New York City Housing Bubble - 'The BIG Picture'

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NYC Commercial RE Market - The Worse In 20 Years
2008-04-12 01:00:00
The Financing Market : Worst in 20 Years by NY Sun - snip:During the first quarter of 2008, fear of recession and a scarcity of financing are causing a significant reduction in investment sales, perhaps the most precipitous drop in decades. It is difficult to comprehend that during the first 90 days of the year contracts for sale were signed for only two prominent office buildings: Murray Hill Properties' purchase of the 39-story, 748,000-square-foot office building at 1250 Broadway for $310 million (which is scheduled to close in May) and Ben Ashkenazy's recently purchased the 27-story, 600,000-square-foot tower at 650 Madison Ave. which closed on Tuesday. Twelve months ago, both of these buildings would have fetched at least 20% more and purchasers would have been able to secure up to 90% financing. Last week, two of the real estate industry's most prominent leaders went on the record with their feelings about the state of the market. "During my entire career of more than 55 yea...
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Ya Think The Economy Will Recover By 2Q07?
2008-04-11 00:57:00
"I suspect that we are coming to the end of this downtrend, as applications for new mortgages, the most important series, have flattened out. I don't know, but I think the worst of this may well be over." - Alan Greenspan, October 6, 2006George Soros Says Credit Crisis Will Worsen Before Improvingby Bloomberg - snips:...He said regulators and the U.S. administration "failed to perform their job" in a crisis that began in the U.S. housing market and which the International Monetary Fund estimates will cost global financial institutions almost $1 trillion. "This is a man-made crisis and it's made by this false belief that markets correct their own excesses," Soros, 77, said. "It will take much longer for the full effect of the decline in the housing market to be felt"... Authorities did not accept the responsibility "to try to control asset bubbles from going too far," Soros said. Recently established markets, including credit-default swaps, are "totally unregulated; that's the ca...
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Median Incomes Way Behind Bubble Pricing
2008-04-10 01:53:00
For Many, a Boom That Wasn?t by NYT - snip:...The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau?s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less ? about $60,500. This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did...The Cost of Maintaining Ownership in the Current Crisis: Comparisons in 20 Cities by CEPR - snip:This paper compares ownership and rental costs in twenty major metropolitan areas. It shows that in many areas, ownership and rental costs are more or less in balance.... However, the paper also shows that in many cities h...
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FED - Prolonged Severe Economic Downturn Not Ruled Out
2008-04-09 01:07:00
Fed minutes: Severe downturn possible by Reuters - snips:Members of the Federal Reserve's policy-setting committee worried at their most recent (March 18th) meeting that housing and financial market stress could trigger a nasty slide in the economy, even as inflation pushed higher, minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday show. "Some believed that a prolonged and severe economic downturn could not be ruled out given the further restriction of credit availability and ongoing weakness in the housing market,"... At the same time, Fed officials found recent inflation reports "disappointing," noting also with concern that some indicators of inflation expectations were edging higher. Policy-makers said there were limits to what could be done through interest rate cuts to deal with problems underlying the collapsed housing market and the credit crunch...February pending home sales index drops to record low by Reuters - snips:Pending sales of previously owned homes fell a bigger-than-ex...
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Big Changes Ahead In Our Way Of Life
2008-04-08 01:24:00
Full Version Has Been Removed From GoogleThe End of Suburbia:Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream - 1hr 17minAs we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary...---Bloomberg - Nationwide Bankruptcies Jump 30% in MarchBloomberg - Lenders Overwhelmed by Foreclosures, Delinquent Borrowers Stay in Homes MoneyWeek - Why this housing crash could be worse than the 1990sNY Times - A Road Not Taken by LendersNY Times - The Mortgage Bust Goes GlobalNY Times - Across the globe, hints of more perils in housing Financial Times - UK Housing: Sell Everything!BusinessWeek...
