Keepmecurrent reports from Maine. "Maine’s cooler real estate market hasn’t just delayed Corey Center’s plans for selling her cozy South Portland bungalow for a larger Scarborough home. 'The nuptials are on hold,' said Center, whose two-story house has sat on the market for nearly a year. 'I don’t want to be married and living without my new husband.'"

"'I’ve had a few offers but they were so low, they were ridiculous,' said Center, who has dropped her asking price from $270,000 to $249,900 for the three-bedroom, one-bath home. The new price is only slightly higher than her property valuation."

"'It’s crazy. I couldn’t go any lower,' Center said. 'I completely rejected two offers and countered one but never heard back.'"

"'This is a natural correction,' said veteran broker Adrienne Murphy. 'The prices have been skyrocketing for the last four or five years.'"

The Boston Herald from Massachusetts. "The number of Bay State homes falling into foreclosure is running at nearly double the pace seen a year ago, new figures show."

"Market tracker the Warren Group reported yesterday that lenders initiated foreclosure cases against 1,986 Massachusetts homes during August’s first three weeks. That’s up 90 percent from the 1,045 filings recorded during the same period last year."

"'Foreclosures are still rolling along, and I think (the problem is) going to keep going,' Warren CEO Tim Warren said."

The Boston Globe from Massachusetts. "'It is important to note that while auction announcements rose 52 percent in August when compared to August 2006, they are up 259.7 percent over the number of announcements in August 2005,' Warren said in a statement."

"Developers of the Skyline Condominiums at Station Landing, the 127-unit development in Medford, will auction off unsold condominiums in the project on Nov. 11."

"Skyline Condominiums has sold 42 units, or one-third of the total, in the project, which officially opened this summer but was on the market prior to that, said Robert Cole, president of a marketing firm that handling the auction."

"'We're in a buyer's market now, and we really do believe the auctions, where buyers determine the price, are the best way to move product,' Cole said."

"Bids will start at $535,000, for example, for a 12th floor penthouse, and at $275,000 for a one-bedroom on a middling floor. 'That price point is soft in this market,' said Cole."

The Daily News from Massachusetts. "It's not a seller's market, a buyer's market, a lender's market, or anybody's market, according to the Greater Boston Housing Report Card, released today."

"Hesitation and anticipation of what kind of curveball a turbulent housing market will throw next has everyone waiting in limbo, according to the report from."

"'It's difficult times all-around,' said Bonnie Heudorfer, co-author of the The Boston Foundation fifth annual report. 'We've been calling it a housing conundrum. Homeowners and landlords are worried about property values, and at the same time affordability has improved only moderately after a long runup in prices.'"

"'It's kind of a standoff,' Heudorfer said. 'Anyone who doesn't have to sell keeps unrealistically high prices or pulls (their house) off the market. Home buyers have a lot more to choose from, but they're waiting, anticipating that prices are going to drop even more.'"

"'(Housing) prices have come down but the inventory is starting to really pile up because buyers are nervous about purchasing right now or they are not able as easily to obtain a mortgage,' said state Rep. Pam Richardson."

"'It's sort of a perfect storm in the housing market right now,' said Richardson, a former real estate agent. 'There's still a pocket of people that even though the prices have come down they still cannot afford to buy a house in the MetroWest area.'"

The Times Herald Record from New York. "There are motivated sellers, and then there's Rich Romash. A real-estate investor from Putnam County, Romash is determined to sell a house he owns in the Town of Wallkill by the end of the week."

"The highest offer he's received by Sunday evening will get the house, assuming the buyer jumps through all the usual financial hoops. 'It's gonna be a great deal for somebody,' said Romash, who still hopes to turn a profit himself."

"'The buyer pool has not dried up. Their level of urgency has dried up,' said Orange County broker Chris Scibelli. 'If they don't have to buy, they'll wait it out, and the price will be different.'"

