The Pocono Record reports from Pennsylvania. "Real estate appraiser Joseph C. Fisher and Realtor Eileen Chaladoff agree the Monroe County housing market didn't perform as well in 2007 as in 2006. Total county home sales last year — 2,876 — were down 38 percent from the 3,972 sales the previous year, according to a statistical analysis prepared by Fisher. The average 2007 home price — $182,889 — was about 10.5 percent below the $202,140 average for 2006."

"Though there were a record 1,253 county home foreclosure filings in 2007, Chaladoff, president of the Pocono Mountains Association of Realtors, said relatively few foreclosed homes were among the 2,341 homes sold by member Realtors. 'Our foreclosure rate is only 7.5 percent compared to total sales,' she said."

"She said the average size of last year's sold homes was a little smaller than the previous year. 'The big McMansions — they're sitting for awhile,' Chaladoff said."

"Fisher and Chaladoff both expect home prices to level off within the next few months. 'Now when they're selling they're going to make their profit, but they're not going to make a big profit like they used to,' Chaladoff said. 'The $100,000 profit is gone.'"

"Fisher points to a healthy mix of ranch homes, cabins, mobile homes and so-called McMansions in the Poconos. 'It's certainly not going to take a dive,' Fisher said. 'The market here is very different than in California, Nevada or Texas.'"

The Derrick from Pennsylvania. "Some real estate agents say 2007 was a good year, while others say it was sluggish. 'I do think that some people are coming here to retire because it's affordable and it's a slower pace,' said Joyce Woodard of Venango Real Estate."

"More and more, people from places like California, where housing is considerably more expensive, are finding homes in Venango County with lower prices. 'We get emails from people who want to buy five or six houses,' Woodard said. 'It's like pocket change to them.'"

"2007 was a sluggish year in Venango County overall, according to Rebecca Bloom of Wilson Real Estate. She blames the slump on the national news about foreclosures. 'People are afraid to buy houses because of the media,' she said."

"Although Cynthia Moon said 2007 was a good year at Gates & Burns Realty, she expects 2008 will be hard on new buyers. 'I think a lot of people this year are going to be squeezed out of the market. I don't think they're going to be able to get loans,' Moon said."

"In recent years, it has been easy for new buyers to get breaks when applying for loans, but that 'easy money led to a mortgage crisis,' according to Moon."

"In 2005, Realtors reported record sales of residential properties along the river. One of the priciest areas was Rockmere where homes were selling for $400,000 and $500,000, sometimes more."

"But now, a lot of riverfront residences are sitting empty and out-of-town owners who are hoping to sell these properties for high prices can't, Bloom said. 'I think people just don't have the extra funds right now,' she said."

The Philadelphia Inquirer from Pennsylvania. "Anthony and Lisa Grande's house stands out in their Levittown neighborhood. 'It's the big house,' Lisa said when giving directions."

"The Grandes borrowed more than $100,000 - much of it on credit cards - to double its size four years ago because they wanted enough room for their five children and did not want to move."

"But now, the Grandes are fighting to stay there, having repeatedly fallen behind on their mortgage payments, which climbed from $1,841 to $2,487."

"When they refinanced in January 2004 from a $113,906 fixed-rate mortgage into a $220,500 adjustable-rate mortgage to pay off credit-card and other debt, they were told - like millions of others - that they could refinance before the interest rate jumped."

"Then Anthony's health fell apart, his plans to start a business foundered, and another refinancing did not come through."

"'It seems like a black cloud pulled over and stayed there,' Anthony said during an interview last month, two days before he went into the hospital for the seventh operation in the last four years on his diabetes-stricken body. 'To be quite honest, we were probably foolish also,' Lisa said."

"Lisa recalled a carpenter on their roof during construction stamping a broom and saying so many people went bankrupt expanding their homes. 'I knew it then. It's like he cursed us.'"

"Lisa said it's been incredibly hard dealing with Option One Mortgage Corp. 'You could never talk to the same person, and then whoever you had next tried to get more out of you,' Lisa said. She recalled how one service representative told her: 'I don't want to hear your hard luck story. I want a check.'"

"Christine Sullivan, spokeswoman for Option One, a subsidiary of H&R Block Corp., said the company's records show that it followed the proper foreclosure filing procedure for Pennsylvania. 'We have worked closely with the Grandes since 2005, including offering them several workout plans,' Sullivan said."

"Option One has stopped taking loan applications, and its office in Trevose - where Anthony called to refinance - closed last summer."

"The Grandes showed visitors a photo album that illustrates the construction project from start to finish. To pay for the additions, the Grandes used a $40,000 bank loan and credit cards."

"In January 2004, they did what millions of Americans did during the housing boom to cope with ballooning credit-card debt: they refinanced, though they didn't get enough to pay off their credit cards. The new loan - with no income verification, according to Anthony - increased their monthly payment from $950 to $1,841. The introductory interest rate was 7.75 percent for two years."

"Despite the refinancing in January 2004, the Grandes still had $118,628 of debt on 24 credit cards, according to a bankruptcy filing in October 2005. 'We probably lost track,' Lisa said of the number of credit-card checks they used. 'They just kept sending us checks.'"

"The whole affair has shattered Anthony's sense of himself. 'I was always hustling. I always worked. Now I can't do anything. I feel like a jerk,' he said."

From KDKA.com in Pennsylvania. "For now, much of downtown Pittsburgh is under construction. There's the North Shore Connector project, the PNC office, hotel and retail high rise and the Piatt Place transformation of the Lazarus building into condos and shops - pricey and ambitious projects aimed at revitalizing downtown's long-decaying urban core of blight and vacant stores."

