The Star News reports from North Carolina. "This year's spring house-hunting season belongs to the buyers. That's what area real estate agents are saying. Agent Glenda Tate says she is excited about the market from the buyers' point of view. 'If you couldn't afford the house in the location you liked last year, take another look at it,' said Tate. 'Maybe you can afford it. If you were looking for a house that cost $325,000 last year...'maybe this year I can get it for $280,000 or $290,000.'"

"James and Angela Parham say that asking prices have come down from their last visit to Wilmington in July. But there still 'is definitely sticker shock,' James Parham said."

"That may be because they are comparing Wilmington not to California, where they did not own, but to Russellville, Ark., where they own a home they must sell."

"'I know (sellers) are dealing. The prices have changed from July. There are a lot of foreclosed homes. We've looked at foreclosed homes,' James Parham said. 'I know people who are in the housing market here and have made offers here and got them for sometimes considerably less than listed.'"

The Citizen Times from North Carolina. "The area's housing market hasn't turned around yet, February home sales figures from Buncombe and three nearby counties suggest. 'We're still on that downward line. ... I don't see anything (changing) immediately,' said local real estate analyst Don Davies."

"Buyers who want to move to the area are staying put because of poor markets back home, and many local residents can't afford to buy, Davies said."

"He doesn't foresee a reversal in the local market 'until something breaks loose somewhere else. We don't have the jobs for $450,000 houses. We've got to have people come here.'"

"Beth Burdick of Ashford Mortgage Advisors said prices haven't dropped as much as sales because many homeowners are reluctant to sell in a down market. 'You have kind of a stalemate between buyers - if they can get a mortgage - making a low-ball offer and sellers holding on,' she said."

The Washington Post. "When foreclosure specialist John Thompson looks at a map of Northern Virginia, he sees a flaming archipelago that stretches from Dumfries to Sterling. Parts of Dale City, Woodbridge and Herndon are engulfed; Manassas and Manassas Park are 'a volcano.'"

"Thompson calls this the 'ring of fire,' Northern Virginia's foreclosure belt."

"'That one's listed at $125,000,' Thompson said one recent afternoon, sizing up a dowdy green rambler in Manassas Park that had been foreclosed on. It wasn't the fanciest house on the block, but it wasn't a shack. Two years ago, homes in the neighborhood were selling for $300,000 to $400,000, Thompson said."

"On a tour of Manassas and Manassas Park, Thompson pointed to telltale signs of foreclosure: utility notices posted on windows, newspapers yellowing in the driveway, realty signs staked in the lawn. On some blocks, every third or fourth house sat empty."

"The losses in value have been extreme. A townhouse in Manassas was being offered at $94,900 even though it was assessed at $253,900. Dozens of bank-owned properties were listed for less than $150,000, far below their assessed worth."

"'Banks are slashing prices, and that's causing value of properties to go down with every sale,' Thompson said, noting that every time a bank unloads a house at a steep discount, it further devalues other houses in the area that it might also own, fueling the downward spiral."

"'With the Hispanic community, we had a huge boom in the last few years,' said Jose L. Galdos, who recently shut down his settlement company in Woodbridge and laid off his staff, having lost 85 percent of his business in the past year."

"'A lot of them had adjustable rates,' he said. 'A lot of them are walking away from those mortgages now.'"

"Thompson, Galdos and several other real estate specialists in Northern Virginia estimate that 70 to 80 percent of foreclosure cases they see involve Hispanic families. The number of Hispanic surnames in the trustee notices in the classifieds sections of area newspapers appears to confirm the observation."

"'What they tried to do was smart. You can't make it in America unless you get into home ownership,' Thompson said. 'But their timing was bad. They bought at the end of the boom. They were pursuing the American dream, and now it's crashing down around them like an American nightmare.'"

"'Most of the people I deal with are responsible people who are trying to find a way out,' Manassas real estate agent Maribel Alvarez said. 'Some of the banks are willing and do not want to foreclose on a home, but they're very limited because the homes are so far off what the person owes.'"

"'What can I do? I've got no choice,' said Jose Ruiz, 27, a landscaper and illegal immigrant from El Salvador who bought a Manassas condo two years ago for $200,000. He has been making $2,000 monthly payments for his mortgage and condo fees since then, spending most of his monthly income and all his savings."

"He and his wife worry that they'll be deported or separated from their daughters, ages 3 and 1. But they can't sell their condo, which Ruiz estimates is worth $130,000 in the current market. So they're planning to walk away rather than risk a forcible removal."

The Herald Mail from Maryland. "They are people who earned six figures just two years ago. They are people who could barely afford one house, let alone the two or three they now own."

"They are people employed by credit-processing companies. They are an area Realtor and others who have worked in that industry. They are truck drivers, retirees, correctional officers. 'They' are Washington County residents now living the terror of losing their homes, their good credit ratings, their dignity."

