The Telegram reports from Massachusetts. "Foreclosures more than doubled in Massachusetts in 2007, according to The Warren Group. There were 7,653 foreclosure deeds in 2007, up 148 percent from the 3,086 in 2006, and up 600 percent from 1,092 in 2005. For those who purchased homes at the peak of the housing bubble, they may owe more than what the home is currently worth. And some of those who refinanced to cash out some equity added to their mortgage debt."

"Heather and Richard DiStefano have not been able to convince their lender to accept a short sale offer of $240,000. They fell behind in mortgage payments for a home they purchased for $306,500 in 2006 in Worcester. After putting $30,000 down, their adjustable-rate, interest-only mortgage went from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent over two years."

"Their monthly payments rose from $1,300 a month to over $3,000, not including tax escrow, Ms. DiStefano said. 'I haven’t paid (a mortgage payment) since August,' she said. 'There’s also outstanding taxes and water bills. I can’t pay $3,000 a month. We are so far behind the eight ball. It’s horrible.'"

"The couple filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation and their other debts were forgiven. Earlier attempts to refinance were unsuccessful because the couple had paid only interest on the loan and not any principal, and thus had not built any equity in the property, she said."

"The adjustable rate mortgage was not well suited to her family’s finances, which are now depleted, including the couple’s retirement and savings accounts, she said. Calls to mortgage hot lines and others promising help have been to no avail, she said."

"'I would rather him tell me I couldn’t afford the house,' she said of her former mortgage broker. 'I gave the house key to my Realtor. I packed up my life and left. It seems like there’s no one out there that can help us.'"

"The DiStefanos and their 9-year-old son now rent an apartment in the city, she said."

The Milford Daily News from Massachusetts. "When Ramon Gallo bought a $300,000 home in Westborough in late 2006, he thought he had achieved his dream. Sixteen months later, Gallo, who signed for an adjustable-rate mortgage, has fallen behind on his payments and fears he may soon live a foreclosure nightmare."

"Gallo who came from Mexico five years ago, is part of a wave of immigrant homeowners who have been hit hard by the national foreclosure epidemic. Many immigrants bought homes during the boom market five years ago, taking advantage of adjustable-rate mortgages, which made it easy at first glance to buy properties."

"Of 10 houses sold to immigrants in Massachusetts, three were purchased by Brazilians, according to a report published last year by the Boston Redevelopment Authority."

"Gallo said he was surprised when the bank told him he was going to pay much more than he expected. 'Nobody told me I had to pay for insurance, property taxes,' said Gallo, who saw his bill go from $2,100 to $2,900. 'I feel trapped. I know the bank can take my house.'"

"'They bought houses at high prices,' said real estate agent Argentina Arias, whose clients include Latinos and Brazilians. 'Many were not explained what it involved, some who were told maybe didn't understand, and others didn't ask. People wanted to live the American dream.'"

"In many cases, mortgage specialist Ana Delgado said, immigrants were easy prey for brokers, some of whom were immigrants as well. 'Unfortunately, immigrants don't help each other,' said Delgado, who hails from West Africa. 'Some immigrants take advantage of each other.'"

"In Waltham, mortgage broker Carlos Linera, whose clientele is mostly Hispanic, agrees. 'From what I've seen, many have been taken for a ride,' said Linera."

"Not only were consumers blinded by the enthusiasm driven by banks, brokers and mortgage lenders in the midst of the housing boom, they also rushed to buy houses hoping to make money, said Brazilian-American real estate agent John Dias."

"Frustrated by their losses, some have stripped their foreclosed homes of anything they could take, said several real estate agents."

"As for Gallo, he plans to hold onto his property, where he lives with his wife and their two children. To make more money to help pay the bills, Gallo found a job managing a Mexican restaurant in Bedford, N.H. He spent $40,000 remodeling the house, but with the real estate bust, he knows he won't be able to sell his home for the price he paid. Still, that loss is better than foreclosure, he said."

"'I cannot cry, I cannot back down,' he said. 'With God's help, I'll carry on and keep my house.'"

