- Wherever houses are haunted by misfortune, Teru Oshima wants to h...
- David Simon's plan to build a retail real-estate empire in Europe...
- Rents for residential units are rising amid sluggish demand for o...
- Blackstone Group is preparing to sell its La Quinta hotel chain, ...
- China's central bank said it would strengthen its monitoring of d...
- A Montessori school that made its home in a 50-foot-wide stone pa...
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