Times may be tough for mortgage lenders, but originators with great sales chops -- or executives who control their company's purse strings -- may soon be talking their way aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship on their employer's dime.

The Mortgage Leader Cruise departs Miami on Feb. 22, with stops in San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Although a berth in the 387-square-foot grand suite with balcony will set you back $3,999 per person, you can justify the expense by pointing out the potential rewards for attending seminars like "Selling Higher Priced Products against Lower Priced Competition: Increase your sales and income immediately. Learn how to sell more, faster, easier, and at higher prices and profits – in any market!"

Given the number of lenders that went belly up making "exploding" ARM loans, you might decide not to mention another, unfortunately titled seminar when pitching the trip to your boss: "How to use the Web to Explode Your Business."

You would assume that the seminar "Save Money on Your Taxes – Big Time" will cover whether the cost of this cruise ship "conference" is tax deductible.

If $3,999 is too rich for your employer, a 317-square-foot junior suite with balcony is only $3,499 per person. If you don't mind slumming, the 214-square-foot "superior ocean view cabin" is $2,799 per person.

"Never before has there been a conference in which all of your speaker presentations, continuing education, food, entertainment and incredible excursions are included in the cost of the conference," the Web site for the cruise promises.

After all the bad press the company got when it planned to put 30 correspondent lenders up at a luxury ski resort near Vail this winter, I'm guessing the organizers aren't counting on Countrywide Financial reserving any berths.

Rocketboomer founder Andrew Baron is making techie headlines today with his plight to sell his Twitter account and its 1,500 followers. Baron listed the account for sale on eBay.

Bloggers expect Baron's stunt will spark some debate about online credibility and privacy, and that Twitter will almost certainly delete the account once it's been sold.

Twitter is an application that enables people to follow others as they give short, 140-character updates about what they are doing, where they are, what they are reading, etc.

Some early adopters have found Twitter useful in keeping in touch with others at large events like SXSW. Others have used it to form social niches around particular industries, places or topics.

Quite a few real estate agents have been using Twitter to share information about new services, technologies, the market and other issues relevant to their colleagues.

"I really love my Twitter account but I feel like I haven't been using it the way I want to. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for all of my followers because they wind up with my tweets in their timelines and I haven't been able to utilize the medium the way I want to," Baron wrote in the details of his eBay posting.

Baron's quest to sell his Twitter account is interesting because it's one of the first examples of someone trying to put a value on an online reputation. The trouble is, how valuable is that reputation once followers recognize they are no longer following the person they intended to follow? Twitter makes it pretty easy to unsubscribe from a person's updates.

Here's what bloggers at TechCrunch and AlwaysOn had to say. 

Will we still be talking about the mortgage meltdown and housing slump in 2018?

It may no longer be a hot topic of conversation, but analysts at JP Morgan say the credit crunch will affect the structure of financial markets and pricing "for at least a decade," Reuters reports.

Not only has the turmoil in financial markets made investors more risk averse, but because the Fed has been forced to extend credit to to investment banks, more regulation of what some have called the shadow banking system is inevitable.

"This looks like a recession caused by financial markets, which clearly policy makers are not going to take kindly to ... There will be a lot of follow-up," JP Morgan analyst Jan Loeys tell Reuters.

The Bush administration has acknowledged that an overhaul of financial regulatory system will take place on the next president's watch.

If you haven't weighed in yet, cast your vote on the Inman News poll, "Who's the best presidential candidate for housing?"

The fact that the credit crunch is increasing the financing costs for the Mortgage Bankers Association's new 12-story headquarters in Washington D.C. has made the lobbying group an easy mark for pundits and comedians, although some have felt the need to embellish the story a bit.

The facts, according to an April 6 Washington Post story, are that the MBA is about to sign the papers to buy a new 12-story building at 1331 L Street NW for about $100 million. When the MBA announced the agreement to buy the 170,000 square foot building more than a year ago, it said it would occupy about one-third of it.

But the MBA faces a "triple whammy of woes," the Post reports: financing costs are up, the MBA's income is down, and a slow market for office space has left the group without any tenants. While interest rates on prime, fixed-rate home loans have fallen in recent months, rates on commercial loans are one to two percent higher than a year ago, and the MBA's down payment on the building has been increased by about 10 percent.

More significantly, perhaps, the MBA's membership has shrunk by about 17 percent from a year ago, from 3,000 member companies to around 2,500. The group has laid off an unspecified number of employees, the Post reports, also noting the departure of "two senior vice presidents to other jobs in the real estate industry" (that would be chief lobbyist Kurt Pfotenhauer to ALTA and chief economist Doug Duncan to Fannie Mae).

Although the facts as detailed in the Washington Post story aren't terribly funny, if you stretch them a little the Mortgage Bankers Association is an easy target.

Here's how the NPR quiz show, "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" played it over the weekend:

Host Peter Sagal: "Paula, The Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington D.C. is having a hard time these days doing what?"

Comedian Paula Poundstone: "Paying their mortgage?"

Sagal: "Exactly right. Finally some good news to come out of the housing market crisis. Or if not good news, at least satisfyingly sad news. The lobbying group for mortgage bankers is having trouble paying its own mortgage, after losing income and members last year. Due to chaos in the market and soaring interest rates the mortgage association is now finding it hard to refinance and secure tenants for its new building in Washington. So to avoid foreclosure, the association has moved back in with its parents."

Comedian Tom Bodett: "So who holds the mortgage on the Mortgage Bankers Association?"

Poundstone: "Probably the same company I went with, which is 'Don't ask, don't tell mortgage company.' I'm so ahead of the curve, I've gotta tell you. I lost my house years before it was the thing to do."

While comedians are allowed some leeway to stretch the facts, the MBA was not amused when CNBC's Diana Olick wrote that she was "sure there are plenty of troubled borrowers around the country who will do a bit more than chortle when they hear the story of how the Mortgage Bankers Association is having trouble paying the mortgage on its new building in downtown DC."

The MBA fired off an e-mail to Olick taking issue with the claim.

"It is simply not true," that the MBA is having trouble paying the mortgage, the group protested. "While MBA is seeing a drop in revenue (indicative of the state of the industry) and is responding with a reduction in expenses (as any responsible business would do) MBA’s financial situation remains rock solid, and will be even more so as a result of this purchase. Owning makes more financial sense than renting, especially in the District, which has one of the strongest commercial real estate markets in the country.”

If you're looking for office space on L Street, the building has its own Web site.