Times Online: The party’s over in Dubai

A new life in Dubai.Not.

Posted by fjcruiser @ 08:14 PM 8 Comments

Telegraph.co.uk: Brown's UK borrowing binge is now dangerous bravado

Next year – in a single year – the UK will borrow a staggering 8pc of GDP. The fiscal situation now looks worse than at any time since the Second World War. Brown has managed to surpass even the havoc caused by the deeply incompetent Labour governments of the mid-1970s.

timesonline: TV host Anthea hit by crunch

Once upon a time there were two wonderful people, who had wonderful lives and wonderful houses, until the big nasty repo man came and took it all away.

Posted by bystander @ 06:35 PM 22 Comments

Bloomberg: EU Denies Blocking France’s EU10.5 Billion Bank Plan

Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The European Commission denied it’s blocking France’s 10.5 billion-euro ($13 billion) bank-rescue plan and said the two sides are still negotiating. “We haven’t blocked the plan, because we haven’t taken a decision,” Jonathan Todd, spokesman for European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, said in a telephone interview today. Kroes held talks with French finance minister Christine Lagarde yesterday, and both sides are keen to reach a deal “as soon as possible,” Todd added.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 06:15 PM 11 Comments

The Dossier: Silly Money (part four) - Bremner, Bird and Fortune

A Modest Proposal google video part four to complete the series

Posted by malct @ 05:48 PM 8 Comments

MailOnline: Mortgage firms' snub for Darling: No end in sight to the home loans drought

The stubborn refusal of lenders to turn on the mortgage tap means hundreds of thousands of borrowers are stuck on unaffordably high rates. And nothing Alistair Darling said last week will make any difference.

Times: Profit from the buy-to-let chaos

“The payment profile of buy-to-let lending has worsened more rapidly than the market as a whole. Reasons include falling rents and an over-supply of rental property in some areas,”

Posted by confused76 @ 04:07 PM 14 Comments

GATA / WSJ: Rubin, under fire, defends his role at Citi

Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes, and that his role was peripheral to the bank's main operations even though he was one of its highest-paid officials. "Nobody was prepared for this," Mr. Rubin said in an interview.

Telegraph: JJB Sports lender Barclays piles on pressure

Barclays, which has lent JJB about £60m, has appointed Grant Thornton to advise the bank on JJB's future business plans. Advisers from KPMG are working with JJB on its negotiations with lenders. JJB has already been in dispute with HBOS, another lender to the company, over its banking covenants. In September, JJB said HBOS was wrong to say it had breached a key lending covenant. Speculation is mounting that Barclays is now worried about the company's financial position. Industry sources claimed recent like-for-like sales at JJB Sports had fallen significantly and some suppliers, such as Puma, have stopped worked with the company. Certain credit insurers have also refused to provide cover to the company's suppliers.

The Times: Nationwide hits zero on rates

One of the first Building Society to hit zero as a savings rate for some of its accounts, one has to ask why keep your money there at all, is this all part of a cunning government plan - I think not as they really are not smart enough, only a matter of time before Badgers on the road to the IMF just like Healey was!

The Independent: If this is the end of the road, there must be a rainbow...

Our writer looks around him and sees no signs of the recession. Is it just him, or is everything fine?

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 11:04 AM 16 Comments

Independent: If the recession won't be that bad, why will we go so far into the red?

If the recession is shallow and short, then we might just about scramble through. But if not, then we will be in a huge mess, having to tighten policy while we're still in recession. Most of us are still reeling from those dreadful borrowing figures revealed by the Chancellor in his pre-Budget report last week. If you cannot borrow more and you cannot raise more in tax, you have to cut what you spend. The only issue is how savage this process will turn out to be.

Posted by mytimeisnigh @ 10:46 AM 7 Comments

The Times: Bank of England weighs rate cut to 2%

THE Bank of England and the European Central Bank are set to cut interest rates significantly this week as Britain and Europe dive deeper into recession. The Bank, which has cut its rates by two percentage points in the past two months alone, surprising the markets with a 1.5-point cut earlier this month, is urged by economists to cut by a further point this week.

Telegraph: Nationwide ditches standard variable rate for new borrowers

"Ray Boulger at John Charcol, the mortgage broker, said: "Less than a month after the breakfast meeting rolling out the Brown/Darling master plan to intimidate the major lenders into passing on the full 1.5 percentage point rate cut in their standard variable rate (SVR), the one with the lowest SVR and by far the largest proportion of its lending on SVR pulls the plug for all new lending on that rate. "Not only did the master plan not last for life, it didn't even last until Christmas." So, after Darling Browns finger wagging and stwong words, the first and one of the biggest lenders dares to make a business decision. With the VAT plans and now the lending tuff-talk both looking as robust as my kids strawberry fool, who is going to blink next?

Guardian: Government house price data 'flawed'

The Government's official house price index, produced by the Land Registry, has been accused of misleading homebuyers and policymakers after it emerged that it excludes repossessions and auctions on the grounds that they do not reflect the 'full market value' of the sale.

TimesOnline: All areas of UK industry feel debt pain.

FEARS are mounting over the financial health of Britain’s biggest boiler-maker Baxi, one of a string of companies wrestling with heavy debts as the recession continues to bite.

Guardian.co.uk: Darling: 'I haven't done enough yet to save economy'

Alistair Darling has admitted that he will 'almost certainly' have to deliver a second dose of financial life-support to Britain's ailing economy

new york times: Fears That a Weakened British Pound May Grow Weaker

Mr. Hargreaves sees the pound falling to $1.25 — it was at $1.54 on Friday — and he has recently moved £20 million into United States Treasury bills and instruments denominated in, among other currencies, the Norwegian krone.

FT: Chinese exploit western job losses

Out-of-work finance staff in the UK and US have a new reason for optimism about their employment prospects – especially if they speak Mandarin. Chinese financial institutions are set to exploit the widespread job losses in western financial centres as a result of the credit crunch by next month embarking on a hunt for people willing to relocate. The Shanghai Financial Service Office is sending delegations to New York, Chicago and London to recruit specialists in risk management, asset management, product research and development, macro­economics and policy analysis. However, the salaries on offer in China are unlikely to meet international standards. [No silly bonuses? Awww, diddums]

Posted by drewster @ 03:59 AM 12 Comments

observer: UK house prices 'to plunge like US'

Robert Shiller, the Yale economist who forecast both the bursting of the dotcom bubble and America's property crash, is warning Britain's homeowners to expect things to get every bit as bad on this side of the Atlantic. "consumers should be wary of the comforting excuses many analysts find for explaining why Britain's housing market will be hit less hard than America's"

bloomberg: London luxury house prices fall

They said it could not happen. 3.6% down IN A MONTH according to Knight Frank. Never listen to 'them' again.....

Semana: The Colombian economy in 2009… uh, oh…

The world’s economic outlook is uncertain. Bankruptcy and massive layoffs take place daily in the United States and Europe. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) just came out with its forecast. Less than 3 percent growth signals a global recession. World growth will be at 2.2 percent in 2009. How will Colombia fare in such a gloomy world scenario? The answer depends on the dose of pessimism made by the forecaster. There are some who believe that the best Colombians can do at the end of this year is try to have a good time, because 2009 will be so complicated that perhaps there won’t be an opportunity to celebrate again anytime soon.

First Post: Bankrupt Britain

Nice summary. I think I have an explanation for the recent rise in sterling and stocks which I will put as a comment in case of length.

Posted by stillthinking @ 05:55 PM 14 Comments

PropertyWeek.com: House prices could fall a further 36%

House prices are set to fall a further 36% over the next two years in what could amount to the worst post-war housing crash, according to the price of contracts being traded on the derivatives market.

Posted by quiet guy @ 04:07 PM 21 Comments

Times: Lord Mandelson devising test for which businesses to save

"Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, is drawing up selection criteria for choosing which businesses and industries are of enough importance to the UK economy to warrant being saved". The minister has decided that a more interventionist strategy for industry is now required as Britain faces a probable recession. Can anyone guess what the wacky criteria will be?

Posted by alan @ 03:16 PM 27 Comments

FT: The house loses

If UK mortgage lenders believe they have secured enough capital to tide themselves through a recession, they had better think again. A look at the residential property derivatives market suggests house prices have very far indeed to tumble before they reach their expected trough. Since peaking in August 2007, when the average house sold for £201,081, prices have fallen 16.4 per cent, reaching £168,158 at the end of October. Two-year derivatives contracts are now pointing to a further fall of a third to about £113,000. This implied 44 per cent peak-to-trough decline would wipe out all gains since the summer of 2002

BBC: Legal challenge to HBOS takeover

A last-ditch attempt to block the planned Lloyds TSB takeover of Halifax Bank of Scotland has been launched. A group of businessmen, bank customers and shareholders is to seek a legal ruling over Business Secretary Lord Mandelson's decision to allow the deal.

BBC: Recession 'difficult to predict'

Lord Mandelson has conceded that it was difficult to tell whether the economy will grow by the rates forecast. "No-one can foretell how short or long, how painful or painless, the recession is going to be," he told the Guardian newspaper.

TimesOnline: Pre-Budget Report: struggling homeowners

The threat of repossession will continue to hang over homeowners in arrears despite government plans to offer them more help.

Assoc. Press NPR: For stores, the holiday season may already be over

Major department stores and mall-based chains have cut prices up to 70 percent to move out mounds of excess inventory stuck in the pipeline since the financial crisis hit in September and people snapped their wallets shut. Big moves of merchandise happen every year — but usually after Christmas. This year stores are desperate to shed inventory even before Thanksgiving. At warehouses operated by Liquidity Services Inc., a leading online auction company for surplus goods, there are rows and rows of pallets of offloaded merchandise ranging from jewelry to consumer electronics. "This is about survival. This is not about muddling through the holiday season,"

Times Online: Metrovacesa asks HSBC to buy back London HQ

Metrovacesa, the troubled Spanish property company that bought HSBC’s European headquarters at Canary Wharf less than two years ago, wants the bank to buy it back...Metrovacesa has failed to refinance debt secured on the building, and has decided to offer the 45-storey tower back to HSBC for £838 million – £150 million less than the record-breaking £1.09 billion that the Spanish company paid for it...

