By JIM BUCHTA, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Foreclosures continue to pummel the housing market. About a third of all home sales nationwide during April were foreclosures, leading to what analysts call a "double dip" in housing prices.

Prices during the month were 0.7 percent lower then the previous low hit in March 2009, according to Clear Capital's monthly Home Data Index Market Report released Thursday.

Steve Mitchell was trapped between two homes: the retirement lake home in Missouri he was eager to build and an expensive house in Minnesota that he couldn't sell.

So when a family expressed interest in the $475,000 house, but indicated that it was beyond their budget, his agent suggested something radical: Make them an offer.

There's more evidence that the housing market is likely to get worse before it gets better. The number of houses that are in foreclosure or headed that way is increasing dramatically, according to a new report from CoreLogic, a real estate research firm based in Santa Ana, Calif.

Night fell over the vast surface of Lake Superior, and families huddled around bonfires as cold waves crashed nearby on the rocky beach, drowning their chatter and the crackle of burning wood. I was glad to be sitting at a table in the candlelit dining room at Lutsen Resort with my two pre-teen nephews, first-timers to Lake Superior.

Government cash didn't help John Foley and Cindy Case sell their house before the federal home buyer's tax credit expired at the end of April, so the couple decided to take matters into their own hands.

At El Jibarito, a cafe in the heart of Old San Juan, diners ate platters of fish with the heads still on and vegetables I didn't recognize. Chicken Cordon Bleu was the only thing on the menu that looked familiar, so I asked the waiter to order for me. Just not the fish, I said.

The holidays are likely to be a little more cheery at Kevin Coughlin's home. Coughlin refinanced the adjustable-rate mortgage on his Shorewood, Minn., house this week into a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage that's going to save him $200 a month.

The first time Jeff and Dana Prottas applied for a mortgage they weren't surprised that they might have to jump through a few hoops to get an OK from the bank, so they worked hard to improve their credit score.