Here’s some news you may have missed last week, based on staff and wire reports.

Monday

Silicon Valley isn’t immune from that pesky credit crunch, at least judging by the top headline in Monday morning’s paper: Carl Berg, chief executive of Mission West Properties, revealed that the $1.8 billion sale of his company’s 6.9-million-square-feet real estate portfolio collapsed because the would-be buyer couldn’t find financing to complete the deal. Over the previous 10 days, the situation with the lender went from “nothing would keep him from making the loan” to “we’re pulling out of the market,” Berg told our writer.

Property value growth slowed significantly throughout Rockwall County from 2006 to 2007, according to new certified tax roll figures.

But despite the deceleration – to 11 percent growth between 2006 and 2007, from 15 percent a year earlier – Chief Appraiser Ray Helm said growth still should be considered strong.

Although existing homes and commercial buildings didn’t gain as much value as they have in the past, “the existing improvements are coming to a point where they’re holding their value,” Mr. Helm said. “The average increase was 2, 3, 4 percent.”

The mortgage credit crunch is not only affecting interest rates that home buyers are quoted, but is triggering changes in less visible areas such as minimum credit scores, geographic location and type of properties, even controls on who orders credit reports.

These restrictions are magnifying the importance of factors such as credit scores and giving rise to lawsuits against major creditors such as American Express and Citibank.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s happening: Although recent run-ups in rate quotes for jumbo mortgages - those over $417,000 - have received widespread publicity, subtler underwriting changes by lenders have not. Yet some of these could actually have wider impacts.

Q: We are buying a house in another state. It is a for-sale-by-owner, and the sellers aren’t too knowledgeable about the sales process. We received a document from the title company listing the recorded liens against the sellers. The list includes a lien from the state’s Bureau of Child Support for more than $12,000 and deferred property taxes of about $2,000. None of these liens were previously disclosed to us.

If the sellers are unable to pay these liens at or before the closing date, what are our options? We don’t want to be homeless when we arrive in our new city if something goes wrong with the closing.

The Federal Reserve may have thrown Wall Street a bone Friday by lowering the rate it charges banks, but if this week’s housing market data and corporate headlines portend more gloom, it may have to toss another.

So far, Wall Street, beset by fears that credit problems in mortgage and corporate lending will cripple the economy, has been stubbornly signaling to the central bank that it wants a bailout — ideally, by way of a cut in the benchmark fed funds rate.