Monday, Aug 11, 2008
There's a new land grab starting in America.
NYpost: LOST SOVEREIGNITY
Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country.
One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains, The Post has learned.
Posted by malct @ 10:21 AM (437 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. Stevie Dee said...
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! If they're not going to be bombed by the Arabs. Then they'll steal your home "gag"! What about "Homeland Security"? Utter horse sh!t. Why they are at it, what would they pay for a "Brown Bush"?
2. hpwatcher said...
I hope they get their fingers burned. This activity is based on a belief that ''house prices only ever go up''. I think now that the housing bubble is burst, it will be the end of the view of housing as a mere commodity.
3. icarus said...
The people who couldn't afford to fill up their cars and lost their homes will be glad to know that oil money has stepped in to buy them.
It will also give them a warm feeling to know that a mortgage broker, whose ilk inflated the bubble, is back in business and is being well rewarded for his trouble.
4. montesquieu said...
I wouldn't put too much store by this article. It may well be based in truth, but the headline is pure mischief-making playing to default Joe Sixpack xenophobia. From Wikipedia on the New York Post:
'The New York Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for what many consider its lurid headlines, sensationalism, blatant advocacy and conservative bias. In 1980, the Columbia Journalism Review asserted that "the New York Post is no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem - a force for evil."[29]'
5. drewster said...
There's a fairly fundamental issue at stake here. If foreigners own all your land, they can extract rent payments forever. Every month you work, part of your paycheque goes into the pockets of a rich foreign landlord. Surely it won't be long before the government imposes a special tax on foreign landlords.
Of course, a Land Value Tax would solve the problem once and for all....
6. drewster said...
monte,
"lurid headlines, sensationalism, blatant advocacy and conservative bias"
It's a tabloid. The Daily Mail and the Express have all those things too. Typical Daily Mail headline: "Illegal Immigrants carry a new form of Aids which makes House Prices fall"; or: "EU-imposed Human Rights Act blocks deportation of paedophile terrorist who kidnapped Maddie".
The headline in the NY Post may be sensationalist, but the rest of the article is fairly bland and factual. I'd be pleased to read something half as intelligent in the Daily Mail.
7. montesquieu said...
Drewster
You don't need to lecture me on tabloid newspapers, I used to work as a sub-editor on one. The point I was making is that the new york post fits the mould (just as Sun/NowW and increasingly the Times do) of a Murdoch-owned paper pushing an extreme right wing agenda.
The Daily Mail is equally poisoned though in a more parochial way.
8. layers said...
@4 montesquieu - Exactly. Pure propaganda.
9. drewster said...
Monte,
Fair point, but I don't think this particular article is right-wing. Is it xenophobic for a newspaper to worry about a nation's prize assets being sold off cheaply to the highest foreign bidder?