House Prices Drop US/UK Housing Crash? Subprime Bubble

The Independant: Sony hikes prices as yen value soars Sony is planning big price rises in the UK because of the strength of the yen against sterling, in a move that threatens to put extra pressure on Britain’s embattled retail sector.
The Japanese electronics giant said it had informed trade customers in the past 48 hours of the price increases in Britain and Ireland driven by the yen’s rise against the pound and the euro.

Original post by flintster1994

FT.com: Northern Rock calls it a day on Granite vehicle This article seems to contradict a previous proposal by Darling, as you know there is a lot of pressure on Uk banks to lend. Lending cannot be maintained at 2007 levels even for existing borrowers because 50% came from NR. I then expected that Darling would stop the run-down of NR and re-enter the market to supply credit. However, it seems that Granite which supplied NR with funds through securitisation has now gone into run-down and split from NR. So how Darling will be able to force the existing lenders to supply credit seems to me impossible because there is now only 50% of capacity left (which they don’t want to lend anyway). NR seems to be gradually distilling itself into a collection of the very worst loans also.

Original post by stillthinking

Times online: Buy-to-let boom turns to nightmare as repossession hotspots are revealed Soaring numbers of buy-to-let investors have fallen behind with their mortgage and face losing their property, official figures revealed yesterday.
The worst economic meltdown since the First World War has spelt disaster for many who took out one of Britain’s 1.1million buy-to-let loans.
The figures, from the Council of Mortgage Lenders, show a rise of nearly 50 per cent in defaults for these mortgages

Original post by sold out

BBC News: Darling fine-tunes recovery plan The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, is spending the weekend putting the final touches to a package of tax cuts and big increases in public spending. The measures, designed to revive the flagging economy, are to be announced in Monday’s pre-Budget report. It is understood Mr Darling will say tax cuts will only be short-lived and taxes will have to rise in the future.

Original post by quiet guy

Times: 25,000 jobs go in a week, and those are only the ones we know about After many years of being overlooked in favour of more glamorous statistics such as GDP or inflation, unemployment is back in the headlines. A fortnight ago 20,000 jobs were lost at well-known companies. It is chilling to realise that these job losses are only the ones that we know about, because they have all taken place at publicly listed companies. One of the biggest challenges facing Alistair Darling in his PreBudget Report is how to create an environment in which employers feel comfortable about keeping staff. However, the Chancellor is far more likely to concentrate on initiatives such as rises in tax credits for poorer families, child benefits and winter fuel payments.

Original post by mytimeisnigh

CNN: Three banks in California, Georgia fail Three more banks - two in California and one in Georgia - failed Friday, bringing to 22 the number of institutions forced to close in the wake of the financial crisis.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said the banking operations of Downey Savings and Loan Association of Newport Beach, Calif., and PFF Bank & Trust of Downey, Calif., were acquired by U.S. Bank (USB, Fortune 500) of Minneapolis.

Original post by mark

Here is Housing Doom’s fourth installment of our unauthorized annotated transcript of the American Enterprise Institute’s September 30, 2008 seminar "The Deflating Mortgage and Housing Bubble, Part IV: Where Is the Bottom?" [1] This is the presentation by Tom Zimmerman. He makes use of an extensive slide deck.[2] There is now an official transcript at the event site There is a video and an audio-only recording of the event at the event site.
Highlights
 

"… the housing market’s going to go down, but I think there’s some data that says there may be some turning points not that far away."
"Believe me, I would be selling everything in New York …"
"Here’s a statistic for you. For the past six months the number of subprime loans in 30, 60, 90 day delinquencies has been going down."
"… but we have this balance between foreclosures pushing more properties out there, […]

Original post by John M.

Grauniad: Here’s to the end of a nasty bubble I love stories about falling house prices. Yes, there is the wretched prospect of repossession for some. Yes, there are years of negative equity ahead for the many. But who in their right mind thinks £200,000 for a new build flat is a good thing, while £100,000 is bad. Greedy developers and bankers, that’s who. Plus the foolish people who thought buy to let was a road to easy riches.
The property market will recover. But when it does the goverment and regulators should not shy away from reining it in. If we’re lucky we will never see real prices back at 2007 levels.

Original post by little professor

independent: Market turmoil sends investors fleeing into Treasuries Investors stampeded into US government debt yesterday, viewing it as the only safe haven from a new round of losses in the rest of the credit markets and another plunge by stock markets around the world.
Unprecedented demand sent interest rates on a whole range of US Treasuries to record low levels, in a flight to quality that surpassed even the effects of the mid-September panic.
By contrast, corporate bonds, mortgage securities and other debt instruments continued to plunge in value, amid growing concerns that a global recession will lead to a new wave of defaults and losses.

Original post by malct

Washingtonpost.com: Stocks Slump As Signs Point To Harder Times Key Indicators Suggest Deep Recession

Original post by v stor