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Talkaboutit or Fuggetaboutit 2
2008-04-08 00:51:00
For all the Goodfellas, Babes and Wiseguys, this thread remains at the top for open discussion, anytime anywhere, outside the 'kool-aid drinkers' club. What's goin on with Real Estate or financial news in your boro, hood or head. Talkaboutit or Fuggetaboutit New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture

NYC Developers Afraid To Break New Ground
2008-04-08 00:50:00
Developers afraid to break new ground by NY Real Deal - snip:Projects starting up in '08 will be rare, developers say. Lenders looking for a reason to call in defaults? Banks showing up at closings without any money? Fire sales on newly built condos? These are just some of the grim realities that New York City developers are dealing with in this less forgiving economic terrain. Developers interviewed for The Real Deal's Q & A offered up blunt assessments on lending standards to their novice counterparts ("they are done"). In addition to the stories of lenders searching for reasons to call in defaults, banks pulling out of deals they have already offered letters of intent for, and planned projects that will not see shovels hit the ground, developers said projects slated to start up in 2008 will be virtually nonexistent. "Everything coming up now is a '09," said Daren Hornig, managing partner at SAXA. Some developers said they are getting regular phone calls from lenders and ...
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Brooklyn Home Prices Tumble, Queens Foreclosed
2008-04-04 02:03:00
Brooklyn apartment prices drop by NY Real DealBrooklyn showed a 10 percent decrease in average sales price of condos and co-ops in the first quarter, as prices dropped to $615,000 from $686,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a quarterly report from the Corcoran Group. The median price was down 7 percent over the same period to $549,000. The average sales price for a single-family townhouse in Brooklyn fell 8 percent to $1.39 million from the previous quarter, the report said. The median price fell 11 percent over the same period to $1.15 million.City foreclosures up in first quarter by NY Real DealNew foreclosures soared in New York City in the first quarter, increasing 51 percent compared to the fourth quarter of last year and 65 percent over last year's first quarter, according to a PropertyShark.com report. Queens especially saw "substantial activity," with a 90 percent increase in first-time foreclosures compared to the last quarter and a 59 percent increase compar...
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Manhattan Condo, Co-op Sales Decline Most In 18yrs
2008-04-03 03:48:00
Manhattan Condo , Co-op Sales Decline Most in 18 Years by Bloomberg - snips:Manhattan apartment sales plunged the most in 18 years in the first quarter as buyers faced the prospect of a recession and job cuts at Wall Street securities firms. Sales fell 34 percent from a year earlier and inventory rose 4.6 percent to 6,194 units, New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report today. The median price of a Manhattan co-operative apartment or condominium increased 13.2 percent to a record $945,000. "If it continues along this pattern, we're in a period of transition to a weaker market," Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller said in an interview. "You typically see a slowdown in sales activity precede a slowdown in pricing." Financial companies have cut at least 34,000 jobs in the past nine months as losses and writedowns related to mortgage- backed securities climbed to at least $230 billion. Wall Street drive...
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Housing Slump Whacks The Hamptons On Long Island
2008-04-01 18:53:00
Housing slump comes to the Hamptons by Financial Times - snip:The US housing slump has arrived at the Hamptons, summer playground of the Manhattan elite. In a sign that falling prices and home sales gluts are no longer limited to the nation’s declining rust-belt cities or bubble markets, prices for gilt-edged properties in East Hampton and Southampton have fallen sharply. The Long Island resort towns, among the wealthiest and most well-connected in the US, experienced a boom between 1998 and 2007 when home values quadrupled. “The downturn has caught up with the Hamptons,” said George Simpson, who runs Suffolk Research, a local real estate data company. The three-month running median sales price of single-family homes in the two towns fell 19.2 per cent to $638,600 (€400,000, £320,000) between December and February, according to Suffolk Research. That is almost as much as the 19.3 per cent drop in home prices that Miami and Las Vegas, where the boom and bust in the housing m...
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NYC Real Estate Market Slows As Wall Street Cuts Jobs
2008-03-31 15:49:00
New York City Real Estate Market Slows as Wall Street Cuts Jobs by Bloomberg - snips:March 31 (Bloomberg) -- New York City's residential real estate market is showing the first signs of fallout as U.S. banks and securities firms cut the most jobs in seven years. Manhattan apartment sales fell in January and February from a year earlier and new properties came to the market at the fastest pace since at least 2000, according to data from New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Transactions slid 6.4 percent to 3,250, while the number of condominiums, co- operatives and townhouses for sale at the end of last month climbed to 6,225, 15 percent more than at the start of the year. Declining sales indicate that the nation's most expensive urban property market may founder this year as Wall Street retrenches, said Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller in an interview. Financial companies have taken at least $208 billion in asset and mortgage-related writedowns. They've c...
