The Times News reports from North Carolina. "Hendersonville's downtown condominium market may be a casualty of a nationwide housing slump as several upscale condominium complexes announced over the past two years have stalled. The condominiums were all proposed for downtown when the housing market here was hot. 'Obviously, the real estate market has slowed down,' said Ed Hernando, who has proposed two downtown condo projects. 'That's kind of what has affected us slightly because people can't sell their homes and move into this market.'"

"'Buyers are on the sidelines waiting for sellers to reduce their prices so they can get better deals,' he said.'"

From WJZ.com in Maryland. "Seventy houses in Baltimore City are foreclosed every week. 'It seems as though the American dream has now become the American nightmare,' said Baltimore resident Joanna Smith-Ramani. 'With the market going soft, you can't sell to get out anymore, so you're stuck with this mortgage and this house you really could never afford to begin with.'"

"The leading cause of foreclosures are adjustable-rate mortgages adjusting so high that some Marylanders find they can't make the payments. 'It's scary to think what will happen. The ultimate thing that will happen is foreclosure; they will drag me from my house bloody and screaming before I give up,' said homeowner Ray Dawkins."

"The investors who bought properties to make money are caught up in the bust as well. They make up a third of the foreclosures in Baltimore."

The Herald Mail in Maryland. "When Donald Shumaker II refinanced his home in 2004, he knew the interest rate would stay the same for three years, after which it would become adjustable. But he didn’t expect what happened."

"'I was paying $910 a month,' he said. In one month, the rate went from 7 1/4 percent to 10 1/4 percent, or $1,375 a month." "'Then, they sent me another letter, and my mortgage went up to $1,540,' Schumaker said. 'I’d have to have three jobs and no time with my family,' he said."

"Last Tuesday, less than 24 hours before his home was to be sold in a foreclosure auction on the steps of the Washington County Courthouse, Shumaker’s attorney filed on his behalf for bankruptcy protection."

"'I guess it’s my only option,' Shumaker said. 'I’m just going to have to go under, and that’s a sad thing to say.'"

"In the past 12 months, a total of 516 foreclosure notices have been filed at the courthouse. By comparison, 294 were filed during the same period in 2005 through 2006."

"'I’m seeing a significant increase. I’ve never seen it this bad. I’ve been doing it over 30 years,' said William O’Brien, a Martinsburg, W.Va., attorney who handles such cases in West Virginia and Maryland. The number of resulting bankruptcies is 'going completely crazy,' he said."

"A major problem, several attorneys and a local mortgage broker agreed, is that, like Shumaker, many borrowers don’t know what is in the loan agreements they sign."

"Those agreements are '18 to 20 pages long, typically ... but nobody reads that stuff,' said a local mortgage broker, who didn’t want to be identified."

"Friday a week ago, it was becoming clear to Donald Shumaker what he would have to do. He had tried to refinance with another lender, but was refused. He thought about trying to sell the house, but realized the market is so depressed, he couldn’t get near what he owed."

"He had stopped trying to make payments to EMC because the debt was snowballing. Sale notices were published in the newspaper. The auction was to begin Wednesday."

"'More or less, they give me no choice,' Shumaker said."

"Tuesday afternoon, Hagerstown attorney Alex Bognar filed papers with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Greenbelt, Md., seeking bankruptcy protection for Shumaker."

The Philadelphia Inquirer from Pennsylvania. "Sales of existing homes in the eight-county Philadelphia region were down about 10 percent in the third quarter from the same period in 2006, data from HomExpert Market Report show."

"HomExpert's pending-sales index for August showed a substantial decrease in activity from July that was not unexpected. 'We had anticipated a decrease in the region's activity due to the heightened awareness of the credit crisis and mortgage availability,' said Steve Storti, senior VP of marketing for Prudential Fox & Roach."

"On the positive side, Lawrence Yun, senior economist for the National Association of Realtors, said, 'speculative excesses have been removed from the market, and prices remain near record highs, reflecting favorable mortgage rates and positive job gains.'"

"'All real estate is local,' he noted."

"Some local observers have questioned HomExpert's days-on-market averages, which in the third quarter ranged from 53 to 75. To 'freshen' a listing, they say, some agents and brokers remove houses from the MLS for a few days, then re-list them at lower prices, to give them the appearance of being new to the market."

"Tim Crann, a veteran appraiser who handles properties in the five Pennsylvania counties, said he has seen many examples of this 'resetting the DOM clock,' and believed that the actual days-on-market figure for many houses was much higher."

"Storti said he discussed the issue with the firm that analyzes data for HomExpert. 'Their analysis tells them that manipulation at the broker level of re-listing does not have a significant effect...on days on market,' he said. Some local Realtors agreed."

The Associated Press on Connecticut. "Mortgage defaults and foreclosures in Connecticut's cities have skyrocketed over the past year, a real estate tracking company has found. RealtyTrac said the number of foreclosures increased 547 percent in the New Haven-Milford area, 522 percent in the Bridgeport-Norwalk-Stamford region and 446 percent in the Hartford area in the first half of this year, compared with the same period in 2006."

"State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told the Connecticut Post that his office has been inundated with calls from homeowners seeking help."

"'We may be on the cusp of a huge wave breaking over Connecticut. People are very understandably upset,' Blumenthal said."

"U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn said he is focusing on who is being foreclosed upon and why. He said many subprime borrowers did not put any money down on their loans and 'never really owned a home in the first place.'"

"'I can't imagine helping people who should not have gotten a loan in the first place,' he said."

The New York Times. "In neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx hit hard by the subprime lending crisis, mortgages had the shortest of life spans, taking about a year to go from approval to notice of foreclosure, and many of those home loans were originated by the same few lenders, according to a report released yesterday by State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein."

"There were 19,729 foreclosure notices filed in New York City and Westchester and Nassau Counties from July 1, 2006, to July 31, 2007."

"In the Jamaica and South Jamaica sections of Queens, the average time from mortgage origination to notice of foreclosure was 11 months. In Wakefield and Baychester in the Bronx, it was 14 months, the report said."

"Jay Rosado said he and his wife, Ana, had been locked into two subprime mortgages from Fremont Investment and Loan on their Throgs Neck home. Their payment increased after two years by about $700, to $4,000 a month. After a long ordeal, the couple refinanced both loans at a lower, fixed interest rate."

"'It’s horrible what they’re doing to people,' Ana Rosado said of subprime lenders."

The New York Post. "State Sen. Jeff Klein yesterday released a 'Sub Prime Hall of Shame' report outside the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, naming the banks with the highest foreclosure rates in the city and Westchester County."

"'These banks grew rich off of defrauding the American Dream,' said Klein."

"According to Klein's report, the state's foreclosure rate for 2007 is on track to exceed last year's by a staggering 60 percent."

"Army Staff Sgt. Sandra Rolon came back from Iraq and hoped to have the American dream of owning her own home in The Bronx. Instead, the veteran has become one of an estimated 19,000 New Yorkers swept up in the collapse of the subprime mortgage market."

"'I feel suckered,' said Rolon, who's lost her house."