The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. "More than 700 properties in Boston fell into foreclosure last year, about three-quarters of them in Dorchester, Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Mattapan. The city's Homeowner Foreclosure Prevention Workshop workshop was one of a host of efforts the city has made in the past two years to contain the crisis. Carol Anderson,who lives in Dorchester, said she and her husband make $70,000 to $80,000 a year combined and borrowed $465,000 to purchase their home with no down payment."

"To finance it, they agreed to two mortgages with rates of 11 percent and more than 9 percent. 'I wanted a house,' she said. 'That was the best opportunity.'"

"The total monthly payments of about $3,400 were just barely affordable, she said, until one day she opened her bill and was stunned to learn that the larger loan was adjustable. Now her payments are more than $4,800 a month. This winter they kept their gas heat off and made do with electric space heaters."

"She came to yesterday's workshop hoping to speak with her mortgage servicer, but the company was not there. She did speak with a counselor, though. 'I'm hoping I can get a mortgage I can pay,' she said."

"Two months ago, Lisa and Eric Jacobs of Brockton attended a regional seminar on how to avoid foreclosure, hoping they would soon see their way clear. Two weeks ago, they gave up."

"Buried in debt, with a condo worth far less than what they owed in mortgages, the Jacobses figured it made more sense to let the bank foreclose. They owe $180,000 and believe their two-bedroom in Madrid Square is worth $140,000."

"With a combined annual income of about $60,000, they figured they could afford to pay about $1,100 a month - but monthly payments on a first and second mortgage, as well as condo fees, were about $1,800 a month."

"'We're in this predicament and there is no end in sight,' Lisa Jacobs said."

"They purchased their two-bedroom condo in 2000 for $82,000. As the value of the condo increased, as it did for most real estate in the state, the Jacobses dipped into the equity, spending money for fun. They refinanced several times through August 2004, to pay off credit card debt, until finally their mortgage debt had mushroomed to more than $100,000 and their total monthly payments had nearly doubled, to about $1,460."

"'It was my fault,' said Lisa Jacobs, who had had financial problems before and had to file for bankruptcy in 2001. 'I just bought stuff for the sake of buying.'"

"Normand Grenier, executive director of the Neighborhood Housing Services of the South Shore, said he knows a bus driver, making $10 an hour, who was qualified for a $250,000 mortgage, which the man could not possibly afford."

"'It's very sad,' he said, adding that the agency has calls from more than 300 people. 'We try to help people, but the news we give them is very difficult.'"

"The Esplanade was supposed to be Ed Cobb's last home. Cobb chose the over-55 complex specifically to avoid generational deja vu: teenagers outside on skateboards, late-night parties, hallway commotion, and the other sort of high-spirited chaos that comes with younger families."

"But harsh economic realities have prompted the Esplanade's developers to break a fundamental promise made to Cobb and dozens of his neighbors. MP Development LLC is petitioning Hudson officials to reverse the residential age restrictions so they can sell Esplanade units to anyone."

"Cobb and dozens of other residents who bought up 90 of the 140 Hudson units, mostly at boom-market prices between $250,000 and $290,000, say they feel betrayed in what they describe as a housing bait-and-switch."

"'It's like buying a car, and then two years later they come and remove the engine,' said Cobb. 'That's how major it is.'"

"With more than 20,000 new over-55 units built statewide since 2000, developers in Wellesley, Holden, Hanover, Hingham, and Sharon, are saying that age restrictions, formerly a hot marketing tool, are now hampering sales."

"The red-hot trend toward over-55 buildings worried the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, an affordable housing group, as far back as 2005, when an agency survey found how many senior-oriented units were online, and saw that new complexes were being permitted seemingly every week, said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the agency."

"'We would not be surprised to see more developers coming forward asking for this,' he said."

The Rutland Herald from Vermont. "Home sales in Rutland County fell last year following a national trend driven by the subprime mortgage crisis and a weakening economy. There's no question home prices have fallen nationwide over the past year or so and Vermont is no exception."

"Economist and University of Vermont professor Arthur Woolf said home sales statewide will continue to decline again this year. 'We're basically seeing the unwinding of this housing boom that we experienced in Vermont as well as many parts of the nation,' said Woolf."

The Redding Pilot from Connecticut. "Even to those who have weathered economic storms before, some say the recent wave of foreclosures is something they have never witnessed. The Pilot’s sister paper, The Wilton Bulletin, recently reported 20 notices of lis pendens. The Weston Forum, also a sister paper of the Pilot, reported five lis pendens and two foreclosures since Jan. 1."

"'When you have this many foreclosures, we’ve got a problem; people are going under,' said Redding resident Joan O’Neill, who owns Joan O’Neill Real Estate."

