Here is the countdown so far:

New Century Financial, the biggest sub-prime lender in USA closes its door.

Ohio-based National City Mortgage, one of the nation's top 10 home equity lenders and one that makes loans through many California mortgage brokers, announced Monday it had "suspended approval" of new home equity loans and lines of credit. The move has no effect on current home equity loan customers, a National City spokesman wrote in an e-mail.

Houston-based Aegis Mortgage Corp. said it would not accept any more applications and said it could not meet all of its existing funding obligations. They also laid off a “significant” number of their 1300 employees, just like that in one day.

American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. This was a big player in the Stated or No Doc loans.

Just days after it sold five retail branches to Countrywide Financial Corp., Southeast regional mortgage lender HomeBanc Mortgage Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

And yesterday Countrywide, THE BIGGEST LENDER IN USA, came out and said that the sub-prime mess as a "unprecedented disruptions." . Countrywide Financial reiterated that it could not guarantee that it will be able to secure sufficient financing: "There can be no assurance, however, that the Company will be successful in these efforts, that such facilities will be adequate or that the cost of debt will allow us to operate at profitable levels."

What does it all means to a Michigan real estate investor going forward in 2007?

Expect to get bigger discounts on Short Sales in the coming weeks and months as not only these lenders but their counterparts will be hit by margin calls by their investors and forced to take a hard look at their pending foreclosure files.

If you were a bank and you had a choice between holding on to a foreclosure in San Diego and a foreclosure in Dearborn – which one would you hold? And which one you would sell in a fire sale?

If you are in the game already – try to get your hands on as much cash financing as possible in the next 90 days. This is the time where “fast closings” powered by Cash Offers will get you insanely big discounts in Michigan foreclosures.