Real Estate News - September 2008

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 30

FT: The nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley is no straightforward seizure of commercial assets by government. In a twist on Monday, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, unveiled a scheme that sold viable bits of the bank to an ambitious foreigner – Santander – and left domestic rivals to share the cost of B&B’s failure

FT: Economic fears take toll on Irish banks

FT: Germany’s financial sector was in turmoil on Monday after Hypo Real Estate, one of its biggest lenders, had to be rescued by other banks and the government to solve a €50bn ($72bn, £40bn) liquidity crisis

FT: UK data hint at further house price falls

Times: Fed joins leading central banks in global effort

Times: Government takes control of Glitnir, Iceland's third-largest bank

Mortgage Strategy: Buy-to-let product choice obliterated

Property Week: Irish government guarantees bank desposits

Marketwatch: Home prices falling faster in July, Case-Shiller says

September 27-28-29

New York Times: Behind Insurer’s Crisis, Blind Eye to a Web of Risk

FT: UK nationalises Bradford & Bingley

FT: Big bail-outs unlikely to stop the rot

FT: Buy-to-let borrowers running out of options

FT: Fortis thrown €11.2bn lifeline

Marketwatch: Dow industrials down 300 points; gold tops $900 on safe-haven buying

Times: Taxpayers must risk billions for Bradford & Bingley

Times: US banking crisis: midnight delivers the $700bn deal: half now, half later

FT: House sellers are accepting large cuts in the asking price of their properties in order to push through sales as economic conditions continue to worsen

FT: Builders’ woes lead to fall in land prices

New York Times: Citigroup and Wells Fargo Said to Be Bidding for Wachovia

New York Times: Citi to Buy Wachovia Assets; Bailout Goes to Vote

Marketwatch: House rejects financial-rescue package

Reuters: Dow posts record point drop as House rejects bailout - closes down 778 points

September 26

Marketwatch: Wachovia stock plunges as much as 28%, feeling heat from Wamu's failure

FT: One of the largest landlords in the UK has broken ranks with the property industry by agreeing to end the historic requirement to pay rent quarterly in advance for all its 2,000 tenants

FT: WaMu seized and sold to JPMorgan

Times: Bailout Plan - A deal that would cost each American taxpayer $5,300 to rescue the banking system and save the world economy from catastrophe was agreed in outline tonight

Times: Republic of Ireland falls into recession

Times: Falling rents hit London homes

Wall Street Journal: KB Home reported a sixth-straight quarterly net loss Friday, as its orders and deliveries continued to slump amid weak demand for new houses

Marketwatch: J.P. Morgan forecast a 58% peak-to-trough slump in California home prices if the U.S. enters a severe recession

September 25

Mortgage SOlutions: Bradford & Bingley (B&B) has announced it is to reduce its cost base, resulting in the loss of 370 jobs, with all branch based mortgage advisers being made redundant

Telegraph: EU refuses bail-out package despite crisis fears

New York Times: President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a widespread financial meltdown, and signaled that he is willing to accept tougher controls over how the money is spent

FT: Rumours trigger bank run in Hong Kong

FT: Banks prepare for surge in debt talks

FT: Metrovacesa, the Spanish property company, is struggling to find a partial sale for the HSBC skyscraper in London’s Canary Wharf, with just weeks to go before a loan used to buy the building expires

Wall Street Journal: Court Rejects Class Action on Option ARMs - A federal appeals-court panel ruled against a group of borrowers who sought to get out of option ARM loans

Marketwatch: New-home sales fall to weakest level in 17 years - Sales slump 11.5% to 460,000 pace for August

Marketwatch: You don't buy a house in uncertain times

Reuters: White House, Congress still negotiating bailout

September 24

FT: B&B strikes deal to avoid £1bn mortgage burden

FT: Washington Mutual remained in preliminary talks with several potential suitors on Tuesday, as its board considered proposals for how to structure a sale of all or parts of the embattled bank

FT: Dollar rally halted on debt concerns

Times: Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, battled yesterday to convince America’s congressional leaders to approve President Bush’s planned $700 billion (£377 billion) Wall Street bailout swiftly, despite the huge cost to taxpayers

Times: Rating downgrade batters Bradford & Bingley shares

FT: Housebuilders face extra tax on rents

Bloomberg: Robert Merton, the Nobel Prize- winning economist and co-founder of Long-Term Capital Management, said plunging real-estate prices wiped out as much as $4 trillion in value for homeowners and mortgage financers

Property Week: Mortgage approvals hit record low

Times: House prices: the 10 best and 10 worst performing counties

Times: British house price growth falls to record low

Marketwatch: U.S. August existing home sales down 2% to 4.91 mln pace

September 23

FT: The dollar buckled, stocks tumbled and the price of oil jumped on Monday as the $700bn (£376bn) US government bail-out plan for the financial sector made slow progress in Washington and once-mighty Wall Street names turned to Japan to safeguard their future

FT: Oil price jumps $25 in a day

FT: Money market funds in the US suffered an estimated $197bn of net outflows last week as confidence in their safe-haven status weakened after one fund “broke the buck” and others closed

