Yes, the real estate industry is that quiet, we are now into a few days of rehashing and digging deeper into the Wamu Appraisal Lending scandal.

Calculated Risk has had a few post this week that dives down more into it. As usual, there is more than meets the eye, so hold off closing your accounts. Come on, you thought of it.

The lifetime of a story goes through three stages normally, though modern coverage tries to stretch news beyond its shell life expectancy, see the new current O.J. Simpson trial hoopla. Following the initial shock and scandal news that Wamu pressured appraisers to inflate the value of homes so that lenders could get more out of it, comes the Wamu defense post Calculated Risk. CR does a good job simplifying it, as usual. The gist is that it isn’t so much about appraising but who gets the bucket last.

The, in this this post, we get James Lockhart, head of OFHEO, who fires off an irritated letter to Cuomo basically saying the latter doesn’t understand the industry. That’s reassuring on both sides, really.

Watch next week for part three of the shell life of a scandal, the exit strategy. If history repeats, it’s dull, dry, lots of verbiage and someone always walks out with a lot of money in their pockets. Go figure.