Osama Bin Laden and the slow real estate market

The Tribune had an interesting piece about the decline in real estate purchases made by illegal immigrants.

In 1996, the IRS began providing individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, to foreign investors and immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- so that they could pay taxes. Several years later, some banks began accepting those numbers for loan applications from undocumented workers who had steady jobs and a proven track record of paying bills on time.

Its seems that illegal immigrants have gotten spooked about the ITIN mortgages being used to track illegals.