House Prices Drop US/UK Housing Crash? Subprime Bubble

Independent: Foxtons caught in housing market slump The future of another one of Britain’s most recognisable high street brands was hanging in the balance last night after it emerged that the estate agent Foxtons had breached lending agreements with its banks.
The buyout firm BC Partners, which bought Foxtons in May 2007, is reluctant to pump any more cash into the company after worse-than-expected market conditions pushed it into crunch talks with its lenders.
BC Partners paid £360m for the company just before the credit crunch hit, borrowing £360m to fund the purchase. They have now acknowledged that the acquisition was ‘ ‘mistake’ after a 60-70% slump in sales led the company to breach its banking covenants,

Original post by little professor

Boston.com Homes: Catching a falling knife? “…First is limited land. The supply of land here on Earth is fixed, thanks in part to water covering about 70 percent of our globe. And because people are prone to reproduce, demand for land and housing continues to grow…”
Indeed, we heard it all before, from the experts and the likes, from Krusty and Phil back with a new series. Oh dear, people will never learn……
Another one “…Real estate has produced comparable long-term returns to the stock market…”. Damned, need to buy quick, quick, I can feel that pent up demand knocking at my door.

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Original post by fjcruiser

Bloomberg.com: Stocks to Struggle as Earnings Fall, Citigroup Says “To be able to call a meaningful turn in global equities we need to be closer to the bottom in the corporate earnings cycle,” the strategists wrote. “On our forecasts that is more likely to happen in 2010.

Original post by v stor

Reuters.com: Buyers rejoice: Manhattan home prices finally fall “It probably started at the beginning of November, but things over the last three or four weeks have changed even more dramatically,” said Germano, 30, a Smith Barney financial adviser.

Original post by v stor

mortgagestrategy: L&G forecasts big hit to remortgage market Legal & General mortgage club is predicting that the remortgage market is set to suffer as SVRs fall in line with base rate cuts. L&G’s Mortgage Purchase Index for Q4 2008 shows that 17% fewer borrowers took up a variable rate than in Q3, despite the recent cuts to base rate.The data, which is based on 18,683 mortgage applications through L&G’s mortgage club, also shows 65% of borrowers chose a fixed rate deal during Q4. This is marginally up from the 63% recorded for the previous three months.The research also shows that the average two-year fixed rate for Q4 was 5.90%, down from 6.38% in Q3.

Original post by jack c

BBC: Commerzbank is part nationalised Commerzbank, Germany’s second-biggest bank, has said it is to be partly nationalised, with the government taking a 25% stake, plus one share. The bank is to receive 10bn euros (£9bn; $13.7bn) in a second injection pf capital from the German banking sector stabilisation fund, Soffin. Commerzbank had been seeking help after its 5.1bn euro takeover of rival Dresdner Bank from insurer Allianz.

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Original post by jack c

BBC: Nissan plant to shed 1,200 jobs Car manufacturer Nissan has announced it is to axe about a quarter of the workforce at its Sunderland plant. The company, which sent workers at the site home early before Christmas to cope with the economic downturn, said it will cut 1,200 jobs. The plant, which opened in 1986, employs about 4,900 workers. The firm halted manufacturing of two of its models at the Sunderland site in December and sent production staff home on full pay.

Original post by jack c

AboutProperty: Jonathan Davis speaks to aboutproperty Jonathan Davis, of Armstrong Davis Chartered Financial Planners, has arguably been the most accurate forecaster of the economy and markets in the last few years.
As [former] spokesman for www.housepricecrash.co.uk, Jonathan has precisely and consistently predicted the markets, a talent which more recently saw him appear on Tonight with Trevor MacDonald.
As interest rates were cut by 1.5 per cent today, their lowest rate since the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694, aboutproperty.co.uk interviewed Jonathan for his views on the announcement and for what his predictions might be for 2009.

Original post by little professor

New York Times: China Losing Taste for Debt From U.S. China has bought more than $1 trillion of American debt, but as the global downturn has intensified, Beijing is starting to keep more of its money at home, a move that could have painful effects for American borrowers.
The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.

Original post by sold out

The Money Blogs: The Financial Modelers’ Manifesto By Paul Wilmott and Emanuel Derman Wilmott speaks up. This guy knows his financial mathematics very, very well (100s of papers and a successful vol-arb fund under his belt).
” All models sweep dirt under the rug. A good model makes the absence of the dirt visible. ”
” I understand that my work may have enormous effects on society and the economy, many of them beyond my comprehension. ”

Original post by 51ck-6-51x