The Berkshire Eagle from Massachusetts. "No question, the market favors buyers now, according to Bob Romeo, whose Century 21 Franklin Street firm has 55 agents staffing offices in Pittsfield, Lenox, Great Barrington and Otis as well as Easthampton in the Pioneer Valley."

"In a recent interview, he pointed out that, from 2002 to 2005, a wave of buyers outnumbered sellers, and 'that created a frenzy.'"

"Romeo recommends a reality check for unsold realty — 'many sellers have set a pace that may not be realistic. We have no shortage of overpriced properties.'"

"Although the number of transactions is 'substantially less than in 2005, it's a decent number,' said Romeo, acknowledging that 'the only part that is a little disturbing is that median and average prices are higher than a few years ago. That tends to give sellers the idea that if a property was worth $300,000 in 2005, then it's worth $375,000 now, when it may actually may be $275,000.'"

"There are about 40 properties in various stages of foreclosure countywide this month, compared with about 25 last February, according to online databases."

"Romeo, whose firm has a department handling foreclosed properties, finds it disturbing that some of those homes are overvalued, compared with city and town assessments, and he bemoans the widespread practice of 'remortgaging our houses to pay down credit-card debt or to take a cruise. It becomes a big problem when you reach retirement age and you still have a mortgage without the income to support it.'"

"'Taking out home-equity loans is the most damaging bullet for homeowners today,' he said."

"'A person who has a son or daughter living in Lenox cannot expect them to live here once they're out of school because we don't have the careers or salaries that would support a $300,000 or $400,000 home,' according to Romeo. 'Our biggest problem for a local is that we do not have the industrial base to generate salaries necessary to support these kinds of properties.'"

The Salem News from Massachusetts. "Even in the midst of a historic collapse in prices, there is a vast difference in what your dollar will buy, taking you from big to bigger to biggest. 'Homes (in Marblehead) that would have sold in the mid- to high fours ($400,000), now they're selling in the low fours,' said Byrce Suydam, who represents Re/Max in Marblehead."

"'A year and a half ago, you couldn't get into Marblehead for that,' Suydam says. Now you might just squeak by, landing 'a two- to three-bedroom house in need of work.'"

"Size and amenities, the kind seen at Strongwater Crossing, are often sacrificed for investment value, schools and other intangibles. And that's notwithstanding what agent Annelie Sirois in Danvers has discovered. 'The first question people ask me in this market: How big a steal can I get?'"

"It's the wrong attitude, she said. 'Because it's not about stealing. It's about paying for a house what it's worth.'"

The Herald Mail from Maryland. "No one knows why the house that’s the grand prize in a raffle to benefit a Washington County charity didn’t sell in all the time it was on the market, begging for an offer."

"But for the moment, San Mar Children’s Home is on the hook to pay at least $40,100 more than anyone else would. 'How that was set? Why it was marketed at $349 (thousand)? Why did it come in at $390 (thousand)? I don’t question any malfeasance there. I just don’t understand,' Bruce Anderson said."

"'It’s a lot of extra tickets we’ve got to sell' to pay the higher price, he said."

"With four bedrooms, three baths and a great room with a stone fireplace, the house and its 3.2-acre property became the raffle’s grand prize after it had been on the market for 16 months."

"Blaming the nation’s ongoing housing crisis, the owners and their Realtor teamed up with San Mar, which cares for 41 girls near Boonsboro, after reading about a similar raffle out West. The charity is to reap any money raised after it pays for the house and other prizes."

"Built in 1929, the house was sold as a fixer-upper in 2005 for $185,000 to a company that remodeled it and sold it to Karen Crawford and her husband, Dennis Kelly, for $375,000 in April 2006."

"Wanting to retire, the couple realized too late that the two-story house wasn’t for them. So the very next month, they put it back on the market for $384,900, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc."

"By then, the market had begun to sour, and there began nearly a year and a half of price drops as no one made any offers to buy the property."

"Finally, with still no offers coming in, the price was cut again to $349,900, with 'OFFERS WELCOME!!' That’s where it was on Sept. 2, 2007, when real estate agent Charles Angle’s contract expired. Five days later, MRIS records show, Realtor Cynthia Moler of Coldwell Banker, listed the property at $425,000."

