The IRS announced on Sept 15 that servicers of securitized mortgages were empowered to modify the terms of loans to save the trusts/REMICs which own the troubled paper. I think this is a huge story that's gone unnoticed by any and all media.

Back on June 20, Partners Group put out a great research/opinion piece on the next market cycle in real estate, focusing on the effects on LPs & GPs. They looked back at the landscape during the S&L Crisis of 1990 and noted that only two of the top 15 real estate private equity firms survived through today. They pointed out that crises start a shuffling of the deck, wherein assets are devalued then transferred to the 'cream of the crop,' whilst the weak firms die off in a shakeout and are replaced by new blood.