Posted by whostolemyendowment @ 12:18 PM 6 Comments

WalesOnline.co.uk: Welsh house price crash is UK’s worst and it won’t level out until 2010

THE plummeting decline of the Welsh property market will not bottom out until 2010, experts warned last night.

The Telegraph: Taxpayer left with £2.4bn paper loss in RBS takeover

"Existing shareholders in RBS shunned the fundraising by what had been Britain's second-biggest bank until the credit crunch struck last year, leaving the taxpayer with 57.9% of the bank - and a £2.4bn loss on the basis of the current share price.".........so what happens if the share price falls further?

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 10:57 AM 10 Comments

Scarborough Evening News: Council selected for mortgage scheme test

"SCARBOROUGH Council is one of only two local authorities in Yorkshire and Humberside to pilot the Government's new Mortgage Rescue Scheme ... The scheme aims to help up to 6,000 of the most vulnerable households avoid the trauma of repossession over the next two years." - Just before the election. What a coincidence!

Posted by quiet guy @ 09:39 AM 6 Comments

Times: The Pre-Budget Panto

"The Bank, or so it is said, would prefer that the banks devoted their cash to small businesses, rather than supporting house prices that are now more affordable for first-time buyers" "The Chancellor did little else to bolster the housing market, neither ensuring that more struggling borrowers are saved from repossession, nor introducing new concessions for first-time buyers" these clowns did enough to inflate the BTL bubble. Anne, she is the pantomime village i@iot

Findaproperty: 663,000 Empty Homes: Who's To Blame?

Chief Executive of the Agency, David Ireland, says: "The government is fixated on just building more homes, but we are convinced that returning more empty homes to use should be part of the solution too". ...why would this be? GB and HMG heavily in the house builders pockets? How much did Barrat, Wimpey etc. put into the coffers of NuLab during the boom times, anyone know???

The Guardian: Mandelson plans list of firms to save from bankruptcy

A fatal flaw for Prime Ministers (particularly Labour Prime Ministers) is that they quickly tire of the humdrum world of domestic politics, and hanker for an historic legacy-defining role on the world stage - Blair being the exemplar. What Mandelson says at the end of this article will leave some of you speechless - those that haven't kicked in their monitor screens in, in a fit of rage and expletives first, that is. There has to be a stage beyond 'delusional', in which case, these two have reached it.

MailOnline: 700,000 'will fail to meet mortgage' as lenders are warned: Treat home repossessions as a LAST resort

Mortgage lenders have been ordered to treat home repossession as a last resort.

New Stateman: How safe is your job?

This was a year of financial panic as oil prices spiked, banks collapsed and stock markets tumbled. But it is likely that 2009 will be the year of the dole. Unemployment, already higher than at any time since Labour came to office in 1997, is expected to climb to almost three million by 2010, according to the Confederation of British Industry. The turnaround in the UK employment market has been astonishing. The pace of job losses, led by the shake-out in the banking sector, has astounded analysts: the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) has forecast that 300,000 private-sector jobs will have been lost in the six months to the end of this year alone.

FT: Investor buys entire street at cut prices

Did we have funds bottom feeding in the last property downturn ? Will this affect the dynamic this time around ? I guess it will not cushion the falls because the funds would have to be massive to affect the UK housing lead balloon.

FT: Investors bet on record property crash

"... They also suggest that the housing market will not return to today’s level of pricing for another 10 years." "Modern flats in northern cities such as Leeds, for example, are already being sold at discounts of more than 50 per cent to their newbuild value two years ago." "The agent predicts that it will take around eight and a half years – until 2016 – for prices to recover to 2007 peak levels."

Posted by voiceofreason @ 10:02 PM 6 Comments

Financial Times: UK and Italy struggle to entice investors

Quote:"The UK and Italy struggled to sell bonds on Thursday in a fresh sign of the difficulties governments are facing because of the debt needed for economic stimulus packages and bank recapitalisations. " "Roger Brown, global head of rates research at UBS, said: “The UK auction was dire. I do not remember one as bad for shorter-dated bonds. It is an ominous sign of trouble ahead." "Both the UK and Italian governments had to offer an extra 10 basis points compared with similar existing debt to entice investors to sell £3.75bn in four-year bonds and €1.4bn in three-year bonds respectively. The Italians also raised a lower amount than expected because of worries over weak demand"

Crown Blog: Gordon Brown's Downfall - The prequel

New Gordon Brown Downfall - The prequel Video. Been working on this a while, but it all came together this week especially the ending. Hope you enjoy - no cursing this time. http://thecrownblogspot.blogspot.com/2008/11/gordon-browns-downfall-prequel.html

telegraph: Britain should join the euro says Hong Kongs Tsang

A Chinese view on UK debt.

TFL: Removal of Western Extension Congestion Charging zone

A reprieve for house prices?! The distortions at the border of the charge zone will cause some interesting changes, people who paid 20k extra to be just inside will feel flumoxed! But, on the whole, this should help support west london prices a little bit, and, will hopefully end the war on family cars. Do you think Boris discovered the fraud of global warming?!

FT.com: Even UK guarantee can't stop housing crash

Britain needs to reflate its mortgage markets to save its economy and its banks. Problem is, few want to borrow and there is precious little money to lend.

media.economist: Gold price since 1344 in Sterling

Gold at 530pounds, up at its all time high, following an exponential trajectory that began when the last vestiges of the gold standard were removed in the 1970's. We are on a trajectory back to the gold standard, because, a revaluation of gold, to pay off all the debt, is the only way to deal with the debt crisis. The graph above shows how gold price has risen via a millenium of inflation. Beginning with the clipping of the coignage, such as reducing the amount of gold in the sovereign coin, accelerating with the first Bank of England in the 1600's, culminating in this century's boom following the Federal Reserve and the final capitulation from the ending of the gold window in the 1970's.

Posted by planning4acrash @ 06:44 PM 13 Comments

The Market Oracle: Bankrupt Britain Trending Towards Hyper-Inflation?

Britian is a Big Version of Iceland

news sniffer: Senior Tory arrested over leaks

WOW a REAL CONSPIRACY!!! Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green, was arrested earlier in connection with an investigation into a series of leaks from the Home Office. He was held on suspicion of "conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office," the Metropolitan Police said. Just imagine getting banged up for saying house prices will fall!

Posted by malct @ 06:21 PM 11 Comments

Supplychainasia.com: Shipping News - Container Ship Orders Plummet

Only 179 containerships were contracted in the first eight months of this year, down 49 percent on-year, Clarkson reports. This compares with a record 566 contracts in 2005, 479 in 2006 and 530 in 2007.

BBC news: What is it like to be an estate agent?

The real problem facing estate agents who have never worked through a downturn is that the methods they used to use are no longer enough. "Back in the old days..." Mr Smith begins, before realising that he is talking about last year. "It used to just be a question of throwing properties out there and seeing who catches them."

BBC: What is it like to be a mortgage broker?

The usual serise. Actually, this particular broker seems have some decency. She claims she would recommend the best options (SVR, negotiating with lenders directly, etc) for the customers, even if that means, as a result, she doesn’t make a commission fee, which itself is the bizarre consequence of credit crunch.

Market Oracle: The Millennium Wave Suggests Dramatic Technological and Economic Changes

"The paradigm shift rate (i.e., the overall rate of technical progress) is currently doubling (approximately) every decade; that is, paradigm shift times are halving every decade (and the rate of acceleration is itself growing exponentially). So, the technological progress in the twenty-first century will be equivalent to what would require (in the linear view) on the order of two hundred centuries. In contrast, the twentieth century saw only about twenty-five years of progress (again at today's rate of progress) since we have been speeding up to current rates. So the twenty-first century will see almost a thousand times greater technological change than its predecessor."

Posted by sold 2 rent 1 @ 04:43 PM 9 Comments

P E R E: Opportunity fund eyes 'entire street' in UK

London-based boutique fund manager, Managing Partners Limited, has snapped up 18 of 48 homes in one street in Portsmouth in the south of England and intends to buy another ten because prices have fallen so much. Read on.......

Economist: Dubai - Has the bubble burst?

“THEY said you couldn’t create islands in the middle of a city,” shouts a property advertisement over a jammed Dubai motorway. “We said, what’s next?” The range of answers has become gloomier by the week, as the debate moves from whether the Dubai property bubble will burst to just how bad it is going to get. Some nervous bankers think property prices could fall by 80% or so in the next year or so.

FT.com: Output fall stokes Japan’s deflation fears

“It’s absolutely unprecedented,” for production to show a 12 per cent drop from September to December, said Richard Jerram, chief economist at Macquarie in Tokyo. “That basically tells you that export demand has collapsed,” he said.

TMC Entertainment: Kirstie Allsopp - speaker profile

Not a new article - but hey it's Friday...'Find out how to book Kirstie Allsopp as the after dinner speaker for your next event by calling TMC Speak Out.......'

Posted by whostolemyendowment @ 03:48 PM 8 Comments

BBC: Russian rates up as rouble falls

Russia's central bank increased its key interest rate to 13% from 12% in an attempt to help stop currency losses. The rouble headed for its largest weekly fall in five years, and has fallen approximately 1.9% this week. For the second time this week, Bank Rossii, the country's central bank, widened the rouble's trading band by about 1% or 30 kopeks. Russia's has spent $148bn (£96.4bn) of its foreign currency reserves since August to stop a fall of the rouble.