Times: Downbeat Wolseley chief sees no end to housing crisis

Reuters: AIG CEO expects "for sale" list next week

Marketwatch: U.S. home prices down 0.6% in July

September 20-21-22

Marketwatch: Regulators shut down W. Va.-based Ameribank, 12th bank to fail this year

New York Times: The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms

FT: Taxpayers shoulder trillion-dollar deficit

FT: The UK’s financial regulator is thought to have sounded out potential “white knights” for Bradford & Bingley as part of its contingency planning in the event that Britain’s biggest buy-to-let lender is buffeted by further market turmoil

Times: As prices fall, homeowners take houses off market

FT: Goldman and Morgan Stanley to become regulated banks

FT: Commercial space toll worse than S&L crisis

Wall Street Journal: The finest foreclosures

Wall Street Journal: Crisis Hits Russian Real Estate

Property Week: House prices: asking prices drop 1%

Property Week: House prices: dive outstrips the 1990s

Marketwatch: Crude posts biggest one-day point gain since trading began in 1984

September 19

FT: Five banks exploring WaMu records

FT: Housing slump creating vicious circle

New York Times: Vast Bailout by U.S. Proposed in Bid to Stem Financial Crisis

Reuters: The world's top central banks joined forces on Thursday to throw a multibillion-dollar lifeline to global markets in a dramatic effort to free up bank-to-bank lending frozen by upheavals on Wall Street

FT: Morgan Stanley is in talks to sell a stake of up to 49 per cent to China Investment Corp, the state investment fund, as part of the Wall Street firm’s efforts to ensure its survival and reverse a slump in investor confidence

FT: Lehman owes Freddie at least $1.2bn

FT: Moody’s Investors Service has increased its projections for losses on residential mortgage-backed securities, a move that could result in “multi-notch” credit rating downgrades for bond insurers such as Ambac and MBIA which have exposure to these securities

Wall Street Journal: Woodside Files for Chapter 11

Times: Country property succumbs to the crunch

September 18

FT: Wachovia tumbles 22% on capital fears

FT: Morgan Stanley in talks with Wachovia

Marketwatch: Central banks in coordinated effort to boost liquidity. Fed provides additional $180 billion for short-term dollar auctions

Property Week: Receivers appointed at Dunedin’s £521m industrial business

Marketwatch: Dramatic drop in home values will crimp some homeowners' retirement plans

Reuters: Lloyds rescues HBOS in $22 billion deal

September 17

FT: Slump hits property developers

FT: Financing grows even tougher for companies

FT: The panic in world credit markets reached historic intensity on Wednesday, prompting a flight to safety of the kind not seen since the second world war

FT: Mounting worries put strain on dollar

FT: Alarm raised on property

FT: Chill wind blows for Irish lenders

Times: Russian central bank pumps £25bn into financial system

Times: Jobless total could hit a million by Christmas

September 16

FT: UK inflation rises to 4.7%

FT: HBOS falls on wholesale funding concerns

FT: WaMu faces price to keep deposits

FT: Bond issuers suffer lack of liquidity

FT: US to take control of AIG

FT: London closes at lowest since June 2005

Marketwatch: Single-family building permits fall to 26-year low

Mortgage Solutions: Special Liquidity Scheme extended until January

Reuters: Bank fears, AIG fallout drive Wall St sell-off

September 13-14-15

FT: AIG in trouble

FT: Shocked City braced for more hits

FT: Foundations of CDS industry shaken

FT: Paragon hit as it rejects takeover proposal

CNBC: Wilbur Ross, chairman and CEO of WL Ross & Co., says he sees possibly as many as a thousand bank closures in the coming months

Times: Dow dives as Federal Reserve lines up $75bn emergency loan for AIG

New York Times: A Race for Cash at A.I.G. as Ratings Are Downgraded

Marketwatch: FOMC holds rates steady, statement cautions on growth

New York Times: Wall St. in Worst Loss Since ’01 Despite Reassurances by Bush

FT: Wall Street crisis hits stocks

FT: S&P warns foreclosure discounts to rise

FT: Watchdog eyes falling land values

FT: Barclays bails on Lehman talks

Marketwatch: Lehman files for bankruptcy protection

Marketwatch: AIG slumps; insurer reportedly seeks Fed support

Marketwatch: As the financial world crumbled around it, venerable brokerage firm Merrill Lynch & Co. sought refuge and agreed to be taken over by Bank of America in an all-stock deal that could be worth $50 billion

Reuters: Fed rate cuts seen possible amid market storm

Marketwatch: Fears that the collapse of Lehman Brothers could cause worried banks to freeze lending to each other and customers prompted major central banks to aggressively add liquidity to money markets Monday

Reuters: AIG struggles to survive financial tsunami

Marketwatch: U.S. stock indexes plummet 500 points as Lehman goes under

September 12

FT: Lehman races to find buyer or investor

FT: King warns over home loan support

FT: Drag Darling from the mortgage guarantee mire

Times: Onwards and upwards: home extensions made easier

Reuters: Lehman shares slide on Paulson bailout reluctance

Reuters: Reports conflict on JPMorgan talks with WaMu

Reuters: Under increasing pressure from shareholders, American International Group could announce details of its turnaround plan much sooner than expected, including possible asset sales and how it will shore up capital

