The report from the Washington Post. "A growing number of condominium developers are backing out of projects as the worsening real estate market causes lenders to tighten their standards. In the past 12 months, nearly 20,000 condo units have been removed from the glutted local development pipeline, said Gregory H. Leisch, CEO of Delta Assoc. in Alexandria."

"By Delta's count, in the second quarter of this year, developers abandoned plans for 22 local condo projects."

"During the real estate boom that ended two years ago, developers could get loans even if they presold only one-quarter of their units, said Peter Antonoplos, a real estate lawyer. But then sales slowed drastically, and many would-be buyers cancelled their contracts."

"Now lenders are asking that 50 percent or more of the units be sold before construction, he said. Others want the developers to contribute more of their own money. 'Institutional lenders don't have the appetite for condo properties that are going to sit around and present a credit risk,' Antonoplos said."

"At Vaughan Place in Northwest Washington, the developers sold 186 units to individual buyers, then sold the remaining 388 to a New York rental company in April."

"That has rattled some of the owners. 'I have very mixed feelings about it. In terms of my day-to-day living here, it's extremely pleasant,' said Patricia Kenworthy, who bought her condo at Vaughan Place in April 2006. 'In terms of thinking if I had to sell for some reason, it's very scary.'"

"Joy Siegel, a Bethesda lawyer who handles home-sale closings, uses a spreadsheet to track which mortgage lenders are filing for bankruptcy protection these days."

"'It's getting incredibly nerve-wracking for us,' said Siegel, president of Settlement Pros. 'There are banks I haven't even heard of, pages and pages of them, who have stopped making loans.'"

"Letters from lenders approving loans 'used to be a reason to exhale, a reason to believe that a deal is done,' said Leisa Hart, an agent with Long & Foster Real Estate. 'We no longer have reason to exhale until we've gotten to the settlement table and until that loan has been fully funded.'"

"Eric Iversen learned that the hard way. Half an hour before he and his wife, Catherine, were scheduled to settle on a house in Bethesda, their loan officer at American Home Mortgage informed them that the company would no longer fund any loans, including theirs."

"'I was driving, talking on the phone on the Beltway, trying to keep the car going in one direction,' Iversen said. 'My wife was next to me with this stricken look on her face, especially when she heard me say: 'Should we turn around and go home?'"

The Baltimore Sun from Maryland. "Maryland's housing market took a beating in the spring selling season, recording one of the biggest drops in sales in the nation. Homeowners in the state sold 21.1 percent fewer homes during the second quarter than they did a year earlier, the National Association of Realtors said yesterday."

"'All of us were on a nice bubble, and everybody was waiting for that bubble to fizzle,' said Thomas C. Shaner, executive director of the Maryland Association of Mortgage Brokers. 'Well, it popped.'"

"Maryland home prices doubled from 2000 to 2005, an unusually big gain even for the U.S. boom years. Incomes didn't rise nearly as fast. With half the homes now selling for more than $325,000, some would-be buyers just can't make the numbers work."

"'Affordability has been eroded,' said Celia Chen, director of housing economics for Moody's Economy.com. 'If prices are not falling off, that's going to constrain sales. Conditions can easily become much worse than we expect because of all the issues arising right now in the mortgage markets and financial markets.'"

"Builders say the credit crunch is causing problems not only for borrowers with shaky credit but also for prospective buyers who need 'jumbo' loans of more than $417,000. It's hardly helpful for expensive markets such as Howard County. Nearly half the existing homes in Howard are selling for more than that price, let alone the big new homes."

"'That's a scary thought,' said Pat Hiban, an associate broker in Ellicott City."

The Times Community from Virginia. "You go to the settlement, sign the papers, and are informed that your check from the sale will be given to you in a couple of days. It all sounds so normal. But life these days in the housing market is anything but normal, as people in the area are discovering."

"'People are closing loans, but then the mortgage company may not be able to sell it. They have three days to back out, and some of them are,' according to Valerie Frank, president of Preservation Mortgage in Old Town Warrenton. 'You could close today, and the money might not be there, even though the borrowers have the loan rate locked. That's the state of the market today.'"

"'You used to be able to get a mortgage without the company even checking what your income was,' she said. 'I talked with a lender today, and she said that she had seven loan applications that her company was working on. Normally they would have 50 to 75. A senior underwriter can process three to four a day, so you can see that the business is really slowing up.'"

"There were just seven foreclosures here in the last half of 2006. In the first half of 2007, 48 other properties were sold on the courthouse steps. 'I understand that there were 900 foreclosures in Prince William County last month,' Frank said."

The Daily Times from Delaware. "As 'for sale' signs continue to line Wicomico County home lawns and condo windows faster than they can be removed, residential builders have changed the county's construction machine mantra to a wait-and-see approach."

