Real Estate News - September 2007

The following news stories are those which are most important for understanding the house price crash and the impact on house prices going forward...

September 28

FT: Payment shock for UK borrowers

September 27

U.S. New-Home Sales Drop, Prices Fall Most Since 1970

September 26

Northern Rock crisis causes dip in Barratt's UK house sales

September 25

Homebuilder Lennar Corp. Posts Record 3rd-Quarter Loss of $513.9 Million on Land Value Losses

Housing markets continued to slump across the nation in August. The number of homes sold dropped for the sixth straight month to their lowest level in five years, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors. Sales were down 4.3% from last month and 12.6% from last year

In a further sign of trouble for the battered housing and homebuilding markets, Lennar posted a much bigger-than-expected loss Tuesday for its fiscal third quarter, saying it has already slashed staff and plans further cuts

S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index Falls 3.9% in July

Glut of unsold homes rises to 18-year high

Sales of existing U.S. homes sank to a five-year low in August, part of a slew of economic data and corporate news showing housing and consumer activity weakening. Home resales fell 4.3% to an annualized 5.5 million, the lowest since August 2002, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday

September 24

US housing woes hit Wolseley’s profits

Banks cut card limits and reject borrowers in consumer credit crackdown

Deutsche Bank debt bill may hit 1.7 billion euros

September 21

Doomsday scenarios involving a dollar collapse are appearing in the more bearish corners of the foreign exchange market

The credit storm is passing for Wall Street's biggest firms, but once lucrative, and now ravaged, mortgage and structured-product markets may never be rebuilt entirely, analysts said on Friday

The credit crunch claimed its first Spanish victim yesterday as Llanera, a Valencian real estate group, admitted it was in emergency talks with its creditor banks

Supermarket group Morrisons said yesterday that a £1bn sale of investment properties had been put on ice because of the liquidity crisis

Gold Climbs to 27-Year High as Investors Seek Inflation Hedge

HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, said on Friday that it would close its U.S. subprime mortgage unit, cutting 750 jobs and taking $945 million in charges and write-downs, because the business is no longer sustainable

Fears of dollar collapse as Saudis take fright

September 20

Abbey branded 'unwise' as it launches a 125% mortgage

Sterling falls beyond 70 pence vs euro on UK rate outlook

MWB has put its sale of its £700m Malmaison and Hotel du Vin hotel chain on ice citing the global credit crunch as hindering the deal

September 19

If the banking industry, with its load of worries caused by the subprime meltdown, has another month like it did in August, it will be in record territory for job losses. Last month, banks with ties to the subprime mortgage industry laid off more than 26,000 employees, the most of any month since global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas began keeping such records in 1993

Bernanke signs the dollar's death warrant - buy gold

Northern Rock bail-out may breach EU laws

U.S. housing starts, permits fall to 12-year low. Starts of single-family homes fall 7.1% in August

Dollar Drops to Record Low Versus Euro as Fed Cuts Half Point

September 18

FED CUTS KEY RATE BY 50 BASIS POINTS

First time buyers market share shrinks to 9.7%

The number of homes in some stage of default jumped 36 percent month-over-month in August

UK housing market set for a painful correction, Greenspan warns

September 17

The Rightmove monthly report shows a 2.6% decline in house prices across England and Wales in the last month

Shares in the Alliance & Leicester bank fell by more than 31% on Monday

September 14

Property delivered no monthly return in August for the first time in almost 15 years, according to the latest IPD Monthly Index

Shares in one of the UK's largest mortgage lenders, Northern Rock, have fallen 23% after it had to ask the Bank of England for emergency funding

Bank of England to rescue UK lender

BANK GOVERNOR HINTS AT RATE CUT IF CRISIS DEEPENS

September 11

CREDIT SQUEEZE GROWS TO WORST FOR 20 YEARS AS COST OF BORROWING HITS NEW HIGH

September 10

Enquiries about bankruptcy jump 50%

High-yield bond and loan investors have shunned new debt sales so far this month, extending a buyers’ strike for risky assets into the traditionally busy first week of September as concerns linger over the shaky state of the credit markets

Shares in the two largest property services firms took a hammering today as nervous investors baled out

The credit crunch is set to hit tens of thousands of buy-to-let property investors as mortgage lenders increase interest rates

Victoria Mortgages has gone into administration

The lottery of London's £70bn rollover week

Japan's economy contracted at the fastest pace in more than four years in the second quarter, while capital expenditure also fell sharply, raising concerns the corporate-led recovery may be losing steam

CREDIT CRUNCH HITS BUY-TO-LET LENDING

REAL ESTATE FACES £10BN WRITEDOWN

U.S. Lost 4,000 Jobs Last Month, Stocks Plunge On Jobs Report, Bonds Scream, Dollar Gets Hit, Countrywide Cuts 20% Of Jobs

September 9

Banks in huddle over credit squeeze

The U.S. economy lost jobs for the first time in four years in August, raising the odds of a recession and making aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate cuts more likely

September 8

The biggest mortgage lender in the United States, Countrywide Financial, says it is making big job cuts

September 7

Gold storms past $700 as investors seek safety

Countrywide to cut up to 12,000 jobs. Home lender sees origination volumes falling 25% this year

Two UK banks left with loan pools of $20bn

Current financial turmoil is identical to that seen in earlier stock market crashes, Alan Greenspan has warned

Global credit crisis causes Lehman to close two UK sub prime operations

CREDIT CRUNCH BITES INTO PROPERTY LENDING

September 6

New foreclosure filings hit another record in the second quarter as a rising number of Americans become unable pay their subprime adjustable-rate mortgages

September 5

HOUSING SLOWDOWN, WEAK JOBS GROWTH PUSH BOND YIELDS CLOSER TO 5-MONTH LOW

Rents in the City of London could stop rising as a result of the turmoil on global financial markets, Hammerson warned yesterday

July pending home sales index falls 12.2%. Monthly index lowest since Sept. 2001, Realtors report

September 3

IKB, the German bank that had to be rescued after taking a massive hit from the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, today said that it expects to lose up to €700 million (£473 million) this year

Barclays chief urges intervention over turmoil

ILLIQUIDITY—the difficulty of selling assets at a reasonable price—is at the heart of all financial crises. The market turmoil of the past few weeks is proving that maxim, albeit in novel and interesting ways

Can the Mortgage Crisis Swallow a Town?

September 1

HSBC left with £800m hangover after record sale of its Canary Wharf tower

Repossessions are fueling a property auction boom