Posted by jack c @ 03:10 PM 13 Comments

Citywire: Scrooge reigns on the High Street as spending collapses

Retailers are preparing for a black Christmas as spending among consumer crumbles to a 25-year low. The Confederation of British Industry's (CBI) latest distributive trends survey revealed that the vast majority of retailers had posted lower numbers in the first half of November compared to a year ago. Its headline reading came in at -47, down from -27 in October to stand at levels seen in August when the survey hit its lowest level since starting in 1983. Looking forward, retailers are not expecting Christmas trading to alleviate much of the pressure they are under, with a -40% fall in year-on-year sales volumes expected.

daily express: DSG CHIEF DIGS IN TO BEAT HIGH STREET BLUES

The group reported a halfyear loss of £61 million but said it was scrapping dividend payments this year, slashing spending by £30 million and cutting costs by £75 million to conserve cash. It said it was trading comfortably within its banking covenants. Browett said: "We have been back to 1929 to look at consumer demand recession experience and in all reasonable scenarios we should be fine." Woolworths' woes could create weeks of disruption as it sold off stock, Browett warned.

Telegraph: House prices: Are we over the worst?

"The price of the average property in Britain now stands at £158,442, a fall of 0.4pc from £158,872 in October, Nationwide's house price index shows. Prices are 13.9pc lower than at this time last year. These figures are less doom-laden than last month's, when the month-on-month fall was 1.3pc and the annual decline reached 14.6pc. So does this mean that the housing market is about to turn a corner, or do prices have further to fall? And if we haven't yet reached rock bottom, how much longer before we do? We asked the experts – economists, mortgage brokers and estate agents – for their predictions." Despite my title, most of the article is quite reasonable but check the predictions made by Peter Bolton King of the National Association of Estate Agents near the end of the piece.

Posted by quiet guy @ 01:30 PM 12 Comments

dailymail: Seller slashes price of house by £1.2million in just 12 months

A landlord trying to sell a house in an exclusive part of London has been forced to slash the asking price by £1.2 million after it went unsold for 12 months. The four-storey property in St John’s Wood went on sale at £2.8 million on last December, around the time the market peaked. It was cut to £2.25 million last month and again to £1.6 million - 42 per cent below the original valuation - on November 19.

sudden debt blog: Can the US Do An IMF On Itself?

Picture the US as the Global Fire Department (GFD). In the last ten years or so the GFD became extremely irresponsible. It ignored the fire safety of its own firehouse, which became choked with highly flammable material (i.e. debt and derivatives), and relaxed the rules about the health and fitness of its firemen (i.e. oversight and regulation were weakened). Seeing this, the good citizens in the neighborhood (i.e. other western nations) also adopted the same attitude. And why not? If the fire department itself didn't care about all that dead wood and turpentine piling up in its own back yard, why should they? A whole raft of nations from the UK and Australia, to Bulgaria, Poland, Iceland and Romania bought the same highly flammable "growth" model. Borrow - spend - inflate assets - borrow

Press Association: House price falls accelerate

The annual rate at which house prices in England and Wales are falling continued to accelerate during October to hit a new record of 10.1%, figures showed. The average home lost a further 1.5% of its value during the month to stand at £165,529, according to the Land Registry. It was the 14th month in a row that the annual rate of growth has declined, leaving property costing around the same as it did in the summer of 2006.

Posted by little professor @ 12:42 PM 8 Comments

Citywire: Darling’s christmas present conceals a debt trap, says New Star’s Simon Ward

Alistair Darling’s emergency budget is pregnant with dangers. His package will not achieve his objectives of shortening the recession and hastening recovery while the borrowing the UK will have to undertake will impose major costs on future taxpayers, endangering the long-term health of the economy. On the face of it, Darling is delivering a significant economic stimulus in 2009-10 through his temporary VAT cut and other measures. The Treasury reckons cyclically-adjusted net borrowing will rise by 1.9 percentage points of gross domestic product (GDP), the largest increase since 1992-93. This package will contribute to record headline borrowing of £118 billion in 2009-10 or 8% of GDP.

FT: Savvy house-hunters on the prowl for cheap properties

Despite the downturn in the property market, Rightmove has reported a significant increase in demand for well-priced properties.In its November House Price Index, Rightmove indicated that over the last month consumers have been putting their homes on the market with an average 7 per cent discount on the year before. However, Rightmove said in the last few weeks, it has experienced a significant increase in email and phone leads from its website, with 1.1 million leads being generated in September from 38 million visits.It said savvy buyers were looking harder and keeping an eye on the market for when prices have dropped to a level they can afford.

Posted by jack c @ 11:49 AM 6 Comments

MoneyWeek: Retail stocks have plunged – but they will get cheaper still

In recessions, companies fold. It's sad, but that's just what happens in downturns. And on the British high street, the failures are starting to stack up as high as the unsold stock in retailers' storerooms. Yet this week's high profile collapses of Woolworths and MFI may turn out to be more than just a sign of the cyclical times. They could signal the end of the high street as we know it.

HPC Meetup: THe Meet

Last posting for a midlands meet this side of christmas......hope to see a few of you there tomorrow....T.C.

Daily Mail: ANALYSIS: A salutary warning to any opposition MP planning to expose the Government's misconduct

Last reference to this story was pulled off this site

Posted by matt_the_hat @ 11:23 AM 13 Comments

Live Leak: The 2008 Bailout Vs Other Large Government Projects

And the figures here do not get anywhere near today's $8.5 trillion, and rising, bank heist. Its good to put these abstract figures into context.

Our Property: Selling prices 1995 to 2000

Our Price have updated their database for selling prices from 1995 to 2000; the ones from 2000 were already on there because they get this from HM Land Registry. (I typed in a road at random to generate a new URL)

BBC: Government to own majority of RBS

Existing shareholders agreed to buy almost 56 million shares, which represents just 0.24% of the new shares on offer, at a cost of £36.7m, making an immediate paper loss of £5.6m. The gap between the offer price and the current share price also means that taxpayers have made an immediate paper loss of £2.3bn based on Thursday's closing share price.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 10:06 AM 14 Comments

Federal Reserve: Housing Market Risks in the United Kingdom

House prices in the United Kingdom rose rapidly in recent years. The run-up, larger than any other in U.K. history, leveled off early last year. House prices are currently declining at rates faster than those seen in the early 1990's downturn. The housing downturn, however, is far from complete. Using the price-rent ratio as a guide, house prices are likely to fall at least a further 30 percent before leveling off. Given the historic links between housing and real activity, the downturn is likely to be associated with very slow growth. Going forward, we recommend the price-rent ratio as the appropriate measure of housing valuation.

Knight Frank Residential Newsletter: Autumn 2008 london residential Review

Dont worry about it, they ain't any forced sellers, there ain't any rising unemployment, there ain't any oversupply of properties for rent in London.It is time to buy, buy,buy......

Telegraph: Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels

"Gold is poised for a dramatic surge and could blast through $2,000 an ounce by the end of next year as central banks flood the world's monetary system with liquidity, according to an internal client note from the US bank Citigroup." OK just another gold story, but from Citi this time

Posted by doom&gloom @ 07:52 AM 26 Comments

International Herald-Tribune: A dilemma in British housing

It's looking as if the fall in British house prices will be further than expected. Britons simply do not save enough to supply their banks with enough to lend to fund the debt requirement implied by their housing prices. You have to wonder which potential house buyer is out there who a) is a good credit risk b) has a 20% down payment c) is willing to buy an asset depreciating at 2% a month. Bank liabilities in the US amount to 20% of the size of the economy. In Britain, the figure is 285%. Ask yourself then what might happen to Britain.

Posted by little professor @ 12:19 AM 10 Comments

Telegraph: Bankruptcy update britain

Interesting point about a possibly unforseen consequence of UK Govts taking over banks. A Paralell with Iceland

Telegraph: Treasury admits Northern Rock lending was 'irresponsible'

The Government has finally admitted what most of us long suspected – that Northern Rock was the most "irresponsible" of Britain's mortgage lenders. The admission is a marked retreat for the Treasury, which insisted after the bank was nationalized that its mortgage book was "good quality". Treasury secretary Lord Myners said "Foreclosures are higher in Northern Rock than in other mortgage lenders because its lending was more irresponsible. It is as simple as that." Northern Rock's controversial 125% 'Together' mortgages accont for a third of their mortgage book, half of their arrears and three quarters of their repossessions.

Posted by little professor @ 09:05 PM 6 Comments

Telegraph: House prices: How low can they go?

A resumee of JD and others predictions on house prices - and how things have a long way to go.

Posted by growler @ 08:42 PM 19 Comments

The Market Oracle: Dow Jones Stock Market Index Defies Gravity And Reality

The Dow Jones is now on a 1,000 point, four day winning streak in a defiant bear market rally that defies the ever darkening economic backdrop and the awful cowardly terrorist attacks in Mumbai. So as the ghastly slew of economic data continued unabated yesterday the reality is that this mini rally has probably a lot to do with month end portfolio adjustments from cash and bonds into stocks. Look at US 10 year Treasuries yields which are below 3%, so the bond market is blowing this rally a big raspberry.

Telegraph: Gold poised to surge

Gold could exceed $2,000 an ounce as the world unravels, Citigroup said. Now citi has said it, what does that mean. Maybe the conspiracy theorists and the gold-bugs could fight it out. Any takers?

Posted by last_days_of_disco @ 08:35 PM 6 Comments

Scientific American: Patternicity: Finding Meaningful Patterns in Meaningless Noise

I argue that our brains are belief engines: evolved pattern-recognition machines that connect the dots and create meaning out of the patterns that we think we see in nature. Sometimes A really is connected to B; sometimes it is not. When it is, we have learned something valuable about the environment from which we can make predictions that aid in survival and reproduction. We are the ancestors of those most successful at finding patterns. This process is called association learning, and it is fundamental to all animal behavior, from the humble worm C. elegans to H. sapiens. Unfortunately, we did not evolve a Baloney Detection Network in the brain to distinguish between true and false patterns. But such erroneous cognition is not likely to remove us from the gene pool....

Posted by nopensionnohouse @ 07:24 PM 45 Comments

Telegraph.co.uk: House prices to fall a further 36pc

House prices are set to fall a further 36pc over the next two years in what could amount to the worst post-war housing crash, according to the price of contracts being traded on the derivatives market

BBC: Builders and carmakers seek help

Builders demand that 'Gordon Brown puts more pressure on banks to make lending available to home owners' while car makers who (are mostly under foreign ownership) want financial aid.

