This post is part of our feature on Money Losers of 2008. See all 20.

For a second year in a row, American homeowners are among the biggest losers of 2008. In 2007, predictions were that American homeowners would lose over $103 billion. Now at the end of 2008 the number jumped to losses of $2 trillion as the value of homes continue to fall with no end in sight. As job losses increase, even more families will be forced into foreclosure.

Homeowners who bought at the top of the housing bubble between 2005 and 2006, could wait decades for the prices to reach that level again. People who must move for a new job or family crisis find they either have to come up with cash for closing (if they find a willing buyer) or they must walk away from the loan and give the house back to the bank either through foreclosure or through a deed-in-lieu of foreclosure.

The housing bubble that started to inflate in 2002 and burst in 2007 drove housing prices way out of the normal range. The normal ranges for housing prices track these measures:

• Income: The house price should not exceed three times your average household income, which was true from 1950 to 2000. In 2006 the average household income was $66,600, so the average home price should have been about $200,000. But during that year the average home price was about $300,000.

It's been over a year since I last posted on liar loans -- these are mortgages which the borrower obtains despite offering no documentation on their income, employment or assets. These liar loans were also known as Ninja loans -- which is short for no income, no job, and no assets. The Associated Press reports that such liar loans will add $100 billion to the losses our economy is already suffering thanks to $400 billion worth of losses from subprime mortgages.

The problem we face as an economy is that it's hard to see where the liar loans end and the collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and other asset-backed securities begin. In a sense, they are all liar loans. In the case of the mortgages, borrowers created paperwork that was inconsistent with their actual financial condition so they could get the money. In the case of CDOs, the issuing investment bank bought a AAA rating from a rating agency which created the illusion that the security was safe. Conceptually, there is little difference -- both depended on essentially forged paperwork to make the loan go through.

Why did banks issue liar loans? They were afraid to lose market share. But that doesn't make it right. As my mother used to say to me, if the other kids jumped off the Empire State Building, would you do it too? AP brings this to life in an interview with David Zugheri, co-founder of Texas-based lender First Houston Mortgage who said, "Everybody drank the Kool-Aid. They knew if they didn't give the borrower the loan they wanted, the borrower could go down the street and get that loan somewhere else.''

After the recent pounding that the subprime mortgage sector has been taking, you're probably not thinking about its investment opportunities. But that's what I'll be talking about on CNBC at 11 a.m. with Becky Quick and Tom Gardner of Motley Fool.

There are two reasons for thinking there might be opportunities here:

• Investment banking put - Investment banks are putting a floor under the stock price of many subprime lenders. For example, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: LEH) and Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) have all said they may commit more funds to subprime. Yesterday, Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. (NYSE: LEND) added $3.39, or 56%, to $9.43, helped by apparent takeover speculation in the wake of its statement Tuesday that it would explore "strategic options." On the pink sheets, New Century Financial rose 68 cents to $1.35, more than doubling its share price from a day earlier. NovaStar Financial Inc. (NYSE: NFI) is also up 50% since it bottomed out at $3.43 on Tuesday.
• Picking the long term survivors - Not every industry participant will be wiped out. For example, Countrywide Financial Corp. (NYSE: CFC) -- which only has 7% of its loans in subprime -- added $376 million in cash for a total of $1.4 billion in 2006. Nevertheless, it is far from being out of the woods: it recently reported a rise in bad loans across the board -- i.e., payments were 30 days late at the end of 2006 on 2.9% of prime home-equity loans serviced by CFC, up from 1.6% a year earlier and payments were late on 19% of subprime mortgage loans [subscription required], up from 15.2% at the end of 2005. If it reports worse than expected damage in future quarters, CFC will drop further, which could represent buying opportunities that lower an investor's cost basis. Despite the medium term pain of such a strategy, if CFC survives until the next housing upturn, investors will profit.