"In the past 11 1/2 months - April 2007 through this past Monday - alone, 672 foreclosure notices have been filed at the Washington County Courthouse. That's up 81 percent over the 371 filed in the full 12 months - April through all of March - a year ago."

"'There's a lot of good people, a lot of fine, upstanding people that had good credit and bought an extra house as an investment to resell or as a rental, and ended up seeing it go down,' said Hagerstown attorney Stephen A. Glessner, who specializes in bankruptcy cases."

"'I hear one horror story after another,' said Alex Bognar, another local attorney who handles bankruptcy cases. 'It's terrible. Younger people, who are pursuing the American dream, and they're in a nightmare now.'"

"It's quite different from the heady days of 2003, 2004, 2005 and into 2006, when real estate values soared. Buyers, drawn by lenders offering 100 percent financing and loans not even requiring proof of income, flocked to the market."

"They were buying housing 'when housing values were rising so quick. They might enter into a contract and buy a house for $200,000 and, by the time they went to settlement, maybe it would appraise for $220,000,' Glessner said."

"So the lender would offer the buyer a choice - a fixed loan at, say, 6 percent interest, or an interest-only loan in which the borrower only would have to pay, say, 4 percent interest, Glessner said. Then, the lender would offer the buyer $20,000 cash - for the increase in appraised value - in a home equity loan."

"'So what would you do? Which would you take?' he asked. 'They should have taken the 6 percent fixed loan. But a lot of these appraisals were really favorable. And people would do that, thinking 4 percent and 20 grand ... and low rates are going to stay around forever.'"

"Worse yet, Glessner said, some local borrowers would 'take the 20 grand and go buy another property. A lot of these people have two properties. Some have three. 'You'd be surprised the number of people who have two or three real properties....People who have no money down and end up getting a check for 20 grand. Flip real estate, buy real estate,' he said."

"'By the time people are three, four, five months behind in their payments, most have looked at refinancing,' Glessner said. That's when they're discovering the 'house they bought for $200,000 might be worth $180,000 or less and they have a first and a second mortgage, and now the property's worth ($180,000) or ($160,000) and there's no possible way to refinance it ... because one, there's not enough equity, and two, they can't afford it,' he said."

"'Or their house may have been worth $200,000, and now, it's worth $150,000 and their mortgage is $180,000,' Glessner said. The latter is becoming all too common, Bognar said."

"'Almost every person I meet with now, the house is not worth as much as their mortgage is,' he said."

"Of the 1,381 houses for sale here in February, just 70 sold, according to Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc., which tracks sales. Meantime, it said, there were 231 new listings."

"Many of the people trying to escape loss of their houses are trying to rent them instead - to help pay the mortgage, according to those in the industry. Homeowners lucky enough to land a tenant now are facing an additional difficulty - competition, Glessner said."

"Of course, they want the rent to cover the mortgage, he said. But with the 'big glut' in rentals, if their mortgage is, say, $2,500 a month, they're lucky to rent it for $1,500, he said."

"'But then, their tenants contact them and say, 'I'm going to rent one down the street for $1,000,' Glessner said. 'People are competing against one another to rent.'"

"Small wonder then that Bognar sees a lot of clients who are in almost a state of surrender. 'Most of my clients are kind of resigned recently to giving up their properties,' he said."

"'Some move out right away because they face reality.' Some stay in their homes - and stop paying - until the lender forces them out, he said. Bognar said the number of clients facing foreclosure has risen gradually since last summer. Now, he said, he sees 'maybe a couple' of new ones every week."

"Arriving at his office, 'most of them just want to know information about how things will proceed, and what their options are and how long can they stay in the house. Lot of people want to know, 'Are they going to give us any notice to get out?' he said."

"'Most people are relieved to know (that) most of the time, if they do file bankruptcy, it's four, five, six months. ... We can actually drag it out for a year maybe. Otherwise, it's like 30 days or so.'"

The Morning Call from Pennsylvania. "The good ol' days in the Lehigh Valley included a continuing population surge, soaring housing prices, rampant commercial development and jobs galore. In the historical timeline of economic development in the Valley, the period from 2004 through 2006 will go down as a notable benchmark. It was a bonafide boom."

"'That boom is now only viewable in history,' said local economist Kamran Afshar."

"Recently, as the nation was slowly veering into recession, the Lehigh Valley economy stepped off a curb and got hit by a bus. Home-price increases slowed to a crawl, and sales tanked. Once-bustling permit offices fell silent, with half as many house-building permits issued in the Lehigh Valley as the January before."

"Despite slow sales, the average home price had been generally inching upward through January. But in February, the average price fell $12,000 from the year before, to $210,000. That's the second-lowest average price in two years."

"Mark Molchany, president of the Realtors association, says he's still seeing sellers overpricing homes and buyers expecting rock-bottom prices. Those clashing attitudes lead to slower sales, he said."

"'If we start pricing houses a little differently, buyers and sellers are going to get together and it will be a good spring,' he said."