"With more than 3,300 single-family homes on the market in Orange County — about twice as many as there were just a few years ago — buyers have plenty to choose from, and little incentive to settle on a house they aren't entirely happy with."

Newsday reports from New York. "The Long Island housing market appears to have taken another hit. The MLS of Long Island said Thursday that the median closing price of a home on the Island plunged 4.5 percent in September from a year earlier. And 30 percent fewer contracts were written on houses last month compared to September 2006. The median closing price also fell in Queens."

"Statistics show that inventory has remained..'around the 36,000 mark,' according to a MLSLI press release (the exact number for September was not released), but real estate experts said that 'tighter' mortgage standards are keeping would-be home buyers out of the market."

"Robert Campbell, professor of real estate finance at Hofstra University, said he was surprised by the extent of the drop in median price and predicted that it would take another year for the market to turn around."

"'It's bigger than I expected, and it's not going to help the foreclosure problems that we have,' Campbell said. 'People that bought houses last year with those 100 percent loans that were easier to get last year now own properties that are worth less than the mortgage.'"

"'I think we are in that transitory period where the buyers are looking for a great advantage and the sellers are looking for yesterday's prices,' said Richard B. Arnold, a partner in Richard B. Arnold Real Estate in Sea Cliff. 'Until we can get them to meet, it's going to be this way.'"

"Like house hunters, even some real estate investors have stopped buying foreclosures."

"That's what some local experts said Thursday as RealtyTrac reported a 27.4-percent jump in Nassau's foreclosure-related filings from the second to third quarter while Suffolk's was up 14.4 percent."

"'The investors are not even buying the foreclosures' at auction, said Mineola real estate attorney Michele Messina, who represents lenders on foreclosed homes. 'They're watching and waiting. If they're purchasing something at auction, two or three months down the road, those prices are dropping again.'"

"In the last six weeks, Messina said, she has had two cases of prospective buyers walking away from their down payments, it's the first time in 22 years that anyone has done that in her experience, even when the funds required by lenders range from $5,000 to $10,000."

"'They can get another home or another condo or townhouse for $20,000 or $30,000 less than what they entered into two months ago,' she said. 'Maybe the next property...was even better equipped, updated, newer kitchen, newer this, newer that, for $30,000 under the value that she already was in contract for. She's walking away from 10, but she made 20.'"

"For-sale listings of foreclosures for broker Mike Carroll has increased many fold since the market began slowing early last year. He now has 40 to 60 foreclosure listings."

"'We haven't seen this amount of foreclosures probably since 1993,' said Carroll, who has three Re/Max Best offices on Long Island and also works as an auctioneer of foreclosed homes."

The Courier Post from New Jersey. "More and more New Jerseyans are saying good-bye to the Garden State, and other Americans aren't eager to take their place, according to a Rutgers University study."

"The trend is a symptom of New Jersey's high housing costs and taxes, and more robust job growth elsewhere, the report said. Between 2000 and 2005, it said, one in eight residents left the state. In 2006, 72,547 more U.S. residents left New Jersey than moved in."

"'New Jersey's become a very, very, extraordinarily expensive place to live,' said James W. Hughes, dean of Rutgers' Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and co-author of the report."

"Families looking to move to New Jersey may be stunned by housing prices here. The median cost for homeowners with a mortgage in New Jersey is 52 percent higher than the national average, Hughes said."

"'The problem is sticker shock. If you're coming from North Carolina and have a nice house for $300,000, that'll buy you a shoe box in New Jersey,' Hughes said."

The Gloucester County Times. "The new data showed that in the last six years, nearly 1.1 million people moved out of New Jersey; one in every eight state residents. Over the same period, 883,405 moved in."

"'That's starting to have significant effects,' Hughes said."

"The difference cost the state an estimated $10 billion in personal income and $680 million in state tax revenues between 2000 and 2006, the report found."

"Rutgers' Professor Joseph J. Seneca and Hughes also concluded that the migration could slow in the near future as a result of the current slump in the housing market."