Telegraph: Recession: When the money goes, so does the toxic wife

'You loser!" screamed Katie, aiming a vase at her husband. "You've destroyed my life,'' she continued, hurling it. "Just look at my hair, look at my nails! You loser, you jerk, you nobody."

Posted by flintster1994 @ 05:56 PM 7 Comments

Telegraph: Citigroup says gold could rise above $2,000 next year as world unravels

The bank said the damage caused by the financial excesses of the last quarter century was forcing the world's authorities to take steps that had never been tried before. This gamble was likely to end in one of two extreme ways: with either a resurgence of inflation; or a downward spiral into depression, civil disorder, and possibly wars. Both outcomes will cause a rush for gold. "They are throwing the kitchen sink at this," said Tom Fitzpatrick, the bank's chief technical strategist.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 05:50 PM 17 Comments

Fleet Street Invest: This Man’s Message Could Save You From Financial Ruin

Why you should remain wary of equities Shiller told us that, in real terms, the S&P fell 80% in the 1930s. So far it is only down 54%. This means you still have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lose a lot of money very quickly. Will you take it?

NY Times: Food Prices Expected to Keep Going Up

[USA data contradicts predictions of 0% inflation for next year]. "The Agriculture Department is forecasting that food prices will increase 3.5 to 4.5 percent in 2009, compared with an estimated 5 to 6 percent increase by the end of this year. Some economists project even steeper increases next year up to 7%. A reason that overall food prices are expected to continue increasing is the lag between price increases for basic commodities and for finished food products in the grocery store, particularly for meat and processed foods. “For the last 21 months, food manufacturers, restaurants and livestock producers have been absorbing significant costs that in my view are likely to be passed on to consumers in 2009 and beyond,” said Mr. Lapp, a former chief economist at ConAgra Foods.

Posted by mountain goat @ 03:35 PM 9 Comments

yahoo news: PM hosts business crisis talks

The Prime Minister was joined by housing minister Margaret Beckett for a breakfast meeting in Downing Street with industry leaders, including from the Home Builders Federation, the Federation of Master Builders and the Council of Mortgage Lenders.He said the problem in this country was not that we had overbuilt but "the question has been the affordability of housing".

Posted by sold out @ 03:34 PM 11 Comments

Guardian: 'They called me bonkers'

About Danny Blanchflower (MPC) who stood alone for interest rate cuts. His view now completely accepted by policy makers. One for p4c and s2r1?

Posted by letthemfall @ 03:24 PM 19 Comments

MacWorld: Panasonic forecasts 90% drop in profits this year

No company can take this kind of drop on the chin... expect layoffs.

chester chronicle: Workers to fight 100 jobs losses at Cheshire BP plant

WORKERS have pledged to fight the proposed 100 job losses when the BP/Castrol oils plant in Ellesmere Port closes down. The oil giant intends to shut the Stanlow site and transfer work to plants in Europe, which would then provide lubricants for the UK market.

liverpool echo: Brookside Close for sale at £600,000

Once one of the most famous addresses in Britain, the close is to go under the hammer for as little as £550,000. Developers initially hoped to fetch £2m for the West Derby semi-detached houses and bungalows, including the infamous number 10, where wife-beater Trevor Jordache found his last resting place under the patio. But with the credit crunch crippling the housing market, auctioneers Allsop have listed the 1980s red brick properties with a guide price of between £550,000 and £600,000.

bbc: Car firm cuts 850 agency workers

About 850 agency workers are to lose their jobs at Jaguar Land Rover in the West Midlands and Warwickshire. The IT and engineering staff at plants in Castle Bromwich, Solihull, Whitley, and Gaydon have been told their jobs will go by the end of the year.

Posted by mark @ 12:54 PM 7 Comments

reuters: China economic downturn deepens

ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, said it was likely to start short-time working and cut production at its German steel plants in December. Two of Britain's most high profile retailers DSG and Kingfisher underlined the severity of the economic slowdown with downbeat results and gloomy outlooks, while variety story group Woolworths went into administration. Britain's retailers face a brutal downturn in consumer spending, amid sliding house prices and rising unemployment

BBC Today: House prices fall 4.3% in quarter

The latest Nationwide house price survey has been published. House prices have fallen by 4.3% over three months. In London, asking prices for homes are being slashed by up to £100,000 to secure sales in the run-up to Christmas, the Evening Standard says. Wales correspondent Mark Hutchings and David Miles, chief UK economist at Morgan Stanley, discuss how the housing market can recover.

Posted by doomwatch @ 12:30 PM 8 Comments

FT: Investor buys entire street at cut prices

Investment funds are taking advantage of the sharp downturn in house prices to buy cheap properties from struggling buy-to-let landlords and distressed homeowners

Posted by whostolemyendowment @ 12:22 PM 10 Comments

Market Oracle: The Global Financial System is Coming to an End

Before this secular Bear Market is over, we are going to new lows in all indices, more than 3500 banks will close, unemployment will surge, there will be violence in the streets and people will kill you to get what you have. Every one of the 17 macro factors detailed in The Big Rollover is converging and coming to fruition. Sorry—but this is what we see in the future. Could we be wrong? Of course. No one has a crystal ball that can see beyond the hard right edge of the charts. No one can tell the future with complete accuracy. All we have are our many years of research and the fact that everyone has now begun to see, hear and feel the power of The Big Rollover.

Posted by sold 2 rent 1 @ 11:06 AM 33 Comments

contract Journal: Pettifer Construction in administration

The firm employed around 150 staff. The source said: “Things are happening very fast there and everything is in the hands of the administrators.”

contract Journal: Ambitious thieves attempt to steal entire Dorset home

Ambitious thieves not content with household burglary tried to pinch an entire Dorset property

dailymail: Council tax bills face 10% hike after next election due to £1bn loss in Icelandic banks

Council tax payers face a rise of 10 per cent in their bills – but not until after the next election. The rise, which will mean more than £120 on the average bill, looks certain because of town hall losses of nearly £1billion in failed Icelandic banks. Gordon Brown moved yesterday to delay the inevitable price to tax payers of the fiasco by allowing councils to keep their Icelandic losses – totalling £944million – off the books this year.

Times: A week of stupid politics but good economics

Claims that Britain is on the brink of bankruptcy are a misunderstanding. Every pound of savings is a pound borrowed.Shock. Horror. VAT could go up after the next election. Or it could go down - or stay the same. The same can be said of income tax and council tax and road tax. It can also be said about public spending, government deficits, the FTSE index, the oil price and the price of fish. So what? Britain's political debate has descended into farce. The fault for this lies largely with Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling - not because of the contents of the Pre-Budget Report, which was sensible from an economic standpoint, but because of their political failure to explain why it made economic sense.

Posted by jack c @ 10:17 AM 21 Comments

BBC: House prices fall but pace eases

"The slump in house prices eased off in November with prices falling by just 0.4%, according to the Nationwide, the UK's largest building society. The mortgage lender said the rate of price falls "moderated significantly" when compared with October's 1.3% fall. House prices are down 13.9% from November 2007, easing from a 14.6% annual fall in October. However, Nationwide warned that the poor economy would continue to put pressure on the housing market." (isn't it the other way round? The house price bubble bursting has dragged the economy down?)

Posted by mark wadsworth @ 07:35 AM 48 Comments

Nationwide: November House Prices

"... This brings the annual rate of house price falls to 13.9%, down from 14.6% last month. The price of a typical house is now £158,442. This is about £25,000 less than this time last year but is still about £25,000 higher than in November 2003."

Telegraph: House sellers drop asking prices by £17,000 across Britain, survey reveals

Prices have been cut by an average of £16,941 by sellers, which is a national decline of 6.5 per cent. The figures vary by region. London has seen the biggest falls, with sellers in Westminster having £108,166 knocked off the price of their home. It is the latest sign that sellers are adjusting to lower house prices, having been in denial for months. "The months ahead are a great opportunity for cash buyers", said some twit. Tamara Smith, of EasyRoommate.com, said: "In recent weeks, we've seen a threefold increase in the number of live-in landlords on our site. Some people, potentially struggling with mortgage payments or in negative equity, are choosing to rent out a room in their house rather than sell at a significantly discounted price."

Posted by drewster @ 01:25 AM 9 Comments

Mish's: Case Shiller index and California Association of Realtors November 2008 Release

"Median nominal prices in California are now down 47% according to CAR and 42% according to DQNews - and those declines are in less than 18 months! The CAR housing numbers reflect Oct 2008 which are actual sales in late August and September (read pre-stockmarket meltdown)." [Note: the Case-Shiller index in the table shows "only" a 21% decline nationally at present; but Mish reckons the CAR index is far ahead of the Case-Shiller index and therefore reflects the likely picture a few months from now.]

The Telegraph: Woolies collapse to provoke price war

"The prospect of heavy discounting in the run-up to Christmas will send shock waves through the beleaguered retail sector which is already facing its worst Christmas for more than a decade."

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 11:37 PM 8 Comments

CNplus: Home Agency To Buy Private Land

Sticking plaster or good dressing?

Daily Mail: House prices down £17,000 in the last two weeks alone

Asking prices for homes are being slashed by up to £100,000 to secure sales in the run-up to Christmas, according to property search engine Globrix. In the last two weeks, prices have been cut dramatically as sellers have finally faced up to the "new reality" of the depressed London market after months of denial. In Camden the average reduction is £55,728 while in Chelsea the average price has dropped £100,797

BBC Inside Out: Buy-to-let

Was on telly tonight (see iplayer) ... But with property prices crashing all around him, Bill’s worried about the value of his investment. So he went to see Tony McKeon, the director of Residential Lettings Group, to find out about the state of the market: He told Bill: "Your honeymoon period is over… so obviously you’re forking out of your pocket to cover the mortgage on the property that you had bought. "The rental income coming in is a lot less than you originally thought you’d achieve on your property." Tony also gave Bill a valuation on his flat. He believes it's worth £215,000. So in just one year Bill has lost £60,000! But Bill isn't the only buy-to-let landlord that has lost money.

