The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. "The spring housing market is shaping up as one of Massachusetts' slowest ever. Home sales fell steeply in May, completing a three-month run of declines during the prime selling season for real estate. The number of single-family home sales that closed last month was the least for that month since the real estate downturn in 1990, according to Warren Group."

"Continued sales declines also knocked house prices down further: The January-May price decline - 8.6 percent - was the biggest since Warren Group began collecting the data in 1987. 'The market is still generally pretty terrible,' said Alan Pasnik, Warren Group's data analyst."

"Condominiums have, to some extent, resisted steep price drops. Sales of condos plunged 29.6 percent statewide and 25 percent in the Boston-area in May, but the median price was virtually flat compared with a year ago."

"'They'll get their decline, too. It has to happen,' Pasnik said."

"Farther out, in Northeastern Massachusetts the market is tough. Trisha Collins McCarthy, president of the Newburyport Association of Realtors, said it is extremely difficult to close a sale."

"There are 419 active listings in the six towns in her association, but only 56 properties were under agreement as of last Friday - about 13 percent of the total. 'They're struggling,' she said."

The Cape Cod Times from Massachusetts. "Foreclosures on Cape Cod reached their highest level in at least 14 years last month, with 54 completed, according to a review of records from the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds. In May 2007, there were 22 foreclosures in the region, according to registry records."

"Through the first five months of 2007, 73 foreclosures were completed. As the housing collapse deepened, the Cape saw 272 foreclosures in 2007. Last month's foreclosures bring the total for the year to 209."

"Not only are more people facing foreclosure, but they are also letting their situations become more severe by the time they seek help said Pam Parker, a mortgage foreclosure counseling the Housing Assistance Corp. in Hyannis."

"In the past, she estimated, she was able to help more than 60 percent of her clients save their homes; today that number is closer to 15 percent."

"'The folks we're seeing come in, their property value has declined dramatically - there's no equity - so trying to save the property is almost not possible,' Parker said."

The Providence Journal from Rhode Island. "The 2008 State of the Nation's Housing report that Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies released today says mounting job losses during the first three months of this year are 'raising the risks of even sharper price declines and higher delinquencies ahead.'"

"'Those parts of the Northeast that are losing jobs are going to take longer to come out of this,' said the center's director, Nicolas P. Retsinas. 'I don't think there will be a quick recovery.'"

"In Rhode Island, about 1 in 41 mortgages, on average, were in foreclosure during the fourth quarter of last year, the seventh-highest in the nation, according to the report."

"So far this year, Rhode Island has lost 7,900 payroll jobs and the ranks of its unemployed have swelled to 41,100 in what economists say is the worst recession since the early 1990s."

"Among other findings in the report: •Rhode Island's high foreclosure rate is being fueled by its large share of risky 'subprime' mortgages, which particularly appealed to buyers of rental properties seeking to cash in on the housing boom. Now, as house prices have declined, many of those properties are worth less than what the borrowers paid for them - prompting some investors to simply walk away."

"The share of investor-owned mortgages in the Providence metro area (which includes Fall River) climbed as high as 17.4 percent during the third quarter of last year - more than double the national average, according to the report."

"In Rhode Island, it would take 15 months to sell all the single-family houses on the market during the first quarter of this year, up from 11 months a year earlier, according to an analysis of data from the Rhode Island Association of Realtors and Statewide MLS."

"The supply of multifamily houses in the state during the first quarter was 19 months, and the supply of condos was 22 months, the data shows."

The New York Times. "A high level of homeownership used to signal a high level of stability. But Staten Island's similarity to the broader United States holds true when it comes to the housing crisis as well, and foreclosures are on the rise in the borough."

"While its homeownership rate is double that of the city as a whole - some 70 percent, versus 35 percent, according to 2006 census figures, the most recent data available - it is roughly the same as that of the nation as a whole."

"'Initially, the impact of this was very, very heavily in minority neighborhoods,' said William Carbine, an assistant commissioner for neighborhood preservation at New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development. 'But it has since spread in a very big way into Staten Island. By Staten Island, I mean all of Staten Island.'"

"Mary LaPointe bought her three-bedroom house in 2001. She paid about $250,000, and put no money down. She was making $40,000 a year as a waitress and had a blemished credit history. As the value of her house shot up a few years ago, she refinanced at least three times, pulling out cash while taking ever-larger mortgages."

"She says she used the money to put her three children through private school and send one son to college. 'This house worked for my kids,' she said."

"Last year, she lost her job and by the time she found another one she had fallen behind on her mortgage payments. Now she has a $400,000 mortgage, but her house is worth less than that."

"By the end of 2007, the median price for a single-family home on Staten Island had fallen $12,000 since its peak three years ago, according to the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University."

"The median price for a single-family home in the borough rose to $427,000 at the peak of the housing market in 2005 from $224,000 in 1995, according to the Furman Center."

"Wages, meanwhile, did not keep pace. According to the census, the median income for a household of four on Staten Island rose only $14,000 in the same period, to almost $62,300."

"The North Shore of Staten Island, completed 113 foreclosure auctions in the first quarter, the second-highest number on a list of 56 areas in New York City, behind Jamaica, Queens, according to the housing department. The Mid-Island section was seventh, with the South Shore right behind it. Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn was No. 9."

"'One thing I found odd was the lack of sympathy people had for homeowners in this situation,' said Diane J. Savino, a state senator who represents parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn. 'People think, 'I bought my house, and this would never happen to me.' What people forget is that 20 years ago when you bought a house, they didn't have subprime mortgages. The banking industry was a lot stricter.'"