A Milwaukee-based bank has unloaded a troubled residential-mortgage pool from its portfolio, a ray of hope for similarly sized banks looking to unwind debt positions with a minimum of losses. Marshall & Ilsley Corp. sold the pool of 800 mortgages, which were mainly originated on single-family residences

in Arizona, to an undisclosed investor, the bank said in statement. The sale takes roughly $297 million of housing loans off of Marshall & Isley’s balance sheets. As the subprime crisis unwinds, fears are mounting among many mortgage investors that dropping home prices and rising jobless levels could translate to a new round of defaults and greater losses on their assets. On the other hand, the M & I deal could be a bellwether that demonstrates the residential loan market has bottomed out. DS News earlier reported that a number of private equity firms, hedge funds and real estate investment trusts have signaled interest in acquiring debt instruments in recent weeks that would have been considered radioactive in the past two years, one analyst said. “There are buyers out there,” said Dennis Klaeser, an analyst with Raymond James & Associates. “That would confirm that the real estate market is reaching a bottom.”