Posted by doomwatch @ 09:47 PM 10 Comments

contract journal: Speedy Hire revenue up but 492 jobs cut

Speedy Hire has made 429 of 492 planned job cuts, closed 33 depots and reduced its vehicle fleet by 260 units, despite reporting a 22% rise in revenue.

SF GATE: Government bailout hits $8.5 trillion

The federal government committed an additional $800 billion to two new loan programs on Tuesday, bringing its cumulative commitment to financial rescue initiatives to a staggering $8.5 trillion, according to Bloomberg News. Most of the money, about $5.5 trillion, comes from the Federal Reserve, which as an independent entity does not need congressional approval to lend money to banks or, in "unusual and exigent circumstances," to other financial institutions. To stimulate lending, the Fed said on Tuesday it will purchase up to $600 billion in mortgage debt issued or backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and government housing agencies.

BBC: Administrators called in at MFI

"Furniture retailer MFI has gone into administration - citing falling demand for big ticket items, cash-flow problems and the withdrawal of credit". The union's Yorkshire regional secretary Tim Roache said is was "disappointing that the landlords of the shops pulled the plug and did not give the management time to turn it around".

Posted by alan @ 09:03 PM 7 Comments

ICH news: Colossal Financial Collapse

The dilemma Paulson has created with his inept handling of the crisis is simple: If the US Government paid the true value for these nearly worthless assets, the banks would have to write down huge losses, and, as Levy economists put it, ‘announce to the world that they are insolvent.’ On the other hand, if Paulson raised the toxic waste purchase price high enough to protect the banks from losses, $700 billion ‘will buy only a tiny fraction of the 'troubled' assets.’ That is what the latest nationalization of Citigroup is about. It is only the beginning. The 2009 year will be one of titanic shocks and changes to the global order of a scale perhaps not experienced in the past five centuries.

FT.com: Shipping costs plunge to 22-year low

The cost of shipping dry bulk commodities such as iron ore, coal and grains plunged to its lowest in nearly 22 years on Wednesday, as demand for raw materials in China and the rest of the world continued to tumble amid the economic crisis.

BBC wales: Threat to 600 jobs at factories

Cosmetics factory Budelpack International COSi at Maesteg, which employs nearly 400 people, has gone into administration. Last month the plant, which makes brands such as Clinique and Body Shop, cut its workforce by more than 200, blaming a sales slump.

Bloomberg.com: Fed Risks `Spitting in the Wind' With New Aid Pledges

The Federal Reserve's new $800 billion effort to combat the financial crisis is designed to make credit more accessible to shaken consumers who aren't sure they want more debt. Households and lenders may not respond much because of the wealth destruction from plunging property and stock values, and the deepening economic slump, economists say.

Telegraph: Exclusive: Woolworths to go into administration

Trading in Woolworths shares was suspended this morning as talks to rescue the beleaguered retailer continued. But following the breakdown of the talks the board plans to place the group's retail arm and distribution business into administration. However the holding company and 2entertain - a joint venture with the BBC - will not be placed into administration.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 05:52 PM 8 Comments

BBC: Woolworths enters administration

High Street legend Woolworths has buckled under its debt and is set to go into administration, BBC business editor Robert Peston has learned.

Telegraph: Fears mount that Government will default on bonds

The cost of insuring against the British Government defaulting on its gilts in the next five years surged to 100 basis points above libor at one stage yesterday, before closing at 88.2 basis points. In comparison, insuring against leading banks failing to pay back their debt now stands at 58.8 basis points for BNP, 65.2 for Commerzbank and 68.6 for Credit Agricole. In the UK, Lloyds TSB is priced at 95 basis points and 99.2 for HSBC.

BBC News: Darling admits whisky duty error

The chancellor has admitted to MPs that he made a mistake in raising duty on Scotch whisky, which would have led to a 29p rise in the price of a bottle. Alistair Darling caused an inadvertent storm with his proposals to offset the cut in VAT by raising duty on spirits.

bloomberg: BCE Takeover May Collapse on Insolvency Concerns

Teachers’ Pension Plan may collapse after auditor KPMG said the C$52 billion ($42 billion) deal, the second-biggest leveraged buyout, would leave the Canadian phone company insolvent.

Yahoo: Northern Rock hikes mortgage rates

State-owned lender Northern Rock (LSE: GB0001452795.L - news) has ignored government calls for banks to drop mortgage rates in line with the base rate by raising the cost of some of its fixed-rate deals.

Bloomberg: Sales of New Houses in U.S. Fall to Lowest Since 1991

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- New-home sales in the U.S. fell in October to the lowest level in 17 years as the credit crunch deprived potential buyers of needed financing. Purchases dropped 5.3 percent to an annual pace of 433,000, lower than forecast and the fewest since January 1991, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The median sales price decreased to a four-year low. Other Commerce reports today showed consumer and business spending tumbled last month.

Moneyweek: We're heading for a rally – here's what to buy now

"We all know what is causing the huge falls across virtually every asset class. It’s the global margin call, deleveraging on an unprecedented scale, forced selling of everything – call it what you will. Assets – the more liquid the better – are being sold off wholesale, regardless of their fundamentals, to raise cash to repay debt. But at some point this deleveraging has to end. What we all want to know is – when? And what will be the best performing asset class when it does?"

Posted by doom&gloom @ 04:12 PM 6 Comments

standard: House prices drop £100,000 in two weeks

100.000 slashed

Retail Week: MFI files for administration

Updated: Staff at troubled kitchen retailer MFI were called to a meeting this morning where they were told the company has applied to go into administration. A notification of intention to file for administration was filed with the High Court last night and the company is expected to go into administration this afternoon.

Evening standard: House prices drop £100,000 in two weeks

ASKING prices for London homes are being slashed by up to £100,000 to secure sales in the run-up to Christmas.

Business Spectator: A tsunami of hope or terror?

As the world slips into recession, it is also on the brink of a synthetic CDO cataclysm that could actually save the global banking system. It is a truly great irony that the world’s banks could end up being saved not by governments, but by the synthetic CDO time bomb that they set ticking with their own questionable practices during the credit boom. Alternatively, the triggering of default on the trillions of dollars worth of synthetic CDOs that were sold before 2007 could be a disaster that tips the world from recession into depression. Nobody knows, but it won’t be a small event.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 02:54 PM 18 Comments

Retail week: Mandelson intervenes in Woolworths crisis

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has intervened to attempt to save variety store group Woolworths. It is understood that Mandelson's office called in Woolworths' lenders – which include Burdale and GMAC - for an emergency meeting yesterday as the retailer tottered on the brink of administration.

Posted by wdbeast @ 02:49 PM 12 Comments

The Times: Northern Rock defies Government to raise rates

"Northern Rock, the state-owned lender, has embarrassed the Government by increasing rates on its most competitive deals despite calls for high street lenders to pass on cuts in borrowing costs."....ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Bloomberg: U.S. Mortgage Rates Drop Most in Seven Years on Fed Debt Plan

U.S. mortgage rates dropped by the most in at least seven years as a Federal Reserve pledge to buy $600 billion of debt succeeded where seven cuts in the central bank’s benchmark rate had failed. This initative is intended to lower the cost of borrowing for home mortgages, for car loans, for small business loans, for student loans and for credit card debt. “I was sitting in my underwear getting dressed in the morning when it came on TV, and I told my wife, ‘Rates are going down today,’” said Henry Savage, president of PMC Mortgage Corp. in Alexandria, Virginia. “Instead of buying stocks in stupid banks, the government finally is going to make a move to clear assets from the market.”

Scientific American: After the Crash: How Software Models Doomed the Markets

Quants - lapsed physicists and mathematical virtuosos were the ones who both invented these oblique securities and created software models that supposedly measured the risk a firm would incur by holding them in its portfolio. Without the formal requirement to maintain debt ceilings and capital reserves, the commission had freed these firms to police themselves using risk tools crafted by cadres of quants. ...the quant community needs to undertake a search for better models [too right!] —perhaps seeking help from behavioral economics, which studies irrationality of investors’ decision making, and from virtual market tools that use “intelligent agents” to mimic more faithfully the ups and downs of the activities of buyers and sellers.

bbc: Iceland inflation soars to 17.1%

Food prices increased fastest, up 30.6% over the year, as the country's currency plummeted.

Posted by mark @ 01:25 PM 13 Comments

BBC News: Europe announces 200bn-euro plan

The European Commission has unveiled an economic recovery plan worth 200bn euros (£170bn) which it hopes will save millions of jobs across the region. Its president Jose Manuel Barroso said he thought the plan was "timely, temporary and targeted". The EC expects member states to contribute 170bn euros while the European Union will give 30bn euros. Mr Barroso said it was important that EU members acted together in a period of "exceptional crisis".

FT: UK services in biggest contraction since 1990

"The service sector of the British economy contracted 0.4 per cent in the quarter to the end of September, in the biggest contraction since 1990, according to data published on Wednesday." Where's my handcart? I'm off to Hell!

BBC: VAT rise 'dropped just days ago'

Within days of announcing a cut to VAT, a document published online (by mistake) has indicated that the Government were actually thinking of raising the rate of VAT to 18.5%. No doubt, this will probably rise to about 20%+ to pay for the associated cash splurge by messrs Brown & Darling. Being a citizen in the UK these days is like being strapped in the back of a car whilst the car is being driven by a pair of blind drunk lunatics.

The Guardian: Editorial - Locked Out

"This financial crisis began with housing, .. any hope of its ending must lie with housing" "Politicians have spent the past couple of days arguing over the government's £21bn boost to the economy. That is a big number, dwarfed by what is going on in the mortgage market... last year's net total of £108bn of new home loans has shrunk to around £40bn this year and could fall below zero next year... a hundred-billion-pound business will shrink to nearly nothing" "The .. priority must be to allow the property bubble to deflate in as orderly a fashion as possible ... over the longer term, house prices must come down and orgiastic lending and wild property speculation must be curbed." "To turn property into a private asset is to court bubbles, buy-to-let madness and supply problems"

NoMonkeyBusiness.org.uk: Update on real house prices

The No Monkey Business blog updates its own version of real house prices relative to a sustainable trend, based on the full Nationwide data from 1957. The ratio has dropped from the peak of 132 to 112 but the trend itself, at 2.8%, is probably overstated after an unusually long period of extreme overvaluation. The ultimate low is expected to be worse than the 20-40% real price decline No Monkey Business was predicting before the banking crisis, in which case most if the drop is still to come.

