Shares of California-based homebuilder KB Home (NYSE: KBH) sold off Friday morning after the company failed to meet analyst estimates for its third quarter.

As we noted in our earnings preview, analysts were expecting to see the company show a loss of 56 cents per share for its third quarter, but the company failed to hit that number, posting an actual loss of a much worse 87 cents per share.

Homebuilder Lennar (NYSE: LEN) stepped into the earnings spotlight after the session wrapped Monday, with the company reporting a larger loss than a year earlier. The firm realized a first-quarter loss of 98 cents per share compared to a loss of 56 cents per share last year. The latest results did include 35 cents per share related to valuation adjustments and 36 cents for a non-cash deferred tax asset valuation allowance.

LEN CEO Stuart Miller said, "The housing market continued its downtrend right through our fist quarter," thanks to "low consumer confidence, increased unemployment and growing foreclosure rates."

Bright and early this morning, Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL) reported that its first-quarter loss narrowed thanks to fewer write-downs. The luxury homes giant lost 55 cents per share compared to 61 cents per share a year ago. The quarterly loss misses the Thomson Reuters estimate by 3 pennies. TOL's latest results included write-downs (pre-tax don't you know?) of $156.6 million, compared to $245.5 million last year. Taking the write-downs out of the equation, TOL's quarterly profit hit six cents per share. TOL's quarterly revenue dropped 51% to $409.3 million.

Looking ahead, TOL stated that it won't provide fiscal 2009 guidance thanks to the current market climate. The homebuilder did state expectations that it will deliver somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 homes in the current year at an average price between $600,000 and $625,000.

There is not much not to like about my friend's house. It has a four-car garage and sits on a beautifully manicured lawn. The 3-acre property has a lake out back where geese hang out during the summer. The other day, I noticed the house next door was for sale. My friend casually informed me that the home was abandoned some months ago.

Looks like the subprime crisis has migrated to the ritzy suburbs. Several homes in this neighborhood have been abandoned, which has forced the neighborhood association to check on the properties to make sure everything is okay. Keep in mind that these homes probably fetched at least $600,000 before the market crashed. Of course, that's all changed now.

Builders flooded the market with spec homes, which is one of the reasons why the market has so much excess inventory. People were eager for their slice of the American Dream, whether they could afford it or not. Bankers were willing to feed these delusions with cockamamie loans that would re-set interest rates at the drop of a hat. There is plenty of blame to go around.

The big reason that Hank Paulson pushed a government takeover of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) is that he concluded, after Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) scrubbed their accounting, that the $84 billion in capital stated on their books was really worth $50 billion less. This made me wonder what would happen to the capital of other big banks if they took a similar 60% haircut.

The answer? Eight large U.S. investment banks would lose $372 billion worth of capital -- putting them all well below the minimum required capital ratios -- with an average ratio of equity to assets of 2.5% ($248 billion in capital to $9,788 billion worth of assets). My conclusion is that these banks lack capital to support their level of risk. So it should be no surprise they are reluctant to lend. The government and other sources of capital don't want to step in. And the challenge of recapitalizing them will be left for the next president.

Here are the four most vulnerable banks based on how low their ratio of equity to assets would be if they took a 60% capital haircut which marked their balance sheet more to market than to model:

• Morgan Stanley. Equity falls from $34 billion to $14 billion --> equity/assets from 3% to 1.3%
• Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER). Equity falls from $35 billion to $14 billion --> equity/assets from 4% to 1.4%
• Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH). Equity falls from $26 billion to $10 billion --> equity/assets from 4% to 1.6%
• Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). Equity falls from $45 billion to $18 billion --> equity/assets from 4% to 1.7%

Nouriel Roubini, a professor at New York University, has recently been profiled in both Barron's and The New York Times. There may be nothing special about his training or methods, but what is fairly unique is his opinion that we are on the brink of a modern version of the Great Depression.

It is hard to say why the media wants to give his analysis voice, but he has become the object of almost endless fascination.

The foundation of his view of the economy is that the current housing disaster will get much, much worse and that banks will end up writing off almost $1.5 trillion in mortgage-related paper. That is about three times what they have taken as charges so far. The New York Times quotes Roubini as saying, "A good third of the regional banks won't make it."

While a number of experts believe that the recession could last a year, Roubini would he called an extremist by most measures. He foresees a downturn lasting 18 months.

The media does not like Roubini because he may be right. They like him because predictions of great economic collapse and mayhem sell papers. That is too bad. The public deserves a more balanced view.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7 Wall St.

Harvard has come out with a study that says the housing crisis will be prolonged. According to Reuters, the research says, "Record foreclosures and limited access to credit will make it harder than usual to rebound from this U.S. housing market slump."

It is comforting when some of the smartest people in the world come to the same conclusion that everyone else has already reached.

The Harvard work is based on the premise that a combination of high foreclosures and tight credit will keep housing down longer than in the past. That may be true.

The people at Harvard can afford houses. No one else can.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The evils a broad bailout for reckless lenders and speculative buyers are so obvious that even President Bush can understand them.

Referring to the housing bill that has bipartisan support in the Senate, Mr. Bush said that "Laws shouldn't bail out lenders. Laws shouldn't help speculators. The government ought to be helping creditworthy people stay in their homes."

Bush has also threatened to veto the "cash for trash" bill that would use taxpayer money to insure $300 billion in mortgages for distressed home owners. Remember: if the banks won't make the loans without a federal guarantee, it's because they know that the loans are garbage. If we're going to use taxpayer money to insure the loans, we should expect to shell out a good chunk of money when they end in default.

