AP - The subprime mortgage implosion will take even more steam out of the already slowing real estate market this year and beyond, according to a new economic report.

AP - Mortgage giant Fannie Mae, remaking itself as it recovers from a multibillion-dollar accounting scandal, is cutting its 6,500-person work force by several hundred employees by year's end.

Reuters - The U.S. apartment market remained strong in the first quarter, and most areas did not yet show an impact from the recent mortgage crisis as rents rose and the vacancy rate was little changed, according to a real estate research report.

Reuters - Here's a multiple-choice question for savers and investors: What's a more frightening prospect now, inflation or recession?

Reuters - American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. said it expects lower income in the first quarter and full year 2007 than previously forecast due to conditions in the secondary mortgage and mortgage-backed securities markets.

AP - New Century Financial Corp. has unloaded all of the mortgage loans it originated but had yet to fund, the company said in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reuters - CIT Group Inc. said on Monday it had placed the chief executive and other top executives at its student loan unit on administrative leave, in response to a recently announced investigation by New York's attorney general.

AP - Cozy arrangements between colleges and the companies that loan their students billions of dollars are far more widespread than anticipated, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo told The Associated Press Tuesday.

FT.com - Serious fallout from the US subprime mortgage market to wider financial markets "still appears to be a low-probability event", according to the latest global financial stability assessment from the International Monetary Fund.

Reuters - Countrywide Financial Corp. , the largest U.S. mortgage lender, on Thursday said it made $43 billion in mortgage loans in March, up 5 percent from a year ago.

Reuters - Shares of Sallie Mae, rose nearly 13 percent, and its bonds fell after The New York Times reported that the largest U.S. student-loan company was in talks to sell itself to private equity firms.

Reuters - As millions of Americans rush to file their annual income tax returns before the April 17 deadline, Democrats on Saturday promised to push to keep middle-class families from paying a tax originally intended for the very wealthy.

Reuters - Sallie Mae , the largest U.S. student loan company, agreed to be bought by two private-investment funds, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. for $25 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Monday.

Reuters - Washington Mutual Inc. topped the list of mortgage lenders in the percentage of loans it gave to investors or second-home buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Tuesday.

BusinessWeek Online - Fair Isaac warned of lower than expected earnings and sales during the second fiscal quarter ended March 31, as the credit scoring company grapples with problems such as a tougher mortgage market. After the news investors sold the stock on Apr. 17.

AP - Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down for the first time in six weeks as investors saw evidence that inflation is not getting out of hand.

Reuters - H&R Block Inc. , the largest U.S. tax preparer, agreed to sell its subprime lender Option One Mortgage Corp. to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management L.P., and said it is closing the unit's H&R Block Mortgage Corp.

Reuters - Get a "$200,000 mortgage for $667 a month!" a banner advertisement on a lending Web site proclaims. "Bad credit OK!"

AP - Sales of existing homes plunged in March by the largest amount in nearly two decades, reflecting bad weather and increasing problems in the subprime mortgage market, a real estate trade group reported Tuesday.

BusinessWeek Online - According to the Mortgage Bankers Assn., an industry trade group, delinquencies in mortgages of all types rose to about 5% in the fourth quarter of 2006, the highest level of late payments since the second quarter of 2003. Actual foreclosures edged up to 1.2%. In the subprime segment of the market, the scenario was decidedly worse. Delinquency rates rose to 13.3% in the fourth quarter of 2006, while the foreclosure rate climbed to 4.5%.

FT.com - Legal & General announced another deal to extend the group's distribution reach for its retail products on Thursday. The insurer is to become Intelligent Finance's sole provider of non-advised life insurance products. Intelligent Finance, the direct banking business of HBOS, specialies in mortgages.

FT.com - The housing market is showing signs of cooling, but consumers have entered the new tax year in a fairly upbeat mood, reports released on Monday showed.