MoneyWeek: Is there light at the end of the tunnel for stocks?

"De-leveraging, the unavoidable consequence of the credit contraction, is far from finished and will continue to create a never ending stream of forced sellers. Major stock markets should fall by as much as another 50%; in which case, FTSE will bottom out below 2,500. As unlikely as that may seem to some, it is no more than should be expected given the unprecedented conditions and the abiding lessons of history."

Bloomberg: Brown’s ‘Churchill’ Moment Masks Failure of Regulator He Built

The Crumblin' Rock, B&B, Bonuses, banking traumas and where regulation went wrong.

Independent: Warning: this economic crisis could drag on for a decade

One difficulty in all this financial turmoil is knowing who to listen to, who is talking sense and has a grasp of the complexities of the matter. We've heard some dreadful disingenuous nonsense from some members of the Govt. Vince Cable is still in my opinion one of the few whose views should be taken very seriously.

Daily Mail: Diary of a Repossession: one couple describes their agony at losing £400,000 house

This couple bought their "luxury" four bedroom house in 1999 for £159,500. In 2006 they MEW to fund the purchase of a BMW Z4 and also enter the BTL business, buying a £110,000 terraced house to rent out. They also rack up £50,000 in credit card debt to fund their lifestyle. By late 2007 they can't pay their bills and put their property on the market for £400,000. Estate agent asks them to drop the price by £20k, but despite this still being more than enough to clear their debts they refuse. House gets repo'd earlier this year. The amount they owe on the mortgage is now £330,000. House is sold at auction this month for £255,000."We are reeling with anger. We can't believe how uncaring it is to sell the house for such a ridiculously low price."

Posted by little professor @ 08:49 AM 59 Comments

FT: Taylor Wimpey to offer equity to lenders

The ailing developer has caved in to its banks’ demands to own part of the company despite its management publicly opposing such a move a fortnight ago.

BrightSale Blog: Has Sir James Really Slain the Mortgage Dragon?

This article is somewhat sceptical about whether Sir James Crosby's main recommendation of a state bail out of the wholesale mortgage markets will really occur, and warns of the dire consequences for home-owners if net mortgage lending really does fall to zero in 2009.

Independent: Bankers adopt can't lend, won't lend approach

Net new mortgage lending may next year shrink to below zero, a situation quite without precedent even during the last housing market crash of the early 1990s, when the problem was never lack of mortgage finance but rather its cost. Today it is the reverse. The main reason for this intensification in the mortgage famine is that lenders have approximately £160bn of mortgages to refinance next year, yet beyond the Government, no obvious way of doing so. Nobody is prepared to finance or buy mortgage assets right now. The securitisation markets remain closed. Bankers may have behaved recklessly in lending too much during the boom, but it is not in their nature or self interest to lend already overstretched debtors even more now that the bust has arrived, however much they are commanded to do so

Posted by drewster @ 02:25 AM 7 Comments

Independent: Stephen King: If interest rate cuts cannot solve the money shortage, turn on the printing press

As people hoard money, so output weakens and prices fall, as in the 1930s. For the world's central banks, it is time for unconventional acts of bravery. These acts are needed because the financial crisis is mutating. No longer is this a story simply about the unwillingness or inability of banks to lend. It is fast becoming a crisis of liquidation. Something must be done. The printing press has to be turned on. // Stephen King is managing director of economics at HSBC

Posted by drewster @ 02:03 AM 18 Comments

Telegraph: Life on the dole in Henley-on-Thames

As redundancy washes away her affluent lifestyle, Julie Salt describes her first grim experiences of the Jobcentre. "Until recently, we were a family of five living in Henley-on-Thames [a rather posh part of the southeast with very expensive property!] with the security of a good salary and an affluent lifestyle. But my husband's redundancy from his job as director of an internet travel company has jolted us rudely out of our complacency. Like many of the 5,000 people who became unemployed yesterday, we fear losing everything. We are surviving, with a spending freeze on our lives, but we are rapidly realising how the economic structure that let us live like kings was a castle built on sand." [Part 1 of a 3-part series, links below the fold.]

Posted by drewster @ 01:19 AM 14 Comments

Big Picture: Big Bailouts, Bigger Bucks

It's difficult to comprehend the enormity of the numbers involved in the US bailouts so far - the figure currently stands at $4.6 trillion and counting. To put this in perspective, this is more than the costs of the Vietnam, Iraq and Korean wars, the moon race and NASA, the S&L crisis, the post WW2 Marshall plan to rebuild Europe, and the purchase of Lousiana put together, even adjusting for inflation. See the article for a more detailed breakdown of the mind-boggling figures involved.

BBC Radio 4 - File On 4: 'Why my bank tried to evict me'

Current affairs program takes a look at the current housing market and concludes that it is brutal. By looking at prices of properties at auction and comparing them with previous sale prices from land registry data, calculates real price falls in the last 12 months could be as high as 48%! Features Roger Bootle and an HBOS employee on £33000/year who is being evicted by HBOS! Listen to 37 minute podcast here: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/fileon4/fileon4_20081125-1529a.mp3 Real bear food, and an excellent listen - enjoy.

The Times: Lord Mandelson will force banks to open coffers

"Lord Mandelson is to insist on the banks signing up to a new code of good lending practice. The current plan is for it to be voluntary but The Times has been told that if the banks do not improve their performance it could become a legal regulation to be policed by the FSA."..............WTF????????...

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 12:29 AM 12 Comments

BBC News: Mamma Mia! 'fastest-selling DVD'

For those who had doubts, this is clear evidence that the British Housing Crash was built on solid, sound fundamentals.

MarketWatch: Bank reserves not in pace with loan losses

Shhhhh! The FDIC does not have enough reserves to guarantee deposits in the event of a systemic banking failure. The possibility of a run on the banks is very real. - comment

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 11:10 PM 8 Comments

Telegraph: M&S planning second one day sale as high street becomes 'hooked' to discounts

By Harry Wallop A woman stands with her shopping trolley full of M&S shopping bags after their '20% Off Everything' sale on November 20 Photo: Getty Images

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 10:26 PM 9 Comments

Telegraph: Outright nationalisation of banks 'may be necessary'

Gordon Brown has injected £37billion into Lloyds-TSB, HBOS and RBS, and extended billions more in support to other banks. Yet business groups say banks are still refusing to lend to some firms and demanding punitive rates of interest from existing borrowers. Restoring bank lending to "normal" levels is "the single most pressing challenge to domestic economic policy", Mr King said.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 10:15 PM 13 Comments

BBC News: Cable derides 'fig leaf' tax cuts

or how to minimise your tax liability.

Telegraph: Pre-Budget report: Secret plan for VAT increase to 18.5 per cent

Ministers have drawn up secret plans to increase VAT to 18.5 per cent after the next election. Labour sneakiness...

Posted by tyrellcorporation @ 09:43 PM 9 Comments

Telegraph: New Star slash the value of its property fund

Looks like they are going to have to start selling a bit quicker!!!

Guardian: Treasury denies secret VAT rise plan

The Treasury was tonight forced to deny that Alistair Darling was drawing up secret plans to raise VAT to 18.5% in the next parliament in an attempt to fill the £60bn black hole in the Government's finances. Officials insisted that a document outlining an intention to raise VAT to a record rate had been put on a website by mistake and that the chancellor had rejected the idea in the run-up to Monday's pre-budget report (PBR).

hip consultant: 10 Myths of Home Information Packs (HIP)

They have not had a good response in general. Point 5 was a good one in relation to HIPs and conveyancing fees.

Evening Standard: House prices due to fall by 25% next year

"HOUSE PRICES are set to collapse by 25 per cent next year as new mortgage lending dries up completely, the Treasury has warned in the small print of the pre-Budget report."..................that means 50%

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 06:46 PM 12 Comments

TimesOnline: New mortgages fall 52% amid homeloan warning

The figures from the BBA follow a warning from Sir James Crosby that net mortgage lending could fall to zero over the next two years.

BBC NEWSSSSsssss: Governor warns banks on lending

"Mervyn King has warned that the UK economy will go into "a steep recession" if the commercial banks don't resume normal lending levels."........whats a normal lending level then Merv?

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 06:00 PM 15 Comments

The Spectator: America on the road to perdition

James Doran drives from Wall Street to Detroit to discover how the American Dream turned into a nightmare

BBC: Cut in VAT leaves shoppers cold

I think this illustrates the general misunderstanding of % in this country. I'm presuming it's a "soft" degree journo reporting financial news, like the rest of these muppets. Ross was right. BBC, FYI it's 1.15(£10,000/1.175) = £9,787.23, giving a saving of £212.77.

Posted by doomwatch @ 04:53 PM 14 Comments

HIP-Consultant.co.uk: 10 Myths of Home Information Packs (HIP)

They certainly haven't had a good press but they are still here. Point 5 was interesting about conveyancing fees and HIPs.

Scarborough Evening News: Building Society Chief, 2.4m Payout

What would the payoff have been if he had been any good at his job??

reuters: Taylor Wimpey down as cash worries perist

"They've still got banking facilities to be rearranged it appears that they're struggling in terms of support for an equity raise," says Panmure analyst Mark Hughes. "I think people are very concerned that the equity in this company is valueless or close to valueless."