The larger point that people are missing here is that no homes will be lost -- the person who sees their home go into foreclosure will have to move into a rental --, but the sale of that distressed property might be the difference between renting and homeownership for a young family. Or it could be sold to an investor, adding to the supply of rental housing and making that more affordable. It's not like the banks are foreclosing on houses and then burning them to the ground.

It's a sign of an election year when an outgoing President of very limited intellect can understand something that far more intelligent politicians running for office can't.

The bill approved by the senate last week was ostensibly aimed at providing relief to the sagging real estate market. We can debate the pros and cons of such a plan, but I don't think there's much argument about how dumb some of the stuff that ended up in this bill is: tax breaks for automakers, airlines, and alternative energy producers.

What do tax breaks for car companies have to do with the Foreclosure Prevention Act? I can't even imagine. Perhaps lower car prices will help out evicted home owners reduced to shacking up in their Kia Rios.

The New York Times reports that the pork tossed into the housing bill "shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients' interests."

The senate yesterday approved a bill aimed at stimulating the housing market. According to the AP: "The plan contains $4 billion in grants to local governments to buy and refurbish foreclosed homes, new authority for states to issue bonds to be used to refinance subprime mortgages, and a temporary $7,000 tax credit for people buying new homes or properties in foreclosure."

So the Senate decided that local governments should get $4 billion to get into the real estate "flipping" market. They will buy these homes, fix them up and then re-sell for a profit? Is that the business government is supposed to be in?

Most local governments have problems fixing potholes and keeping streetlights working, and our wise senators believe that they will solve the housing crisis?

The real problem right now with foreclosed homes is that the banks refuse to bite the bullet and sell these homes for lower prices. I have spoken with a few people in the real estate market trying to buy foreclosures and they all said that the banks aren't prepared to take a loss. So now here comes the senate and says let's give $4 billion to local governments and they will overpay the banks for these properties. Great, so in an election year the US Senate has basically screwed prospective home buyers, choosing instead to bailout the banks.

What a surprise.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 4/3/08

Add the FBI to the growing list of law enforcement officials probing the subprime mortgage scandal.

The New York Times is reporting that the agency is "looking into possible accounting fraud, insider trading or other violations in connection with loans made to borrowers with weak, or subprime, credit." The FBI wouldn't disclose to The Times the names of any of the companies involved but it shouldn't be that hard to guess.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and attorneys general from in Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois and Connecticut are also investigating the industry as is the Securities & Exchange Commission. Mortgage fraud is a serious and growing problem that deserves the attention.

You can bet that in an election year some huge settlements and perhaps even indictments are in the works. The Gucci-loafer wearing Wall Street bankers who made millions selling CDOs are no doubt ringing up their lawyers as we speak.

It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people.

This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007 feature. The voting has now closed and readers have chosen the weak dollar and rising oil and gold prices as the money story of the year. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

As we approach the end of 2007, we now have a really tough question to answer. What is the Money Story of 2007? What are the candidates?

The Boom and Bust in Private Equity Buyouts

As we entered 2007, no one could imagine the activity with private equity firms around the world. Private equity firms were supposed to be the new Masters of the Universe, ushering in a new Gilded Age not seen since 1920s. We saw this with the initial public offering of the Blackstone Group, the premiere private equity group. This was followed by a series of public and semi-public offerings by other organizations, such as Apollo Group.

However, the new Roaring '20s was relatively short-lived with the credit crunch. This caused most merger activity, including corporate buyouts, to come to grinding halt. Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) now trades substantially below its high price. Who could guess that private equity would experience a boom and bust all in the same year? However, before you dismiss private equity as an element of the past, remember that most of these firms still have substantial cash available ready to invest when conditions are ripe.

Forget crooked mortgage companies. Forget greedy speculators. Forget lax credit ratings agencies. The real reason for the housing crisis is the media.

Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) Chief Executive Robert Toll seems to think that the housing crisis would improve if the media didn't write about it so much.

"Perhaps as the presidential campaign heats up and moves to the front page, negative articles about housing will move off the front page," the New York Times quotes Toll as saying.. "Then, hopefully, the positive underpinnings of low interest rates, low unemployment and a decent economy will raise new-home-buyer confidence."

Fat chance of that happening.

"The rich are different from you and me," F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked. To which Ernest Hemingway famously responded, "Yes, they have more money." The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE: BX) is once again proving just how different the very rich are: the firm is now developing new condos in Florida. It seems that as we ordinary mortals suffer through the crash in the mortgage markets and watch housing values drop in just about every region of the country, the mega-rich are happily shopping for new million-dollar digs at the beach.

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Blackstone's Luxury Resorts & Hotels business plans to build 52 condos in Boca Raton, Florida. Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) has agreed to finance the $137 million project. Prices for the condos are expected to start at over $1,000 per square foot, which means the cheapest unit will be $2.75 million. The Journal reports that 24 of the units are already under contract.

Given the current state of the housing market, you might expect that condos in Florida would be the kind of project that even Blackstone would back away from. By most reports, there is very little new development going on in Florida, especially in the Miami area, where thousands of overpriced condos sit empty. And at $25 a share, Blackstone's stock is still well below its initial offering price. But Blackstone clearly operates in a different universe -- one in which the very rich buy new vacation houses even as the economic outlook darkens for the rest of us.