The surprise is that it happened at Citicorp, the nation's largest home lender.

Rising delinquencies mean future foreclosures - bad news for the nation's home lenders.

Countrywide, the largest home lender in the United States, fell 5.7 percent for the week.

During the 1990s, several major home lenders, such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual, began opening service facilities in Northridge.

Still, mortgage industry executives said that Ticor Mortgage's collapse would be unnerving to a number of home lenders around the nation.

The bank bought Countrywide for $4.1bn in 2008 just as the largest sub-prime home lender was running aground.

If confidence in the title insurance business was shaken, home lenders could become more stingy about issuing mortgages.

Because home lenders still consider an applicant's total debt, it may be wise to postpone major purchases, like a new car, until after buying a house.

In part, that is because home lenders are reluctant to make new mortgages on some co-op apartments, condominiums and waterfront houses.

Thrift units on both coasts have led the way in issuing variable-rate mortgages, instruments that help shield home lenders from interest-rate risk.