"To put the number of foreclosures into perspective, Ms. O’Neill said when she came to Redding, there were only about a dozen houses for sale in town. 'In the 1970s it was tough, but I have not seen it like this in all my time here,' she said. 'There were times when I remember paying a 22% mortgage interest; I didn’t sleep at night. But I’ve never seen anything like this ever in my career.'"

"Randi Hutton, a Redding resident and Realtor agreed. 'I’ve been in the market for 11 years, and I have not seen this kind of fear,' she said. 'Banks loaned more money than they should have loaned, and they gave people higher expectations. It’s a shared responsibility.'"

The Providence Journal from Rhode Island. "In recent months, foreclosures have touched some of the most affluent communities in Rhode Island, including Barrington, East Greenwich, Jamestown, Lincoln, Little Compton, Narragansett and Newport."

"A corporate-owned house in Tiverton is an example of the wild ride house prices have taken since the housing bubble burst. Purchased in July 2006 for $438,000...then sold it for $645,000 in November 2006, the contemporary Colonial with an in-ground pool is now on the market for $420,000."

"Brian Marvelle, an in Providence who specializes in selling foreclosed properties, said many properties don’t even involve evictions, because the owners just stop making payments and move out before the legal process is completed."

"'Most of the people are just up and leaving,' Marvelle said."

"'It hasn’t eased at all. It’s magnified,' Manfredi said of the foreclosure situation in Rhode Island. 'I’ve got better houses right now than I’ve had in a long time.'"

"No deals were made at a real estate auction yesterday. Of the 24 properties offered at the sale, 15 did not attract any bids. And all the high bids for the rest of the properties were below the reserve prices set by the sellers, according to representatives of the auctioneers."

"Even the most luxurious house offered at the auction — a contemporary colonial in Newport, a block from Newport Harbor — failed to attract a high enough bid to secure an immediate sale. The high bid for the property was $700,000. Reserve prices were confidential, but 72 Harrison Ave. was recently listed on the market for $1.25 million."

"Danielle Ventura, 20, of Middletown, was the high bidder for a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch in Middletown. But her bid of $200,000 also did not match the reserve price. She said she was offered a price of $290,000, but she responded, 'no way.'"

"Builder Mark Carpenter who attended the auction... said he was interested in the land that was offered at the auction — half-acre lots in Portsmouth — but he thought the prices were too high."

"'Land is at a premium on Aquidneck Island,' he said. Sellers 'don’t want to give it away.'"

"The Rhode Island economy has slipped into recession twice over the past 20 years, most recently when the dot.com bubble burst in 2001. Back then, the housing market was soaring, and within a year the state labor market had recovered."

"Now, the economic data suggest that Rhode Island is in another recession, and one economic forecasting firm predicts this one will last through 2009."

"'Right now, it looks like the recession will probably be almost as long as 1989-91 recession,' said Andres Carbacho-Burgos, an economist for Moody’s Economy.com. 'So, it’s going to be bad.'"

"In Rhode Island, the current recession has already cost the state close to 8,000 payroll jobs during the last 12 months — nearly twice as many jobs as were lost during the 2001 recession, state Labor Department data show."

"The current house-price declines are shaping up to look more like the 1990s, when single-family house prices in the state fell more than 10 percent from 1990 through 1993. Prices did not begin to rise again until 1996."

"Rhode Island’s median household income as of December was $58,000. An 'affordable' mortgage is generally considered one in which the monthly payment represents 25 percent to 30 percent of the borrower’s annual income. By that measure, a household at the median income could only afford a mortgage that cost $14,500 to $17,400 a year, or $1,200 to $1,450 per month."

"'Generally, someone at the median household income in Rhode Island is barely able to qualify for a mortgage,' said Economy.com’s Carbacho-Burgos."

"The lack of affordability helps explain why the state has had among the highest concentrations in the country of subprime mortgages –– and now more delinquencies –– than most other Northeast states."

The Daily Gazette from New York. "According to a report released by the Greater Capital Association of Realtors, the sale of single-family homes regionwide in February plunged 29 percent to 431, compared with a year earlier."

"Kelly Greco said homeowners have stopped using the equity in their homes to pay to hire Stands Under the Son to build new countertops for remodeling efforts, even if the paper value of a house has note eroded."

"'We had grown progressively every year. This past year was the first we didn’t grow since 2000,' his wife Sherill said. 'We knew how things were going at Christmastime. We’re usually really, really busy, and we weren’t.'"

Bloomberg on New York. "New York City's residential real estate market is showing the first signs of fallout as U.S. banks and securities firms cut the most jobs in seven years."

