The Journal News reports from New York. "Second-quarter housing trends continued to track a dismal path in Westchester and Putnam counties, a function of tougher credit requirements, unemployment and other factors, a regional real estate group said yesterday. Sales of housing of all kinds fell by double-digit percentages in both counties, compared with the second quarter of last year. Inventories for most kinds of housing in Westchester were up sharply."

"The market was overdue for a correction following a nearly 10-year run-up in pricing starting in 1996, the MLS said. Large layoffs on Wall Street, and reduced bonuses, 'do not bode well for the market,' the report said."

"Harding Mason, president of the Westchester County Board of Realtors, said the local housing market is being 'held hostage' by economic issues. 'All of the factors are hitting us at the same time, just like everybody else,' he said."

"John Occhipinti, a retired police officer who dreams of moving to the Caribbean, said he's thinking of reducing his price on a four-bedroom, three-bath Tudor-style house he bought in Croton-on-Hudson 10 years ago. He listed it at $829,000 six weeks ago, a price he felt was fair, given the substantial improvements that he and his wife made on the property."

"There have been a couple of showings but no offers yet, he said. Occhipinti said he thinks that by lowering the price below $800,000, he might get the property exposed to more prospective buyers. 'The reactions are great' when buyers come looking, said his wife, Trish Occhipinti. 'That's why we're surprised. We don't get that follow-up phone call.'"

"Shenaaz Khalfan wants to sell her three-bedroom house in the town of Ossining for $630,000 and join her husband, who has taken a job in Australia and bought a house there. She doesn't know how long the family can pay for two properties."

"'It's a dead market,' she said. The house was first listed for $799,000 in September and has been lowered at least four times since then. Her broker warned her the initial listing price was too high, she said, but she remembered how hot the market was just three years ago."

"'Lousy, dinky little houses were moving so fast, but not anymore,' she said. 'They're looking for bargains out there.'"

"The MLS said more sellers were being forced to enter the market sooner by family or employment considerations. 'I think the buyers have great opportunities in this market,' Mason said, 'but that doesn't mean that sellers are going to give their houses away.'"

The New York Times. "For several years, it seemed that prices for Manhattan office buildings would never stop climbing. But now, in perhaps the clearest demonstration so far of how commercial real estate values have deteriorated in the last year, 1372 Broadway, a 21-story brick building in the garment center that was one of the last to sell before the credit crisis, is under contract to change hands again at a loss of $41 million."

"'We haven't seen sellers take back financing to this degree since the early 1990s,' said Robert M. White Jr., the president of a New York research company."

"In June, Risanamento, a real estate company in Milan that has struggled in recent months because of the credit turmoil, announced that it was putting the 14 floors of office space at 660 Madison Avenue on the block."

"The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Luigi Zunino, the chief executive of Risanamento, is also trying to flip a 10,000-square-foot condominium at the Plaza Hotel even before he takes possession of it."

"The General Motors Building...languished on the market for several months before being sold with three other buildings also owned by the embattled real estate investor Harry Macklowe for a total of $3.95 billion."

"Some real estate specialists say the three buildings, which Mr. Macklowe bought as part of a portfolio, have declined in value by 20 percent or more. But Scott A. Singer, the executive VP of a real estate finance and brokerage company that represents a number of family-owned real estate companies in New York, said the sale of the Macklowe buildings was not a good benchmark for future sales."

"'It was a forced sale,' he said."

The Glouchester Daily Times from Massachsuetts. "A foreclosure auction of the last, unbuilt piece of Pond View Village - aimed at giving the chief lender a saleable title free of more than $1.5 million owed to contractors for the state and defaulting non-profit developer - was postponed yesterday almost before it began."

"But the move has sparked new questions regarding the status of the developing agency, Cape Ann Housing Opportunity, that grew out of Wellspring House in 2002 as a means of creating more affordable housing in the region."

"Auctioneer Paul Saperstein opened the advertised event only to announce the auction was being pushed back to Aug. 18. The only potential bidder represented at the heavily subsidized, two-thirds finished community housing development was the lead investor, the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp."

"Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp. CEO Joseph Flatley said the auction was postponed in the hope that a buyer other than his corporation would appear to bid on the property. 'Our first choice is to be fully repaid,' said Flatley, explaining the move to go to auction."

"'MHIC is owed a pile of money,' said Fran Hogan, an attorney representing the investment corporation. She described the auction as a legal maneuver to remove the liens. 'The auction wipes out everybody behind you (in line for repayment),' Hogan said."

"Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp. last year took over ownership of 33 unsold Pond View condominum units when the developer - Cape Ann Housing Opportunity - ran into a crumbling condo market and was unable to repay $8.57 million of $9.2 million in loans from the corporation's big bank investment pool."

"The auction would rub from the deed the claims of the general contractor, Worcester-based Cutler Associates, which is owed slightly more than $1 million, and those of a number of subcontractors who sued Culter and Cape Ann Housing Opportunity after it stopped paying Cutler in the project's final days last year, when the glut of housing and the disappearance of easy credit brought a decade-long housing boom to an end across the region."

"The 'crown jewel' of Pond View Village - as Christine Cousineau, Cape Ann Housing Opportunity's former executive director, described the high rise - was to have included mostly market-priced units with views of the Annisquam River estuary. That portion of the project was designed to produce a back-end cash flow that the business plan depended on to pay off lenders and contractors and make the project whole."

"Joining the Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp. team at the auction site was one subcontractor. Peter Grammas Jr., president of North Shore Construction, which installed the sewage system for the entire project and sued Cape Ann Housing Opportunity and Cutler for about $100,000."

"Grammas said he was looking at the auction as the act of eliminating him from any chance of being paid."

"'I had to take out a second mortgage on my house,' Grammas said, 'but everybody (working for him, material suppliers and subcontractors) was paid. We got screwed.'"

"The Massachusetts Housing Investment Corp. has 'been hurt, too,' said Hogan."

From The Day in Connecticut. "Revenues that cities and towns receive from real estate sales have plummeted in recent months, leaving red ink in some municipal budgets. New London, Montville and Norwich have seen the biggest drops in conveyance tax revenues in the past year. New London saw a 49 percent decline, Montville a 45 percent drop and Norwich a 35 percent dip in conveyance tax revenues from fiscal year 2006-07 to 2007-08."

"Donald Goodrich, the New London finance director, spent the last few months trying to figure out how low the conveyance tax revenue would go. He started the year projecting $600,000, and revised it in March to $350,000. He soon realized 'we're not going to get there,' and revised it in June to $325,000. The city ended the fiscal year with $320,793 in conveyance tax revenues."

"Goodrich estimated $350,000 in revenues in the new budget year but admitted, if the trend continues, the city will fall way short of that total. 'It's the economy. It's the housing market,' he said."

"Salem First Selectman Bob Ross remembers a dismal previous year. In the 2005-06 fiscal year, Salem received $78,736 in conveyance tax revenues. The next year, it dropped dramatically to $57,603, and last year rose to $66,760, still $12,000 short of the high two years ago."

"'We probably had a worse decline than most back in 2006-07,' Ross said. 'Things are hard everywhere. The problem is, like any other municipality, we have relied on this revenue, and at the end of the year, the state legislature had to break a promise to someone, either to the real estate industry or to the towns for not giving us anther tool for replacing it. If you're a homeowner in my town, there's a direct impact on your taxes if the conveyance tax goes away.'"

"'We're seeing fewer sales,' said Groton Town Clerk Barbara Tarbox. 'Most new subdivisions have been there for a few years, and there aren't any new sales of condos.'"