The Wall Street Journal did a study of 940 smaller banks and concluded that commercial real estate loans could generate losses of $100 billion by the end of next year. The WSJ’s analysis used the loan-loss criteria that the Fed used in its stress tests of the largest banks. The Financial Times did a similar analysis recently. There is nothing new or shocking about this analysis.

The mortgage industry changed in the last year. Most companies have found themselves under significant financial pressure. Some mortgage firms have disappeared. Others have grown and expanded their market share by acquiring struggling competitors.

Citi released some guideline changes in the wholesale changes that can be described easily as the first big step towards killing stated income loans.

Bank of America announced that it plans to work-out approximately $40 billion of loans in trouble at Countrywide as part of it’s acquisition of the failed mortgage lender.

Want to know why stated income loans are called liar loans? Because people lie on stated income loans. Not just some people, some of the time and by some little exaggeration. It’s most of the people, most of the time by mostly large exaggerations.

While the news of the GSE picking up jumbo conforming loans is, in fact, news, the bigger story is that there hasn’t been much of an appetite for these loans through any channel. First let’s talk about the news of Freddie Mac purchasing jumbo conforming loans (up to $729,750) as part of the Economic Stimulus Act.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending April 4, 2008. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 725.6, an increase of 5.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 688.3 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 5.7 percent compared with the previous week and was up 10.9 percent compared with the same week one year earlier.

IMF says Credit crisis spreads to other mortgage, corporate debt markets. Crisis creating serious macroeconomic feedback effects. Most emerging markets so far insulated from effects of turmoil. Despite the deteriorating credit situation in the United States, some lenders are still advertising attractive rates for mortgage borrowers.

We have seen the real estate mortgage crisis, foreclosures. Now we see the need for the home sellers to come back to reality and offer their houses according to today's value. We also see the home prices falling daily and wonder is this coming close to end? Probably not, since according to some experts the home equity loans may be the next bubble in the real estate industry ready to burst.

The stock market might be nervous now due to the subprime loan mess, but Stuart Greenbaum, former dean of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, is bullish on the situation.

Nine out of 10 Americans agree that providing affordable housing in their communities is important. Fewer than half of all Americans, however, believe that the nation's current housing policy is on the right track to meet the nation's housing needs, according to a new poll released today by a coalition of public, private and nonprofit industry groups, including the National Association of Realtors.