CNN: Home prices in record decline

The home price plunge stayed on a record pace this summer, according to a widely watched gauge of national real estate markets released Tuesday. The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price national index recorded a 16.6% decline in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago. That eclipsed the previous record of 15.1% set during the second quarter. Prices in Case-Shiller's separate index of 10 major cities fell a record 18.6%, while its 20-city index dropped a record 17.4%

BBC News: US Fed unveils new $800bn rescue

"Under this new rescue plan - which is in addition to the already-announced $700bn bank bail-out - the Fed is to buy up to $100bn in debt from the troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The central bank said it would also buy another $500bn in mortgage-backed securities - pools of mortgages that are bundled together and sold to investors." Could this put downward pressure on the dollar? Big dollar/sterling fall between 1-2.00GMT but apparently not sustained. Anyone anticipating a future dollar collapse and if so, by how much? (against gold or sterling)

Posted by doom&gloom @ 03:14 PM 18 Comments

FT Alphaville: US house prices tumble in September, Case Shiller says

As the Fed spends another gazillion dollars to shore up the global financial system, the market that started it all continues to collapse.

bloomberg: Goodwin’s $140 Billion Binge May Doom RBS to Nationalization

During nine years at the helm of Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Fred Goodwin excelled at beating his peers. In 2000, he pulled in the richest paycheck among British bank chief executive officers. He carried out the world’s largest bank merger, making RBS Europe’s No. 1 lender as of June 2008, with assets of 1.73 trillion pounds.

Daily Mail: Banks 'to freeze mortgages' as Treasury reveals house prices will plummet by a QUARTER next year

Mortgage lending could dry up completely next year leaving no-one able to afford to buy a new home, according to a devastating report. In a huge blow to Alistair Darling's plans for keeping Britain in tact through a crippling recession, experts predict banks could stop giving any loans to aspiring homeowners. Former HBOS chief Sir James Crosby believes net lending will drop to below zero for the first time on record as people pay more money back to banks than they take out. The freeze on new loans will see house prices collapse by a quarter next year, according to the small print of Mr Darling's own Pre-Budget Report.

Posted by pdprav @ 02:15 PM 10 Comments

BBC: Should shopping be a patriotic duty

"As an anti-consumerism campaigner, I'm frequently labelled as irresponsible when I encourage people to stop shopping. But the government is being much more reckless, when they ask us to shop our way out of the crash." Over-consumption is also the root cause of environmental destruction, says Mr Boorman.

Posted by phdinbubbles @ 12:54 PM 30 Comments

Property Week: Pre-Budget Report: Empty rates holiday - Join the debate

See comment #2 >>> The Chancellor obviously has little grasp in reality. As a specialist developer of small industrial units with a few empty small units available around the UK, this change will have little or no impact on our empty rates bill. I presume he is looking to help owners and occupiers of lock up garages? I didn't realise that these made up 70% of the empty commercial buildings in the UK.

Reuters: Stg hits session lows vs dlr; King hints at big rate cuts

Sterling fell to a session low versus the dollar on Tuesday after Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said the bank may need to cut rates by more than they would otherwise as banks are slow to pass cuts on.

Posted by 51ck-6-51x @ 11:12 AM 11 Comments

Bloomberg: King Says British Banks May Still Need More Capital

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said U.K. financial institutions may still need more capital and the “single most pressing challenge” facing policy makers is to revive the flow of credit through the economy.

YAHOO Finance: Broker snap: Land value crash to hit housebuilders

Credit Suisse (CS) believes the trading outlook for housebuilders in 2009 is “extremely poor” as consumer confidence continues to dive and credit availability remains restricted. CS believes the resale of repossessed properties will act as a further drag on the housing market, forcing housebuilders to slash prices to generate sales income to keep the bank manager happy.

MoneyWeek: Britain's going bankrupt - keep selling sterling

"...we can't expect any soul-searching from the Government. Gordon Brown doesn't do mistakes. He won't admit he's wrong on his path for the economy. And that's why we haven't actually seen any massive change in direction here – it's just more of the same. We'll carry on as we were before - more borrowing, more public spending, and more taxes. And judging by previous experience, the current forecasts will be ludicrously optimistic. So who knows how deep the debt hole will really be next year. £130bn? £150bn? £200bn? Where does it end? Bankruptcy."

Posted by damien @ 10:55 AM 40 Comments

Various Sources: Entire World Insolvent Soon

. . . but what about, uh, the nation of Switzerland? Its two largest banks hold about 10 times the nation's total GDP on their balance sheets, which means writedowns could require an Iceland-style bailout by other counties. Once that happens, it may only be a matter of time before the kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland declares bankruptcy. Business journalist Will Hutton noted in the Guardian that Britain's heavy dependence on financial services left the country looking like "a gigantic hedge fund" whose "fall could get out of hand." But the indomitable British spirit compelled Hutton to add, triumphantly, "we may muddle through."

BBC: Credit crunch hits Paragon profit

UK buy-to-let mortgage lender Paragon Group has reported a 43% fall in annual pre-tax profits to £53.7m ($81m) following the credit market turmoil. Paragon slashed new lending by 75% to £1.13bn in the year to 30 September after its funding costs soared. The company, which specialises in lending to landlords, said 0.53% of its mortgage accounts were in arrears - a three-fold increase from last year.

Bloomberg: U.K. Home Loans Fell by Half in October From Year Ago, BBA Says

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. home loan approvals fell by more than half from a year earlier in October, the British Bankers' Association said, as a Treasury report forecast net new mortgage lending may fall below zero next year.

Metro: Package for homeowners 'modest'

The Metro article charts our government further vain attempts to prop up house prices ...

BBC: Mortgage lending feels the strain

Mortgage lending by the UK's biggest banks has fallen sharply compared with a year ago, a banking body says. The number of mortgages approved for house purchases was down to 21,584 in October, 52% lower than a year earlier. The figures come the day after a stark warning about the state of the mortgage market in a report by former banker Sir James Crosby. He warned that without government intervention, net new mortgage lending might shrink in 2009.

Telegraph: Pre-Budget report: World's economies take radical steps over threat of recession

The radical measures announced in Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report reflected a growing belief among the world's finance ministers that desperate solutions are needed to head off another Great Depression. Other major economies are now expected to follow suit by considering increasing tax for their wealthiest citizens to fund tax breaks elsewhere. In America, President-Elect Barack Obama urged the new, incoming Congress to pass a major financial stimulus package "right away" to "jolt" the US economy back on track.

The Independant: Michael Brown: The most irresponsible budget I have ever heard

Prepare for a general election next year – if not in the spring, certainly by the autumn. Alistair Darling's temporary tax giveaways (much of which – especially the VAT reductions – will be clawed back in 13 months time) has all the hallmarks of addressing the political rather than the economic cycle. Every cabinet minister will be under orders never to mention the "election" word. But it is inconceivable that Gordon Brown will want to risk losing the short-term advantages given by this pre-Budget report, before unemployment rises relentlessly to three million by the end of 2009.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 09:47 AM 6 Comments

Citywire: Net new mortgage lending expected to fall below zero next year

New mortgage lending in the UK is set to evaporate next year as banks shy away from previous lending levels, a new report commissioned by the government has revealed.The Crosby Report, compiled by Sir James Crosby at the government's request, predicted that net new mortgage lending would fall below zero in 2009, down from £40 billion in 2008 and substantially lower than 2007's lending figure of £108 billion.

Timesonline: ‘When M&S is slashing prices by 20% to get customers in, VAT cut is insignificant’

The Chancellor was accused yesterday of using a flawed tool to stimulate the economy amid concern that the £12.5 billion temporary cut in VAT would not work properly. The reduction from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent was too little to be effective, may not be passed on to consumers and could be neutralised by people deciding to save, economists said. “This will do very little to give the UK economy the impulses it needs,” Hermann Simon, from the management consultant Simon-Kucher & Partners, said.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 09:11 AM 21 Comments

Telegraph: The 800,000 people who will fund the costs of the pre-Budget report

Those earning between £40,000 and £100,000 will pay an extra £500m in total in National Insurance - an average of more than £150 per person.

Times: Banks agree to give mortgage holders more time to pay

Homeowners who are struggling to meet mortgage repayments were given a lifeline yesterday as some of Britain’s biggest lenders agreed not to repossess properties until at least three months after borrowers first go into arrears. Repossession would only be sought as a last resort after other alternatives, such as a minimum payment plan, had been pursued. However the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said that not all borrowers would be protected by the three-month “moratorium” on repossessions because only a handful of big lenders had agreed to the proposal. Customers with sub-prime or buy-to-let deals from smaller, specialist lenders could still be repossessed within three months.

Posted by drewster @ 02:04 AM 8 Comments

FT: Government helps struggling homeowners

Homeowners facing repossession or struggling to meet mortgage payments after losing their jobs will receive extra support from the government following Monday’s pre-Budget report. The government focused its attention on helping existing borrowers in danger of losing their homes rather than first-time buyers who are having difficulty entering the property market. From April, the government has agreed to cover the monthly interest due on mortgages of up to £200,000 for eligible borrowers who have been out of work for at least 13 weeks and are having difficulty meeting their payments. Previously it only offered support to homeowners with mortgages of £100,000 or less.

Posted by drewster @ 01:18 AM 19 Comments

Guardian: Reverse for Standard Chartered as it makes £1.8bn cash call

Standard Chartered, the emerging markets bank that has been regarded as one of the winners of the credit crunch, yesterday joined other banks in bolstering its balance sheet through a £1.8bn cash call. Reversing its position from just three weeks ago when chief executive Peter Sands insisted the bank had a strong balance sheet, Standard Chartered admitted the economic climate was deteriorating. [Comment: Isn't amazing how things can change so fast in such a short time? To go from a strong balance sheet to £1.8bn short in just three weeks seems incredible to me.]

CNBC: FHA's new risky loans make housing even riskier

The US government's 'Hope for Homeowners' program tells lenders to write down the principal on peoples loans to 90% of their home's current value, and lowers the interest rate so that the monthly mortgage payment is no more than 38% of their take-home pay. In return, the government would guarantee to pay off the loan if the borrower ever defaults. These rules only apply if the homeowner has missed three consecutive mortgage payments, a perverse disincentive to keep paying your mortgage. The new modified loans are re-defaulting at a rate of 50%. Thus the government is going to be paying for half the mortgages it is guaranteeing.