"And just five days after that — on Sept. 12, 2007 — appraiser James M. Wise in Hagerstown, issued an appraisal report, valuing the property at $390,000."

"Angle, a Realtor for nearly 30 years, said 'absolutely' he was surprised when he saw that Moler had listed the house at $425,000. 'We’d been marketing the property all the time with exposure and with showings. Nobody wanted to write on it at $349,900 — and then, hello?' he said about seeing Moler’s price."

The Washington Post. "In one brief phone call, Nancy Corazzi's lender yanked away what was left of the $95,000 home equity line of credit that she and her husband took out five months ago."

"The lender informed her that her Howard County home had plummeted in value and the company did not want the risk that she would owe more than the house was worth."

"'I got off the phone and I was shaking,' said Corazzi, who was using the money to pay preschool tuition for her twins. 'I was near tears. We needed this credit line to get us through some tough times.'"

"As it soared, the region's housing market lifted the fortunes not just of home builders and real estate agents but also of those in less-obvious niches: termite inspectors, land surveyors and septic tank repairmen among them."

"Life was good for Terry Croson, who as a title abstractor scours courthouses for detailed land records that are needed to close a sale. But Croson, who is single and raising her 6-year-old nephew, now finds herself living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to hold onto her home in Charles County. She said she made $30,000 abstracting last year, down from $47,000 in 2005."

"'I've never seen it this bad,' said Croson, who has been in the business for 30 years."

"'We're talking about hundreds of thousands of employees,' said Anirban Basu, CEO of a prominent economic research company. 'There's tremendous pain and uncertainty out there,' he said, estimating that at least 10 percent of the region's economic activity is linked to residential real estate."

"Compared with January of last year, housing sales were down 47 percent last month in Northern Virginia, 41 percent in Maryland and 38 percent in the District, according to Realtor groups."

"In 2000, Croson bought a $155,000 home in a wooded enclave 30 miles southeast of the District. As interest rates fell, and the value of the house rose, she refinanced twice, exchanging some of the equity for cash."

"She spent $4,000 fixing the backyard pool. She took her nephew, Toby, of whom she has legal custody, on week-long trips to the beach. She dropped $250 for his fourth birthday party, which featured a private reptile exhibitor regaling Toby and his friends with a small crocodile and an 18-foot boa constrictor."

"By 2005, Croson had found other ways to cash in on the boom, and she was working on the side as a real estate agent. She said she made about $13,000 in commissions, bringing her total income that year to $60,000."

"The next year, Croson and fellow abstractors took note of how quickly activity slowed. Some started losing their jobs. Croson held on, but she began to work fewer hours, and her work as a real estate agent dried up."

"No more dinners for Toby at Chuck E. Cheese's. She dropped her health insurance and her life insurance. She recently spent $400 after a heater in her home broke and another $100 at Wal-Mart for a vacuum cleaner after her old one broke, draining her savings to near zero."

"At home, Croson finds herself deflecting questions from Toby about their reduced spending. A new video game at Target? 'You just had Christmas, for goodness sake,' she told him."

"Croson said that if she can't refinance to reduce her monthly mortgage payments, she will have to sell her house. Doing so might mean pulling Toby out of a prized public school, away from his friends, and would go against her overarching priority: making Toby feel secure."

"Not everyone is hurting. The Real Estate Disposition Corp. is scheduled next month for the first of four days of area auctions of more than 575 foreclosed homes in the District, Maryland and Virginia."

"'Somebody's got to be able to sell something somewhere, and right now that's us,' said Michael Schack, a senior VP of the company."

"On a recent day, outside a land records room in a courthouse in Calvert County, Croson exchanged pleasantries with Kathy Smith, head clerk of the Circuit Court. Smith said she was trying to hire a new clerk."

"'Do you know something we don't know?' Croson joked. 'Is 2009 going to be a good year?' Not exactly. 'I have one foreclosure clerk,' Smith said, 'and she's bombarded.'"