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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