BOGEY Kay and Sam Gardali bought a second home at the Diablo Grande golf community east of San Francisco, where the original developer filed for bankruptcy.

St. Tropez (above) and the BlueMarine Residences (below).

Harris, 4, and Carter Feinman, 2.

A covered outdoor living area off of the sunken living room has a grill and bar; a swimming pool and spa are adjacent.

A panorama of the old dock in Antwerp.

Three of the structures in this home on the eastern coast of Hawaii’s Big Island were built as sleeping quarters.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani's two stucco houses are painted a gray-green shade designed to blend in with the foliage, which includes banana trees, cactus plants, herbs and vegetables, apple and peach trees and some dusty-looking palms.

IMPRESSIONS Among New York's statement-making lobbies are that of The Platinum's, with a 26-foot-long fireplace and a moat.

A series of market reports on the fourth quarter of 2008 showed an abrupt decline in transactions, tottering prices and buyers who are still looking but unwilling to sign a contract.

Tight financing has pushed back an initiative to create or preserve 165,000 residential units.

Rising vacancy rates across the country could make it hard for building owners to pay their mortgages.

When it comes to mortgage rates, 2008 may be remembered as the year the market went haywire.

OLD-FASHIONED On weekends at the 85-year-old Lafayette Theater, an anchor of Suffern's downtown, a Wurlitzer pipe organ is played before the main feature. Having New Jersey nearby means access to cheaper gasoline and lower taxes on clothing.

FLIGHTS OF FANCY The World's Tower Building in about 1915, when it stood apart from its neighbors and above them. Edward W. Browning, its developer, proposed that planes use the roof for mock bombing runs.

CHARMING Mattias Johansson and Diane Tider moved into their new apartment in November.

WIND POWER Wind turbines resembling large table fans help to power a five-story apartment building in the Melrose section of the South Bronx.

HOME ‘MANAGER’ Kim Elstein, a Westport gallery owner, in the Fairfield house she lives in to keep ready for showing.

BACKDROP Serine Hastings's apartment in a new building in Brooklyn is home to her carefully edited furnishings, old and new.

12 East 76th Street

101 West 24th Street

Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a REIT that specializes in laboratory space, owns office buildings in San Francisco, at top right, and in Cambridge, Mass., at left. Liberty Property Trust, meanwhile, owns and operates office and industrial property in diverse locations, including Philadelphia, bottom right.

A three-bedroom one-and-a-half-bath house in the Adirondack Park Preserve is on the market for $173,000.

The apartment has original wood doors and artistic ceilings.

Exterior of the town house called Kamienica Biala, or The White Hall, in Kazimierz Dolny, Poland. Edgar Baker and his wife, Anna Sosnowska-Baker, who still live in the United States, renovated the place as a second home.

Towers on Avenue of the Americas. Asking rents in Midtown fell 8.3 percent from the third quarter to the fourth, according to the Studley brokerage firm.

John Goerke said his divorce became bumpier when the housing market crashed. “That changed everything,” Mr. Goerke said.