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Elephant Paints Self-Portrait And More
2008-03-31 00:04:00
AMAZING------BBC - Elephant 'self-portrait' on showElephantPaintings.com - http://www.elephant-paintings.com/New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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Consumers Whack The Retailers
2008-03-29 22:10:00
Click Image to PlayConsumer Led Retailer Apocalypse------NYT - As NYC Builders? Grand Visions Dissolve, So Does Our FaithNY Sun - New Government Mortgage Program Said To Be 'Useless'WSJ - The Jumbo Mortgage JamWSJ - Buyers' Revenge: Trash the House After Foreclosure------Financial Times - People thought Fed could save entire system, but it can?tBloomberg - Fed Paulson to Propose New Financial Overseers, SEC-CFTC MergerNYT - Treasury?s Plan Would Give Fed Wide New PowerFinancial Times - On Wall Street: Cleaning up the mortgage mess BMO - USA: And A Bailing We Will GoSpiegel - German Banks Could Hemorrhage 70 Billion EurosInternational Forecaster - Elites Justify the Bear Stearns RescueCounterPunch - Let the Bankers Earn Their Money--Like the Rest of Us NYT - Food Riots Erupt in Asia on Rice Price & ShortagesNew York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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Zippy Do Da Mortgages
2008-03-28 23:54:00
The Oregonian - Chase Mortgage memo pushes 'Zippy Tricks' for Loan ApprovalsMarketWatch - Housing slump may last longer than most economists predictBloomberg - Vacation Home Sales and Prices Tumble, Buyers WaitReuters - Mortgage rate freeze not good idea: OFHEO chief Reuters - KB Home posts quarterly lossMarketWatch - Financially overwhelmed owners abandon homes, pets still insideDaily Business Review - Condo Meltdown in Boca FL------Spiegel - Germany Fears Global MeltdownLeap 2020 - Global Systemic Crisis September 2008Comstock Partners - How We Got Into This Mess-----AP - Fed offers $100 billion more to banksBloomberg - ECB to Offer EU Banks Six-Month Cash for First TimeTheStreet.com - Higher-Quality Loans May Trip Merrill Lynch NextBloomberg - UAW Union Shrinks to Depression Size as US Plants CloseMarketWatch - JC Penney's grim forecast sounds warning bellGuardian UK - Rising German prices point to record euro inflation------Bloomberg - Dollar Heads for Biggest Weekly Drop vs ...
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The Stock Market Is Trading Where It Was Nine Years Ago
2008-03-27 23:51:00
The Lost Decade, US Shares in Longest Funk Since 70sby WSJ - snips:Over the past 200 years, the stock market's steady upward march occasionally has been disrupted for long stretches, most recently during the Great Depression and the inflation-plagued 1970s. The current market turmoil suggests that we may be in another lost decade. The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stock s, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, the basis for about half of the $1 trillion invested in U.S. index funds, finished at 1352.99 on Tuesday, below the 1362.80 it hit in April 1999. When dividends and inflation are factored into returns, the S&P 500 has risen an average of just 1.3% a year over the past 10 years, well below the historical norm... Yale economist Robert Shiller, who predicted the market trouble in his...
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NYC Braces For Wall Street Downturn Domino Effect
2008-03-27 00:26:00
Economy Tied to Wall St., NY Braces for Job Cutsby NYT - snip:New York is accustomed to job losses on Wall Street . They come with just about every economic slump, and their impact is felt throughout the city. But now, as the city braces for a big contraction in the financial sector as a result of the credit crisis and the collapse of Bear Stearns, the fallout could be worse than in the past. The New York economy is more dependent than ever on high Wall Street incomes...Manhattan's real estate market faces huge glut in 2010by NY Post - snip:I'M not trying to set off a panic. Because, trust me, the panic is already there. It's obvious to anybody with a brain and two legs on which to take a stroll that lots of real estate players are in for a bruising time... Maybe not right away. The Manhattan market, like a supertanker, doesn't turn on a dime...Williamsburg's Edge Facebook Pitch: 'Live Here or Die'by NY Curbed - snip:'The Edge' sales office at N. 6th and Kent Avenue appeared...