"But there are also signs that condo sales downtown have hit a speed bump as more and more units come on market. With PNC adding more units, the Cultural District is delaying its plans for condo construction and according to real estate insiders, others are taking a wait-and-see approach."

"And while owners have closed on more than half of the 83 units at 151 First Side, six of those units are already up for re-sale. 'We're confident that it will pick up. I mean obviously there's a nationwide housing issue right now,' Deputy Mayor Yarone Zober said."

"Despite slower than expected sales, Zober doesn't believe there's a glut of condos on the downtown market. 'We have a unique market, one. Two, we haven't had traditionally much supply at all. So, any supply at this point to the outside observer might look like an over-supply, but I don't think we have that at this point,' he said."

"At the Carlysle at Wood Street and Second Avenue, half of the 60 units are under contract, but about a third of those buyers are real estate investors and phase two of the project is currently on hold."

"Buying downtown is not for everybody, especially at the prices these units are being offered - generally more than $200,000. Developers say these buildings are too costly to renovate and they can't offer the units more cheaply."

"Still, developers say they're pleased with the sales and confident that prospective buyers will overcome their misgivings and take the downtown plunge. 'Many of them are repeat visitors who need to time to adjust to a lot of the nay-sayers, family and friends, people who say, 'You want to live where?,' Liz Caplan, an official with The Carlyle, said."

From WCVB TV in Massachusetts. "The foreclosure crisis is hitting a new demographic. No longer is it just homeowners swimming in debt. Now, those trying to lend a helping hand to those in need are feeling financial pains."

"NewsCenter 5's Shiba Russell reported Monday that a local nonprofit developer is working to provide affordable housing, but it's feeling the crunch. It built 11 homes for $5 million in Newton. Their plan was to sell seven to moderate-income residents and the rest at market rate."

"'I think that they were not willing to pay what they thought was too high in a market that was changing,' Citizens For Affordable Housing's Josephine McNeil said."

"Realtor Sandi Fromm said that she had no choice but to lower prices. In the end, its developer, Citizens for Affordable Housing, took a big hit. The market rate homes sold for $40,000 to $170,000 less than the asking price."

"'I think if they had come on the market six months sooner we would have been fine, but they didn't,' Fromm said."

From The Day in Connecticut. "Ed Hillyer, still exuding confidence left over from an unprecedented six-year real estate boom, has no trouble talking up this three-bedroom home in the Crescent Beach section of Niantic."

"It's a beautiful modular built four years ago on a small lot not far from McCook Point Park, with a huge kitchen, propane-gas fireplace, gleaming wood floors and even a far-off view of Long Island Sound, all for $799,900."

"But when Hillyer, who owns a Waterford real estate firm, turns to face Tamala Facas of Westerly to tell her about the his-and-her closets in the master bedroom, he does something he wouldn't have imagined a few years ago, during the height of a local real-estate run-up that doubled the price of many homes in less than a decade."

"Hillyer makes a concession. Without even being asked. 'There's a little issue,' he says."

"It turns out that one of the closets had been designed originally as a bathroom. Without an extra bathroom, the upstairs includes no separate area for guests to shower or bathe. So if Facas decides she has to have another bathroom, 'The seller would take it off the price,' Hillyer says."

"Sellers in the region are making a lot more concessions these days. With the supply of houses swelling, buyers are taking longer to check out the market, waiting for the best deals and rarely competing to bid up home values, according to local real estate agents."

"'Clearly, we're in a buyer's market now,' says John Bolduc, executive VP of the Norwich-based Eastern Connecticut Association of Realtors."

"'Are we in a buyer's market? I really don't know,' says Hillyer. 'I kind of feel like it's a little dip in a long trend that's been going up.'"

"'Houses that used to be selling in 60 days, it wouldn't be surprising for them to be on the market for six or nine months,' says Norm Kraymen, owner of Realty Estates in Groton. 'I don't see anybody making full-price offers. People are looking for realistic prices and the best bargain. A lot of homes are still overpriced.'"

"Michael Costanza, a teacher at North Stonington Elementary School, can vouch for the fact that houses have been coming down in price, having spent the past eight months scouring the Internet and trudging through about 35 homes looking for a place to buy."

"He just had an offer accepted on a three-bedroom home in Lisbon that he knows he couldn't have afforded two years ago, and he has seen others drastically reduced in price since he started house-hunting in earnest last September."

"'One house I looked at was listed at $289,000, and now it's come down to $259,000 and the owners seem anxious for offers,' he says. 'A lot of homes have come down $10,000 to $20,000 since I started looking. ... A lot of houses have been around forever.'"

"Costanza says the key to getting a good price is waiting for the right opportunity. For instance, he made an offer $25,000 less than the listing price for his new home in Lisbon and had to wait a week before the seller responded. This was the fourth house on which he made an offer; the other offers fell through."

"'Given the market conditions, I was able to have patience,' he says. 'I knew the right house would come to me. There are plenty of homes to choose from. The situation is only getting worse for sellers.'"

The Advocate from Connecticut. "Despite a 12.4 percent drop in the number of single-family homes sold last year, Connecticut bucked a nationwide trend that saw the median price fall to $217,800, down 1.8 percent from 2006, the first decline since 1968."

"Although tax bills are calculated according to property values, the state of the housing market doesn't have a direct effect on property taxes, said Carolyn Nadeau, president of the Connecticut Association of Assessing Officers and tax assessor for Bethlehem and Watertown."

"'People think their taxes are going up or down, but taxes change based on the city's budget. There is no difference if you do it in an upmarket or a downmarket,' Nadeau said."

"Some owners want their homes to be assessed at a higher rate because that could increase the asking price if they sell, Nadeau said. 'Hopefully, people want to see their property values increase because that's why we buy homes in the first place,' she said."