Leave the Mortgage, Take the Cannolis

Jumbo mortgage lenders take note: The (Don) Corleone estate is for sale in Staten Island. The asking price for the 8-bedroom, 4.5-bath house in NYC's most suburban borough is $2.9 million. Staten Island is just a ferry ride away from lower Manhattan where a different type of mob makes its living: the stock market gang.  The family that has owned the house for 50 years has decided to sell this piece of film history – but who will make the mortgage on the 'Godfather' property? Bank of America? Wells Fargo? Citigroup? Hudson City Savings? Astoria Federal? (Three decades back, the real mob had it claws into Flushing Federal Savings out in Queens. I used to bank there when I was a kid cutting lawns. See the book "Inside Job" for more information.) Maybe a regional bank will make the loan and sell it into the next jumbo security being planned by Redwood Trust.  (Will the terms be something the borrower cannot refuse?) Meanwhile, with the not-so-great job numbers coming out on Friday, some economists are now predicting that the Federal Reserve may wait until mid-2012 before raising rates, which means the Corleone house may stay "affordable" for the right jumbo buyer…