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Record Home Price Declines Across The Nation
2008-03-26 04:14:00
Home Price Index in US Fell Record 10.7% in January, Shiller Survey Says by Bloomberg - snips:Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in January by the most on record, a sign the housing recession is deepening, a private survey showed today. The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 10.7% from January 2007, after a 9% decrease in December. The gauge has fallen for 13 consecutive months. Price declines will continue as foreclosures add to a glut of unsold properties, and stricter lending rules make it harder to get financing. Declining values leave homeowners feeling less wealthy and with less home equity to borrow against, undermining consumer spending and pushing the economy closer to a recession. "It's not good for the short term, the dynamics of investment and consumption in the U.S. economy, but eventually affordability will improve," Roger Kubarych, chief U.S. economist at Unicredit Global Research in New York, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "Th...
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UnSpun February Existing Home Sales Numbers
2008-03-25 00:37:00
February Existing Home Sales Fell 23.8% by Barry Ritholtz - full article:Today's fictional headline, via The Onion, National Association of Realtors: "Sales of existing homes increased in February and remain within a fairly stable range." Why is this fictional? Changes from January to February are measuring seasonal differences, not actual improvements. January is one of the slowest months of the year for home sales. (We would never report retail sales from December to January this way; We always use year over year data). What dos that show Year over year changes showed that single family home sales were 23.8% below February 2007 levels. The national median sales price was also a big surprise, freefalling down 8.2%. Single-family home sales decreased 22.9%, while the median existing single-family home price was $193,900 in February, down 8.7% from year ago prices. The best news in the release was the 3% decrease in total housing inventory. At the end of February, there were 4.0...
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Derivatives Chernobyl Delayed To Another Day
2008-03-24 23:43:00
What Created This Monster? by NYT - snip:LIKE Noah building his ark as thunderheads gathered, Bill Gross has spent the last two years anticipating the flood that swamped Bear Stearns about 10 days ago. As manager of the world?s biggest bond fund and custodian of nearly a trillion dollars in assets, Mr. Gross amassed a cash hoard of $50 billion in case trading partners suddenly demanded payment from his firm, Pimco. And every day for the last three weeks he has convened meetings in a war room in Pimco?s headquarters in Newport Beach, Calif., ?to make sure the ark doesn?t have any leaks,? Mr. Gross said. ?We come in every day at 3:30 a.m. and leave at 6 p.m. I?m not used to setting my alarm for 2:45 a.m., but these are extraordinary times.? Even though Mr. Gross, 63, is a market veteran who has lived through the collapse of other banks and brokerage firms, the 1987 stock market crash, and the near meltdown of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund a decade ago, he says the curre...
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'We Are Now Confronted By A Broad Bloodbath In The Credit Markets'
2008-03-21 14:50:00
The Great Unwind has begun, Citigroup warnsby MarketWatch - snips:As markets and economies de-leverage across the globe, investors should avoid companies and countries that have grown to rely too much on borrowed money, they said. That means favoring public-equity markets over hedge funds, private-equity and real estate, while leaning toward emerging market countries and away from developed nations like the U.S., the bank's global equity strategy team advised. Within equity markets, the financial-services should be avoided because it's still over-leveraged, while other companies have stronger balance sheets, the strategists said. "Steady growth, low inflation and rock-bottom interest rates encouraged economic and financial participants across the world economy to gear up over the past few years," Robert Buckland and his colleagues on Citi's global strategy team wrote in a note to clients. "Easy money encouraged many to buy a bigger house, a bigger car or a bigger speculative po...
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New York Housing Price Futures as of March 18
2008-03-20 00:29:00
Wall Street's pink slip parade by CNN Money - snip:There's already been a wave of layoffs on Wall Street this year, and the Bear Stearns buyout could trigger another round of pink slips. During the first two months of 2008, 18,000 jobs have already been lost in the hard-hit mortgage markets, according to research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, accounting for an overwhelming majority of the 22,000 jobs lost in the financial sector overall this year. But analysts said Monday they expect 15,000 to 30,000 more job losses by the end of the year in the financial sector, including half of Bear Stearns' 14,000 workers following JPMorgan Chase's (JPM, Fortune 500) impending takeover of the company. Spokespeople for Bear Stearns (BSC, Fortune 500) and JPMorgan Chase were not immediately available for comment. The impact on New York City, where the bulk of the finance market is based, would be sizable... Marcia Van Wagner, deputy controller for the budget for the New York City comp...
