller William Thompson established a Foreclosure Prevention Hotline in April of this year, and already the number has received more than 1,200 calls from throughout the city, state and even some from other parts of the country."

"Thompson's office said that nearly 45 percent of the calls to the hotline have come from Queens residents, and many foreclosure incidents involve subprime loans."

The Cape Cod Times from Massachusetts. "Foreclosures on the Cape spiked to a 13-year high last month, with 35 such transactions filed at the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds."

"'There was a bad foreclosure period about 15 years ago and I don't think it was as bad as this one,' said Rick Presbrey, chief executive of the Hyannis-based Housing Assistance Corp."

"This year, 138 foreclosures were completed in the first seven months, an increase of more than 260 percent when compared with the same period of 2006."

"Through the first six months of 2007, the number of auction announcements in the state has increased more quickly than the number of petitions, a phenomenon that could mean fewer homeowners are escaping foreclosure once the process has begun, according to Timothy Warren, CEO of The Warren Group."

"'If this trend continues unabated, it will certainly have an increasing effect on the housing market at large,' Warren said."

"The number of petitions to foreclose filed on the Cape between January and June this year increased by 76 percent when compared with the same period of 2006, according to numbers released this week by The Warren Group. However, the number of auction announcements went up nearly 190 percent in the same span."

"The high number of low-priced foreclosure sales has contributed to a drop in real estate prices, said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of a community development group in Boston."

"However, rising interest rates mean that housing is still unaffordable for many prospective buyers. 'Prices have dropped, but not enough to make it affordable for many working families,' Gornstein said. 'But it has allowed some people to buy a home where they wouldn't be able to do so two years ago.'"

The Boston Globe from Massachusetts. "Advertisements for foreclosure auctions continued to rise in June. There were 1,322 such announcements of sales of foreclosed homes in newspapers across Massachusetts in June, up from 719 in June 2006."

"For the year through June, foreclosures are nearly three times higher than last year: 7,539 so far this year, up from 2,797 in the first six months of 2006, according to The Warren Group."

"'Petitions to foreclose and auction announcements are still rising at staggering rates,' said Timothy Warren Jr., chief executive. 'Nearly every county in the state is being hit hard by this trend,' he said."

"After spending nearly a year shopping for a larger home to replace their Brookline condo, Nicole and Kevin Forrest came to a surprising conclusion about where they should consider living next: a rental unit."

"'Given the current housing market, it's not that crazy of an idea to rent as opposed to buy,' Kevin Forrest said."

"Real estate analysts said the tepid housing market is responsible. Two reports released last week showed that home sales in Massachusetts dropped as much as 8 percent in June, with prices also falling."

"The housing market's uncertainty, particularly the many forecasts that predict sales will weaken for possibly another year, has kept many would-be buyers on the sidelines: They don't want to buy a house today that will be worth less in a year."

"'No one's giving away automobiles to rent their apartments,' cracked Robert Imperato, president of Boston Realty Associates, which manages 500 units in the Boston area."

"These days, newcomers to town are doing something practically unheard of in recent years, renting in neighborhoods where they hope to eventually own, in order to keep an eye on the market for a year or two."

"'When the sales market was hot, they tended to buy right then and there,' said Nancy McCreary, manager of the Hammond Residential GMAC Real Estate headquarters in Brookline. 'They felt confident they could turn right around and sell it if it didn't work out.'"

"But now those folks are not sure where the bottom of the housing market is and they don't want to stretch to pay a mortgage on a property that might not appreciate, said Sam Chandan, chief economist for the New York-based real estate research firm Reis Inc."

"A few years ago, 'people might have said to themselves, I really do need to buy right now,' Chandan said. 'The urgency has dissipated significantly.'"

"Newton landlords Cathy and Lenny Nyren realized that they needed to renovate the kitchen of their brick duplex when the previous tenant left a couple months ago. They spent $8,500 gutting the kitchen, putting in new cabinets, countertops and composite floors."

"Even so, they didn't think they could justify raising the $1,580 rent on the two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. 'We wanted to keep it competitive and get it rented,' Lenny said."

"Looking online at craigslist, the couple noticed apartments were taking a while to rent. 'Places weren't going as quickly as they were five years ago,' Cathy said. 'I think people expect more than they did before.'"