Off the rails

If things were tough on Wall Street today -- the Dow Jones was down 238 points, or about 1.86 percent -- the picture was even worse for many real estate related stocks. With the exception of zipRealty Inc. (which was up about 3 percent today), shares of every company in the Inman Index were down.

Leading the pack -- and perhaps helping derail other stocks -- was Countrywide Financial Corp., down 28.4 percent on the day despite denials of rumors that the company is on the verge of bankruptcy (see Inman News story).

Other lenders or companies in the mortgage finance game showing similar weakness included:

Indymac Bancorp Inc. (down 10.39 percent)
Freddie Mac (down 8.23 percent)
Fannie Mae (down 7.6 percent) 

Many mortgage or bond insurers also took a pounding, including:

Triad Guarantee Inc. (down 20.81 percent)
MGIC Investment Corp. (down 15.33 percent)
PMI Group Inc. (down 10.22 percent)
Radian Group Inc. (down 8.21 percent)

Shares of KB Home, which announced $772.7 million in fourth quarter losses today (see Inman News story), took the biggest hit among major homebuilders, falling 9.2 percent.

Other builders taking a hit included:

Lennar Corp. (down 7.29 percent)
DR Horton Inc. (down 6.3 percent)
Toll Brothers Inc. (down 4.69 percent)
Pulte Homes Inc. (down 4.31 percent)

Other companies in the Inman Index taking a powder today were:

Move Inc. (down 3.49 percent)
Housevalues Inc. (down 1.69 percent)
First American Corp. (down 3.95 percent).
Fidelity National Financial (down 2.5 percent)

All told, companies in the Inman Index lost 52.5 percent of their value in 2007 (see story).

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