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Cognitive Disonance Strikes Wall Street, Again
2008-03-20 00:21:00
How This Crisis Is Different by Washington Post - snip:It's said that we're in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Maybe. But remember the S&L crisis of the mid-1980s? Or the commercial banking crisis of the late 1980s (from 1988 to 1992, 905 banks failed). Or the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, which sent South Korea, Indonesia and other countries on a boom-bust rollercoaster? All were frightening. What distinguishes this crisis -- which brought down Bear Sterns over the weekend -- is that it involves the entire financial system, not just depository institutions, and it's more mystifying than any of its predecessors....Dollar Bears by WSJ - snip:How can $20 billion in Bear Stearns market value evaporate overnight? Though many are asking this question today, few are noticing the fact that, since 2002, trillions of dollars worth of business and U.S.-government debt value has evaporated. This happened because the Federal Reserve has neglected the dollar. Ther...
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Liquidity vs Solvency
2008-03-18 23:39:00
The Fed Can Provide Liquidity, But Not Solvencyby Hussman Funds - snips:With the Carlyle Group (one of the world's largest private equity groups) and Bear Stearns (one of the world's longest existing investment banks) suddenly plunging into chaos last week, investors should be braced for more trouble. What we observed last week is clearly a liquidity problem ? the solvency problems are only beginning... But I've also emphasized that the Fed has a legitimate and essential role as a ?lender of the last resort? during banking crises and other financial panics. In my view, the recent interventions by the Federal Reserve ? $100 billion in ?Term Lending? financing and another $200 billion ?Securities Lending Facility? - are, in fact, large interventions. But investors should fully understand that these only address short-term liquidity problems, not solvency problems. In other words, they make it easier for various financial institutions to carry on their day-to-day transactions for a ...

BEAR STEARNS = WORTHLESS
2008-03-17 03:07:00
J.P. Morgan Buys Bear Stearns by WSJ - snip:J.P. Morgan Chase agreed to buy Bear Stearns for $2 a share in a stock-swap transaction, people familiar with the matter say. J.P. Morgan will exchange 0.05473 shares of its common stock per one share of Bear Stearns stock. Both boards have approved the transaction...------Reuters - Fed moves with emergency 1/4 rate cut, lending facilityFinancial Times - Wall Street waits for the next domino to fall New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture

Get Ready For More Banking Insolvency And Panic Selling On Wall Street
2008-03-16 16:03:00
Rescue Me: A Fed Bailout Crosses a Line by NYT - snip:WHAT are the consequences of a world in which regulators rescue even the financial institutions whose recklessness and greed helped create the titanic credit mess we are in? Will the consequences be an even weaker currency, rampant inflation, a continuation of the slow bleed that we have witnessed at banks and brokerage firms for the past year? Stick around, because we?ll soon find out. And it?s not going to be pretty...Market Panic Forces Governments Into Action by Monty Guild - snips:We are watching the biggest panic in global financial markets that has occurred in my 65 years of life and 50 years of stock, bond and commodities investing... BEAR STEARNS WAS PROTECTED FROM FAILING TO MEET ITS COMMITMENTS TO COUNTERPARTIES BECAUSE TO LET A PRIMARY DEALER FAIL WOULD MEAN A RUN ON EVERY MAJOR BANKING AND INVESTMENT BANKING INSTITUTION IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD. AND THAT WOULD ALMOST CERTAINLY LEAD TO A MASSIVE GLOBAL DEPRESSION. THI...
