FLASH: As predicted, American Home Mortgage lays everyone off, shuts doors on Friday. Housing crash and mortgage meltdown now spinning out of control

7,409 employees - gone

Hopes and dreams - gone

All stockholder equity - gone

Tens of thousands of potential homedebtors - gone

Their corrupt list of co-conspirators - here for all to see

And remember, this wasn't a subprime lender - they were mainly prime and Alt-A (Liar's Loans). Anyone questioning the housing crash and mortgage meltdown now? DOLTS!

Here's the email from the CEO getting rid of all the employees (get used to these America):

“It is with great sadness I announce today that American Home Mortgage has been forced to close. Unfortunately, the market conditions in both the secondary mortgage market as well as the national real estate market have deteriorated to the point that our business is no longer viable,” Strauss wrote.

Here's the update on their closure:

NEW YORK, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Mortgage lender American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. is closing its doors on Friday, and has told employees they will be laid off, according to Newsday, citing an e-mail to employees from Chief Executive Michael Strauss.

The company said on Tuesday it could no longer fund home loans and might sell off its assets, after its lenders cut off access to credit. It said on its Web site it is no longer accepting home loan applications.

"Bankruptcy is the next logical step for them," said Steve DeLaney, analyst at JPM Securities in Atlanta.

And here's Forbes from July 20th predicting that all would be well (he he he):

American Home Mortgage Back On Track?

Talk about a rebound! Although American Home Mortgage Investment hasn’t recovered all of the value it lost when the stock plunged on Thursday following a rumor that Lehman Brothers had yanked its credit line, it has certainly made up lost ground.

Another boost to American Homes shares may have been a research note put out by RBC Capital Markets analyst James Ackor saying the stock tumbled on Thursday well below its value

Alt-A "Liar's Loan" mortgage king IndyMac reports today. Three words you may or may not hear: Mark to Market

Unfortunately the dolt running IndyMac didn't understand Econ 101 (or SEC regulations) when their cancerous loan portfolio starting going bust this spring. They could no longer sell their liar's loans on the open market except at a huge loss, so they held the cancer on their books, but didn't adjust their values ("Mark to Market") or substantially adjust their loan loss reserves.

Here's a pretty ignorant and arrogant statement from their CEO back in May on this. HP's question then was - where were the auditors? HP's question today is - where are the auditors? It really doesn't matter what the CEO thinks the cancer is worth - WHAT MATTERS WHAT THE F*CKING MARKET THINKS THEY'RE WORTH. Geeze, how dense are some people? Kinda like homedebtors thinking their home is worth X, when the market is telling them the home is worth 1/2 of X.

Yes, I'm short IMB. And I'd be shocked if they don't come clean today. Sarbanes-Oxley demands it. Truth or Jail? I'll update on IndyMac throughout the day... and you can listen to their conference call at 11am EST here

Michael Perry, chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp, is stubborn when it comes to delinquent loans.

He refuses to ditch them, even as they expand rapidly on the books of Pasadena-based IndyMac, which has two units based in Irvine and is the largest U.S. lender in a credit category dubbed "Alt-A," which is one level above the risky subprime niche. It turned in a company record of $90 billion in loans last year.

During an April 26 conference call with analysts, Perry said the company didn't sell a single dud loan in the first three months of the year because no one wanted to pay what he thinks they're worth.

"No way is IndyMac selling to a hedge fund for "pennies on the dollar," Perry said.