"At the end of July, the number of active inventory listings jumped to nearly 800, or double the amount on the market in January 2006, the Lower Shore-based Coastal Association of Realtors reports. In the last 12 months, there has been more than a 35 percent increase in listings, and sales are down 6 percent."

"This housing downturn translates into less revenue for the county. 'For certain, the county is going to collect less money,' said Tom Ruark, president of Salisbury-based Thomas H. Ruark Builders. 'There is substantially less construction than anybody anticipated.'"

The New Jersey Herald. "Standing five stories high at the center of the county seat, the Aberlour building is now opening its doors to a new breed of home buyers in Sussex County: the single professionals."

"Now that all of its age restrictions have been removed, the 45-unit condominium complex has dropped its starting prices and revamped its marketing campaign to attract a younger professional crowd looking for a more affordable place to live."

"The starting price has been decreased from $299,900 to the low $200,000 range for about six of the units. 'We want that building to be successful. We don't want an empty building,' Newton Community Development Director Debra Millikin said. 'It shows there's not as much of a need as everybody thought for age-restricted housing.'"

"With lower prices on some units, Aberlour might be able to attract single professionals who can no longer afford to live in Bergen, Morris and other nearby counties, said Deb Cleary, the new head of marketing for Aberlour. 'Everywhere in New Jersey, builders have to adjust prices if they want to maintain velocity in the sales. If I'm going to come out there (to Sussex County), it's got to be a deal.'"

The Jersey Journal from New Jersey. "The allure of home ownership in Hudson County has charmed thousands of residents to try their hand at the risky practice of subprime borrowing."

"The controversial practice helped boost home ownership to all-time highs in the United States, but it's now aiding the so-called crash of the real estate market nationwide as these same borrowers find themselves in over their heads and defaulting on their loans."

"'We are seeing a tremendous increase of people in foreclosure,' said Jeannie Seeliger, a bankruptcy attorney with roughly 20 years of experience in Jersey City. 'There are a number of people who simply can't afford it and they have given up.'"

"Seeliger told me about one of her clients, a woman who purchased her first home when she moved from New York to Jersey City. The woman walked into a realtor's office and was enticed to buy after the salesman talked up the benefits of buying a two-family home instead of renting."

"The pitch was attractive. The loan required no money down, and she could rent out the second unit to help pay off the $2,500-a-month mortgage, while accruing equity in a hot market along the way."

"Then the proverbial floor fell out from under her feet, Seeliger told me. 'The place was much harder to rent than she had hoped and the house needed repairs,' Seeliger said. 'Then the rate increased by 3 percent and it became unsustainable.'"

"The woman is currently filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy."

From Newsday in New York. "Foreclosure rates in Suffolk soared in the first half of 2007, a new study has shown. There were 2,993 properties in Suffolk with at least one foreclosure notice, up 65 percent from the same period a year ago, according to RealtyTrac."

"One reason Suffolk may be experiencing a jump in foreclosures is because there are more first-time homebuyers purchasing homes there."

"Queens, meanwhile, has 3,901 homes in foreclosure, up 49 percent from the second half of 2006 and up 183 percent from the same period a year ago."

"The Community Development Corp. of Long Island has been swamped with area homeowners in trouble this year, said Eileen Anderson. Between the middle of May and the end of July, the organization fielded 166 calls, a tenfold increase from the same period a year ago."

"'We are getting inundated with phone calls,' Anderson said. 'I don't see this diminishing. This is just the tip of the iceberg.'"

"Homeowners who still have their hearts set on boom-time prices may be in trouble, Long Island real estate agents say. Monthly sales numbers show the median price for July contracts was as low as 70 percent of the median price for all properties for sale, according to July data from the MLS of Long Island."

"MLS divides Long Island and Queens into 16 zones, so consider zone 3, which covers about 60 communities, including Muttontown, Centre Island, New Cassel and parts of Hicksville. Out of 309 contracts signed in July, $630,000 was the median price, or 81 percent of the $779,000 median list price of all homes for sale in that zone."

"MLS began comparing inventory prices to contract prices last fall, after buyers began refusing to participate in bidding wars and upping offers to more than 100 percent of list prices."

"Emmett Laffey, CEO of the Greenvale-based Laffey Associates real estate firm, said he sees a lot of limitations in those comparisons but said the numbers have some value in revealing a trend. 'That means the marketplace has a ton of overpriced houses,' Laffey said."

"There's no question that the number of homes for sale is up, a market bellwether. There were 36,185 homes for sale in July, up from 33,724 a year ago."

"'Two years ago, buyers were willing to overpay,' said Don Scanlon, president of the MLS of Long Island and broker in Wantagh. 'Today, they're not.'"