The Queens third-quarter housing numbers are in, and the borough has joined Brooklyn in a slide. Prices and sales dropped annually.

The $400,000 median home sales price was 11.4 percent less than it was a year ago, and was also down from the second quarter of 2008, according to the report by Miller Samuel and Prudential Douglas Elliman. The report covered closed deals in the three months before Sept. 30, so it doesn't necessarily reflect the financial crisis that started in mid-September.

No matter: Queens has suffered more than your average borough in the housing slowdown. For one, Queens has led the five boroughs in first-time foreclosure amounts for several months running now (more here on that). And the tightening mortgage-lending market as well has impacted the largely suburban borough.

Queens home sales fell 35.2 percent annually in the third quarter to 3,240. Brooklyn home sales were down over 38 percent annually; and prices dropped as well.  read more »

The credit crunch is hitting Spanish real estate firm Renta Corporación hard, and the company’s ill-timed 2007 expansion into New York City has cost Renta several properties in Manhattan, including the fabled Forbes building at 60 Fifth Avenue. According to Crain's, the firm has closed on just one building out of six that it had gone to contract on over the past year.

Things may only get worse before they get better for Renta, especially considering that the company's stock has tumbled 82 percent from a 52-week high and the tepid Spanish real estate market overall.

Renta is struggling to find financing for several deals, including the Mercantile Liberary at 17 East 47th Street and an office building at 12-14 Warren Street.  read more »

The Real Estate Board of New York held a luncheon at the Sheraton in midtown today, with members of a panel stacked with CEOs coming to a general consensus that the market’s temperature has dropped substantially from the searing hot days of early 2007.

That concept is hardly shocking for anyone who’s picked up a newspaper any time since August, but it seems relatively significant that some top members of the industry–a profession normally dominated by bullish, positive statements, at least on the record–candidly acknowledged the rough climate.  read more »