Fannie Mae, largest buyer of mortgages in US, is worried. They recently warned that probability of a housing bust has risen sharply in certain parts of country.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac financed about 43% of new home mortgages last year. That's down from 53% year before.

Fannie and Freddie only buy "conforming loans" In these days of easy money and competition for borrowers... more lenders are selling mortgages to non-government sponsored loan buying companies. They have less stringent lending standards. That means more risk as it allows home buyers with poor credit records or unconfirmed income to qualify for mortgage loans.

Listen to this! 24% of sub-prime loans sold to non-conforming buyers in 2004 were adjustable rate mortgages with an interest only feature. And... these mortgages are not restricted to less expensive houses. The share of jumbo mortgages loans ($359,650 & up) accepted without full documentation increased from 27% in 2001 to 51% in 2004.

Fannie Mae warns that real estate collapse of late 1980s was preceded by similar patterns.

Some point out that real estate bubble is effecting value in just certain areas. But they don't understand that just 22 of most expensive metropolitan markets in U.S. account for 35% of total value of country's residential real estate.

If those markets begin to collapse they will shock real estate values everywhere.

What should you do if you are sitting on fat real estate capital gains. First... make plans now. Once a correction (crash) begins you will have a hard time getting out of your property. Values plunge and buyers disappear.

As a internet marketing consultant having worked with many different businesses I've seen a lot of foul-ups in my career. In this article I'll just like to address 7 of these mistakes that have crippled or handicapped many companies that otherwise could have been very successful.

1. Failure to differentiate your business by showing unique benefits you provide customer.

Some may call this Unique Selling Position (USP) or a host of other titles meaning very same thing, but you want to show how you are different from your competition. Even if you are selling a very common product you can still differentiate yourself from your competition by picking one unique quality.

If you own a pizza place then maybe you are only business in area that delivers after midnight or offer star-shaped pizzas. Whatever will help you to stand out from other pizza places will help you to stand out in customer's mind. Think about how many credit card companies, gas stations, bakeries … and a host of other businesses that offer similar services to other companies.

Differentiate and you'll win.

2. Failure to test your advertising strategies.

There are many companies that run various ads. This includes Yellow Pages, radio spots, newspapers and direct mail. Yet they cannot determine which ads are doing well and which are just a waste of money. This is because they do not test to see where their results are coming from.

Any business should have some parameter by which they measure where they are getting results and where their advertising is losing money. Very large corporation are particularly guilty of this because they have large adverting budgets. They can afford to do 'branding' advertising that is not intended to bring a direct measurable response. A small business owner cannot afford such luxury however.

So test, measure and use only what works.

3. Marketing to 'everybody'.

Any business should have a niche or target audience that they market to. Except you are selling water your target audience cannot be universal population. And even if you were selling water you may not be able to reach all languages and some people already have an abundance.