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We're In A Teensy Weensy Slowdown? More Like 'Uncharted Waters'
2008-03-15 00:36:00
Rubin Says Financial Markets Have Entered `Uncharted Waters 'by Bloomberg - snip:Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin said financial markets are in "uncharted waters"... Rubin, chairman of Citigroup Inc.'s executive committee, said in a speech in Washington. "The outlook for credit markets and the economy is uncertain" and he called for "substantial additional action in the mortgage area."Fear of further casualties whips up new stormby Financial Times - snip:The credit crunch is entering a new phase, spreading to previously resilient areas of the financial system in what some observers say may be a necessary ? but savagely painful ? prelude to any eventual recovery. The immediate casualties of this new chapter include hedge funds and other leveraged investors such as Carlyle Capital Corporation, the listed credit fund sponsored by Carlyle Group, the private equity firm. The turmoil has already triggered a dramatic response from the world?s central banks, which this week rev...

Foreclosures Surge, Hedge Funds Collapse, Investors Still Shun Mortgage Sec
2008-03-14 00:18:00
Mind the Gap: Home-Price Downside by WSJ - snip:The economic balance hangs in large part on how much further home prices will fall. A look at one important measure -- the relationship between home prices and household income -- suggests we might not even be halfway there... It is also possible that home prices will overshoot on the downside, just as they did on the upside. Goldman Sachs economists say prices could fall another 15%. Merrill Lynch economists say they could drop another 20% to 30%. Both banks have been more bearish than others on the economy -- and so far look correct to have been so pessimistic . Consumer spending is one potential casualty of falling home prices. When home values fall, households have less home equity to tap when they want to buy a new flat-screen television. Today's February retail-sales report from the Commerce Department could provide evidence of that. Sales were up 3.9% in January from a year earlier. That paled in comparison with year-over-year ...
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NYC Luxury RE Sales Cannot Prop Up The Market Much Longer
2008-03-13 00:19:00
Will high-end be next to fall? by NY Real Deal - snip:The luxury real estate market in New York City has been credited by some for bolstering the rest of the market in the five boroughs, but economists and real estate experts disagree about how long the phenomenon can last. While some point to double-digit percentage price gains in the multi-million-dollar apartment market, others say the reporting lag time is distorting those increases ? and predict that the credit crunch will put the brakes on the activity, if it hasn't already.,..Latest Trouble for Banks: Souring Home-Equity Loans by WSJ - snip:Here comes another headache for banks suffering from the mortgage downturn: Losses on home-equity loans are soaring, even at some lenders that avoided big blunders on subprime loans. When times were good, banks raked in billions of dollars in profit from home-equity loans, which allow borrowers to tap the accumulated value in their property with either a loan for a specific amount or a ...
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Fed Injects More Dope As Average Joe Raids 401k To Pay Bills
2008-03-11 23:52:00
401(k)s tapped to save homes by USA Today - snip:Struggling to save their homes from foreclosure, more Americans are raiding their 401(k) retirement accounts to pay their bills — and getting slammed with taxes and penalties in the process, according to retirement plan administrators...Is Fannie Mae the Next Government Bailout? by Barron's - snip:IT'S PERHAPS THE CRUELEST OF ironies that in the U.S. housing market's greatest hour of need, the major entity created during the Depression to bring liquidity to housing, Fannie Mae, may itself soon be in need of bailout...Welcome to the meltdown by EVRO Intelligence - snip:It is really happening. The credit crisis has now entered a highly contagious phase as banks are trying to reduce exposure at the expense of increasingly desperate investors...20% Layoffs on Wall Street to comeMoody's, S&P Defer Downgrades on AAA Subprime Debt, Concealing Bank Losses by Bloomberg - snip:Even after downgrading almost 10,000 subprime-mortgage bon...
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Uncle Sam Owes More On White House Than Its Worth
2008-03-11 02:03:00
Mortgage lenders see more borrowers give up by USA Today - snip:On the front lines in the mortgage foreclosure crisis, lender and loan servicer Dennis Lauria says his deepest losses are from borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth and simply mail in the keys, rather than try to work out a new payment plan. "I can't get you to pay if you've got no skin in the game," says Lauria, senior vice president of Popular Mortgage Servicing in Cherry Hill, N.J., who says 14% of his customers with subprime loans ? high-interest loans given to people with poor credit ratings ? are in default. Nearly 3 million homeowners were behind on their mortgages at the end of last year, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said last week. An additional 1 million-plus borrowers were at risk of imminent foreclosure. The number of foreclosures is likely to set records throughout the year and poses an increasing risk to the housing market, the financial markets and the economy. Federal Reserve Chai...
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