NEW YORK - January 21, 2011 - Bank of America on Friday reported a loss of $1.6 billion in the fourth quarter after its costs related to soured home loans increased.

The quarter's results were a clean-up effort by the bank in an endeavor to start 2011 with a clean slate. The deep slump in the real estate market has continued to hamper Bank of America more than its competitors because of its 2008 purchase of Countrywide Financial, the country's largest mortgage company at the time.

"Last year was a necessary repair and rebuilding year," said CEO Brian Moynihan.

Bank of America Corp.'s loss available to shareholders after paying out dividends was 16 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast the bank would earn 18 cents a share. Excluding a charge of $2 billion related to the home loans, the bank would have earned 4 cents a share.

A year earlier, Bank of America had reported a loss of $5.2 billion after it repaid $4 billion related to its bailout during the financial crisis.

The bank reported revenue of $22.4 billion for the quarter, down from $25.1 billion in the previous year.

Bank of America also kept aside an additional $4.1 billion for bad home loans that it could be forced to buy back from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and other investors, and another $1.5 billion for litigation expenses.