( dpa )- Fannie Mae, the largest source of money for US home loans, Wednesday reported a 3.55 billion-dollar-loss for the fourth quarter of 2007 - three times what had been expected.
The figure compared to profits of 604 million dollars in the same period last year, the Washington-based Fannie Mae said in a statement.
The losses were the latest evidence of the escalating US mortgage credit crisis that has braked economic growth and seen tens of thousands of people losing their homes.
"We are working through the toughest housing and mortgage markets in a generation," Fannie Mae chief executive officer Daniel Mudd said in the statement.
The government-chartered company owns or guarantees 2.3 trillion dollars in mortgages.