Laurie, I am a Broker in New Jersey and we are seeing plain and simple more houses joining the already crowded market. Not as many buyers as even last year. These house are pre-foreclosure homes, in this State we were able to help the sellers quickly, a bonified Contract stopped Foreclosure in its tracks. Up until last year we were three or four deep on every home with Contract's. Now, it is like the old days, it has to be advertised, open houses by the carload lots of fancy brochures to all and then maybe it will go in 5 months according to the area and price maybe 3-4 months contract to closing. The loan companies that did the first time home buyer no down and to boot gave them money back are gone, thank god. People did their three years on the Term Mortgage now they have to sell or lose it. There were too many buyers' all of a sudden, big mortgages some had two or three at closing to avoid PMI mind you!  I have been in Real Estate since the big crash in '87 '88 I saw too many friends and neighbors get in trouble with the second mortgages I would not deal with any of those people. I did not have one house sold last year that did not appraise for this reason alone I always deal with reputable lenders. I had heard last year one of our biggest (through the internet) was in trouble, so I made sure I had a back-up for the buyers' if they did not have one.