September 11

FT: Spain launches €3bn housing rescue

FT: The destruction of shareholder wealth in the US financial sector is relentless

FT: Barratt says fall in house prices accelerating

Marketwatch: Lehman expects $3.9 bln loss

FT: The default of up to $500bn of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac credit derivatives contracts triggered by the US government’s seizure of the mortgage groups could result in billions of dollars of losses for insurance companies and banks who offered credit insurance in recent months

FT: Insurers and banks face huge CDS losses

Reuters: Washington Mutual tumbles 30 percent to 17-year low

Times: Barratt Developments, the country's largest housebuilder, has turned to the car industry in search of the kind of incentives that will help it to swim against the tide of a tumbling housing market

Reuters: WaMu sees $4.5 billion loss reserve, tries to soothe

Reuters: BofA in talks to buy Lehman: WSJ citing source

September 10

FT: Cost of US loans bail-out emerging

FT: Redrow sees red but secures debt facility

FT: Spanish property cools fast

FT: First-time buyers face tighter lending terms

Times: Oil falls below $100 a barrel ahead of Opec meeting

Property Week: Barratt cuts dividend as homebuyers remain gloomy

Property Week: UK auction prices slump 23%

Marketwatch: MarketWatch readers kindle own outrage over Fannie, Freddie takeover

Reuters: Lehman sets asset sales plan, posts $4 billion loss

Reuters: Washington Mutual tumbles 30 percent to 17-year low

September 9

Times: Derbyshire Building Society, the mutual rescued yesterday by Nationwide, was wrong-footed by bad bets in the money markets, hamstrung by a botched IT system and facing the consequences of a poorly timed £1.4 billion foray into sub-prime lending

Property Week: RICS: House sales at lowest recorded level

Marketwatch: US pending home sales index falls 3.2% in July

Marketwatch: Eight megahorror debts chilling America

Reuters: A 45% slide in the shares of Lehman Brothers on concern it was struggling to raise desperately needed capital, stirred speculation that a U.S. government-sponsored rescue was increasingly likely

September 6-7-8

New York Times: U.S. Rescue Seen at Hand for 2 Mortgage Giants

Marketwatch: State and federal regulators shut down Nevada's Silver State Bank late Friday. It was the 11th bank to fail in the U.S. so far this year

New York Times: Mortgage Giant Overstated the Size of Its Capital Base

FT: US takes control of Fannie and Freddie

New York Times: Fannie, Freddie and You: What It Means to the Public

September 5

FT: Natixis, one of the French banks worst hit by the US subprime crisis, priced its €3.7bn ($5.3bn) rights issue on Thursday at a lower-than-expected 60 per cent market discount

FT: Halifax reports 10.9% fall in house prices

FT: Banks reel as ECB redraws funding rules

FT: Mortgages arrears show sharp rise

Marketwatch: US unemployment rate unexpectedly soars to 6.1%

Marketwatch: Homes in foreclosure process set another record

September 4

FT: National City, the US bank that has been among the hardest hit by the subprime crisis, is trying to reduce its exposure to the riskiest category of home loans by offering customers cash to close their untapped home equity lines

FT: ECB’s liquidity measures in spotlight

Mortgage Solutions: The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has frozen Bank base rate (BBR) at 5%

Wall Street Journal: Cutbacks at GMAC Mortgage Lender Could Crimp Profit Margins

September 3

Telegraph: Lenders may have tapped Bank scheme for £200bn

September 2

FT: Reset loans add to US home woes

FT: Sterling drops to record low against euro

FT: Mortgage approvals plummet to record low

Times: Property developers offering cash and other perks in an attempt to attract homebuyers will have to give mortgage lenders full details of their “give-away” deals as part of an antifraud initiative launched yesterday

FT: Manhattan shows first cracks

FT: Bradford & Bingley was on Monday downgraded by a second rating agency as Mark Stevens, group sales director, announced he was to leave the buy-to-let lender

Times: Scramble for cash as central banks dry up

Property Week: Gordon Brown has axed stamp duty on house purchases below £175,000 for one year as part of a raft of measures unveiled today to help kickstart the housing market

Property Week: Mortgage approvals drop 71% on year

Mortgage Strategy: £1bn mortgage rescue scheme unveiled

September 1

Times: End for Dresdner Kleinwort as Commerzbank pays €9.8bn for Dresdner Bank

Telegraph: House prices fell for the eleventh month in a row in August, in the latest sign that the housing slump is deepening. Average prices dropped by 0.9pc over the month, following a 1.2pc slump in July, according to Hometrack.

Telegraph: House prices fell for the eleventh month in a row in August, in the latest sign that the housing slump is deepening

New York Times: The volume of mailed solicitations for credit cards dropped steeply in the second quarter of this year, with 14 percent fewer pitches sent than in the same period last year as lenders cut back their risk

Times: South Korea is heading towards a full-blown currency crisis this month, analysts have said