Milwaukee Bank Sells 800 Troubled Residential Loans

Marshall & Ilsley Corp. has sold a pool of troubled residential loans in a move that bodes well for the Milwaukee company and for other depositories looking to sell problem assets. Even though the bank announced the sale publicly it would not name the investor. The sale of 800 mortgages — mostly on single-family homes in Arizona — is a boon for M&I, as it clears its books of about $297 million of housing loans that could continue to sour as unemployment rises. It's good for the industry because it shows that demand might be picking up for the kinds of troubled assets that banks, for the most part, have had a hard time unloading. "There are buyers out there," said Dennis Klaeser, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates. "That would confirm that the real estate market is reaching a bottom."