How mortgage market has tightened

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

In 2006, Arthur Brito, a self-employed Bay Area landscape designer, and his wife were prequalified for a $625,000 home loan. After being priced out of the housing market by inflated values, they started looking again last year, but quickly learned that the mortgage crisis had changed their fortunes: They now qualified for a loan of only $280,000.

Another reason to be bearish real estate.