"Manhattan apartment sales fell in January and February from a year earlier and new properties came to the market at the fastest pace since at least 2000, according to data from real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc."

"At developer Ian Schrager's 40 Bond St., the avant-guard lofts aren't holding their prices. The Corcoran Group recently cut the price of a three-bedroom, 2,600-square-foot apartment by about 8 percent to $5.5 million."

"JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s planned buyout of Bear Stearns is rattling buyers and sellers now, said Gregory J. Heym, chief economist for Terra Holdings LLC. 'The amount of uncertainty, at least as long as I've been following the market, is unprecedented,' said Heym."

"The market is changing for what Brown Harris Stevens broker John Burger calls the 'middle luxury' category of $3 million to $7 million apartments. Many brokers are scaling back sellers' expectations."

"'In 2006 and 2007, they looked at the last 12 months' worth of sales and priced their apartments at 10 percent more,' Burger said. 'Today they are sitting down with the soon-to-be listing broker and saying `Do you think we can get what they got in '06?'"

The Courier News from New Jersey. "The message from K. Hovnanian's marketing department in February was almost euphoric."

"'We sold 100 homes in New Jersey, New York and eastern Pennsylvania on President's weekend,' said Doug Fenichel, the company's chief media man. 'And we did it with a very small incentive, offering the public the same discount we offer our employees.'"

"Sue LaRue, sales manager at Hillsborough-based Country Classics, said the company redefined its incentives at the end of February. 'We didn't think we needed them, but we had to offer them to stay competitive with Toll Brothers and Beazer,' she said about the firm's biggest competitors in Hillsborough."

"The Hovnanian 10K report explains how the company is planning to weather the storm, by walking away from options it has on undeveloped land and redesigning its offerings to meet today's market. In an effort to 'right-price' homes, the company has slashed prices on some offerings, bringing them to the builder's cost or below, just to raise cash."

"'For the first time in my memory, resale homes are costing more than newly constructed ones,' Fenichel said.'"For builders, it's all about managing the balance sheet, and they need cash for future opportunities.'"

"Andrew Zatsko, a real estate broker in Middlesex County, has a listing relationship with two builders in South Brunswick. Charter Oak has only three homes left: the model...in the high $900,000s, and two homes...on speculation in the mid $900,000s. Zatsko said that the Charter Oak model is loaded with extras and the builder had hoped to sell it for more than $1 million."

"'But you have to listen to the market,' Zatsko said. 'And the market won't support that price right now. Look at all the inventory out there. It's not selling because it's mispriced.'"

"He mentioned a buyer who wanted to buy a new home from one of his builders. 'Sure, they're not going to get what they would've gotten a couple of years ago, but they're also getting a new home today for less than they would've paid a few years ago, so it evens out,' he said. 'The only people who are in trouble are the ones who are over-leveraged, the ones who bought in the last couple of years or the ones who used their homes as a cash cow.'"

The Times from New Jersey. "Otis Boone describes his housing problem as 'a funny situation,' but stories like his have become common in Mercer County. In August 2005 he and his wife moved out of Trenton and got a zero-down loan on a newly built home in Ewing Township. Boone hurt his back the following year, went on disability and saw his income cut in half."

"Putting the place up for sale brought no offers, so last August the couple moved out of their home, which remains unoccupied, and moved into an apartment in Hamilton."

"'At the time when I wasn't making the payments, something like this never happened to me before,' said Boone. 'I wanted to get an apartment before my credit really got bad. I don't know where I can get the money unless I get a miracle.'"

"As years of unrealistic subprime loans collide with job losses, personal misfortune and the slumping housing market, hundreds of Mercer County residents face similar crises."

"The number of county properties entering foreclosure hit a recent peak in January, and mortgage counselors who try to help people keep their homes say they see no end in sight."

"'The numbers for us continue to rise,' said Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action, whose Trenton office has been overwhelmed with homeowners seeking help. 'We're at overcapacity and we see nothing letting up.'"

"E. Robert Levy, executive director of the Mortgage Bankers Association of New Jersey, said the subprime market is 'essentially dead.' 'What you're going to have now is the most conservative approach to underwriting, whether it's 20 percent down or whatever, and also watching the ability to pay,' he said."

"Levy also defended the subprime industry, saying that about 85 percent of its borrowers have been paying off their loans according to their terms. The others, he said, made the mistake of relying on a 'crazy housing market' and fell victim to a confluence of economic factors."

"'The whole concept was to make housing more affordable and find a way to provide loans to people who wouldn't have been able to access the market,' Levy said. 'Subprime shouldn't have been a dirty word.'"