For a long time, I’ve had a lot of trouble understanding this sub-prime lender thing. It just couldn’t be real. I figured it must be some higher economics that I, as a high school graduate, could not hope to understand.

Here’s the way it seemed to me: Guy walks into a lending institution and says, “I’d like to buy a house. I have no assets, no job and only one form of identification, a Cody, Wyo., library card.”

Problems in the United States sub-prime market may make investors “think twice” about buying even commercial real estate, says a Canadian brokerage company.

CB Richard Ellis is still predicting a record year for real estate transactions by dollar value but said there is a view in the market that the recent sub prime default issue impacting the U.S. residential market could spread.

“It will have some impact on the Wall Street view of real estate in general and it will cause some investors to think twice before investing.  However there continues to be an immense amount of money available for investing in good Canadian real estate,” said Blake Hutcheson, president of CB Richard Ellis.

Expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut the federal funds rate this year rose Tuesday after Sen. Chris Dodd said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is “prepared to use all the available tools at his disposal” to keep money flowing to mortgage lenders.

The Bush administration, however, remains opposed to lifting caps on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s lending portfolios.

Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said he did not specifically ask for a cut in the federal funds rate — the rate banks charge each other to loan overnight — during a meeting Tuesday with Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.