New York Times: Job Centers See Crush of People in Need

"At a one-stop career center, candidates are feverishly applying for two months of temporary work with United Parcel Service. The pay was $8.50 [£5.60] an hour. There were 150 slots, and more than 300 applicants. A few years ago, these people were working. Now, with the nation’s jobless claims at a 16-year high, they are among the 20 million people expected to use federal workforce services in 2008, up from 14 million in 2005. Economists say the full impact is easy for lawmakers to miss. Many people apply for unemployment through the Internet, cutting down on actual lines. And those most in need are largely invisible - unskilled, less educated and disproportionately black or from immigrant communities."

Telegraph: Dubai reveals debt levels to dispel fears over growth

According to one of Dubai's top property bosses, the emirate has $80bn of debt outstanding against a total asset base of $1.3 trillion. "Dubai's growth has been at a rate of 13pc to 14pc a year. If this comes down to 6pc or 7pc or 8pc then fine. We've been running a long time and could probably do with a breather. We will use this time to learn lessons and become a stronger city." [Question: How much of Dubai's wealth is based on foreign investors piling in to their property market? I thought they were a bubble like all the rest?]

Posted by drewster @ 12:33 AM 7 Comments

Bloomberg: U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit (Update2)

Bait, because Congress was told that mortgages would be bought, switch, because they took over healthy banking institutions with the loot after gaining dictatorial powers. “The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago,” More analysis from Kirt Nimmo.

Times: Is it time for the return of Miras?

It was abolished in April 2000 by Gordon Brown, who regarded it as a middle-class perk. Stuart Law, of Assetz, the investment business, is among those who argue that Darling should also give the rich a tax break

Posted by confused76 @ 10:32 PM 10 Comments

Times: Homebuyers who forfeit their deposits

“They are resigned to losing the half a million deposit, and are happy to walk away on that basis, but the seller wants to pursue them for every penny they’ve got. They’re in real difficulty,” says the couple’s lawyer, Simon Thomas, a partner at Thomas Legal Group, a high-value property specialist focusing on London and the Cotswolds. “They’ve lost up to 70% of the value of their bonuses and their stock options – options collected over years and years. That was a big hit for them. They’ve gone from a position of strength, with a 15% deposit, to having no share values.”

Timesonline: Darling's VAT cut 'could feed deflation', expert warns

A University of Manchester professor who acts as a special adviser to the Treasury Select Committe said today that it was "incredibly risky" for Alistair Darling to have cut the rate of VAT, given the dangers of deflation. The Chancellor today cut the purchase tax from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent as part of a £20 billion fiscal stimulus to help the economy through recession. He said that the cut was equivalent to putting £12.5 billion back into the pocket of consumers over the next 13 months.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 08:15 PM 29 Comments

CNBC: All US Financials Will be Nationalized in a Year

It's not preferable, but all major U.S. financial companies will eventually be under government control because the alternative is so much worse, Hugh Hendry, chief investment officer at hedge fund Eclectica Asset Management, said Friday. All financials will be owned by the U.S. government in a year," Hendry said. "I bet you." Nationalizations take dramatic losses from the private sector and places them on the larger balance sheet of the public sector, he said. "It's not good," but society is vulnerable and society is going to have to intervene, Hendry said.

Telegraph: Selling off the family silver to pay for spending

Alistair Darling is to help pay for his spending splurge by making more than £30billion of cuts from Whitehall costs and selling off a series of state-owned household names. Among the British institutions earmarked for sale within the next two years are the Met Office, mapmaker Ordnance Survey and the Forestry Commission. The list is also thought to include the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster. Channel 4 is excluded for the moment, but will be assessed by Lord Carter, the new communications minister. Gordon Brown set a target of raising £36billion from disposals by 2011 and more than £18billion has been raised so far, mostly by offloading surplus land and property. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ However, the current financial turmoil means it is a buyer's market.

Posted by malct @ 07:24 PM 11 Comments

BBC2: This World

Anyone watching this?

Assetz: A positive consensus

If one reads the views of some commentators on the buy-to-let industry, the situation appears unremittingly dire: one of failure, negative equity and collapse. Standard & Poor's recent study suggested that the fall in property values could lead to as many as four out of every ten investors being in negative equity next year. This month's Landlord and Buy-to-Let Show at the NEC in Birmingham, produced a consensus that success is still there for the taking if those keen to invest for the first time or add to their portfolios in the current market make sure they carry out thorough research on the homes they are investing in and the tenants they are taking on. Those buying now or in the near future will be buying at or near the bottom in the market.

Posted by little professor @ 06:51 PM 11 Comments

MoneyWeek: What does the pre-Budget report mean for you?

Are proposed measures in the pre-Budget report as radical as Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown would have you believe? A summary of the key points for consumers.

Bloomberg: New York May Lose 225,000 Jobs, Comptroller Says

New York may lose as many as 225,000 jobs and $6.5 billion in securities industry-related tax revenue over the two-year period ending in October 2009. “Wall Street is the engine that drives the economies of New York state and New York City, but the global credit crunch has slowed that engine down,” DiNapoli said in a news release. “This year is on pace to be one of the worst years ever on Wall Street.” Finance industry-related activities account for 12 percent of New York City tax revenue and up to 20 percent of state revenue, the comptroller’s office said. Before the crisis, the securities industry accounted for 5 percent of the city’s employment but almost 25 percent of wages, the office said. [Similar figures for London, presumably? How will that affect property prices in London?]

Bloomebr.com: U.S. Economy: Home Resales Fall, Prices Tumble Most on Record

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Home resales in the U.S. dropped in October and prices fell by the most on record, signaling a deepening housing recession going into 2009.

Telegraph: Alistair Darling confirms borrowing will reach £118billion

Speaking to Parliament as he unveiled a £20 billion package of tax cuts designed to boost the British economy in his pre-Budget report, Mr Darling said that borrowing would reach £78 billion this year - approaching twice what was originally budgeted for - and will reach £118billion in 2010.

Posted by malct @ 06:08 PM 14 Comments

Telegraph: 'Economy will recover from recession by mid-2009'

He confirmed that from next week, Value Added Tax will be reduced from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent, cutting £2.20 from every £100 of consumer spending. The VAT cut will last until the start of 2010, when ministers expect the economy to be recovering. Mr Darling said the measure meant the Government was putting £12.5 billion into the economy. However, some retail experts have questioned whether such a modest cut will be enough to stimulate consumer spending. Many big retailers are already cutting prices by as much as 20 per cent in order to lure customers back, with only limited success.

Telegraph: Pre-Budget report: Taxpayers to foot the bill for years to come

Mr Darling will borrow his extra billions for his measures from international investors. He needs to reassure the international markets that fund his borrowing that the UK public finances will improve quickly once the recession is over, to stop investors demanding a higher return on Government bonds. That means that when the economy returns to growth, taxes will rise and Government spending will fall. In his speech, Mr Darling promised "to put in place measures to ensure sound public finances in the medium term, to ensure as a country we live within our means".

Telegraph: Pre-Budget report: The Chancellor's speech in full

The full text of the Pre-Budget report statement to the House of Commons, delivered by Chancellor Alistair Darling.

FT: Dollar slides as risk appetite warms up

The dollar and yen weakened on Monday as investor appetite for risk ticked higher on the back of rallying equity markets, following the US government bail out of Citigroup, the financial services company. US authorities said they would issue a guarantee covering $306bn of troubled mortgage-linked assets and inject a further $20bn in liquidity on top of the $25bn it had already received.

Motley Fool UK: The Dark Side Of Buy-To-Let

For the first time since records began, a greater proportion of landlords are in arrears than mainstream borrowers.

Telegraph: Pre-Budget Report: Alistair Darling unveils £20bn tax cut package

Alistair Darling has announced a £20 billion package of tax cuts designed to boost the British economy in his pre-Budget report, balancing them with a tax increase for higher earners.

Yahoo: Recession

The banking crisis might be nearing its end, but the recession has only just begun. While unemployment hits the highest levels in a decade, the UK economy - long regarded as the strongest and most resilient in Europe - has now been tipped to be the hardest hit.

Telegraph: Germany facing worst slump since 1948

Euro-zone industrial orders plunged 3.9pc in September and Germany's IFO index of business expectations has fallen to the lowest level since the survey began half a century ago, heightening fears of a severe slump across Europe next year.

Posted by malct @ 04:01 PM 7 Comments

bbc: 90 jobs to go as factory closes

Workers at the Calcast factory in Campsie outside Londonderry have been told the plant is to close.

Mortgage Lender: Rolfe talks leverage:

Everyone, everywhere was levered to the hilt, using piles of borrowed money to make leveraged bets on everything from real estate, to stocks, to currencies, to bonds, to companies themselves (LBOs), etc. With so many people maxing out leverage to drive returns, all it takes is a small decline in asset prices for all of them to go bust. Unfortunately, the decline in asset prices isn’t going to be small. Consequently, the value of equity capital will continue to get hammered.

Bloomberg: Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit (Update1)

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago

Telegraph: Pre-Budget report: Live

The Chancellor Alistair Darling is delivering the most important speech of his career today. Keep up-to-date with our live coverage of the pre-Budget report here.

Guardian: World's house values fall for the first time

Global house prices fell for the first time on record over the past three months, underlining the extent of the downturn. • Britain among worst performers with 10% drop • Dubai, Slovakia and Russia see big increases

Posted by mountain goat @ 02:29 PM 7 Comments

Guardian: Germany rules out tax cuts to boost economy

They think its all over, it is now !!!!!! - for the UK that is

Housepricecrash.co.uk advert: 2008 - God's Final Witness

Very suprised to find this at the TOP of this news blog! do they know something we've all missed? "Some of these prophecies concern the demise of the United States over the next year, which will be followed by man's final world war. This last war will be the result of clashing religions and the governments they sway. Billions will die! This time will far exceed even the very worst times in all human history." puts doomandgloom to shame - hardly worth buying a house then?

Posted by malct @ 02:12 PM 11 Comments

Bloomberg: Dutch Home Sellers Cut Prices in Market That Would ‘Never Fall’

"The combination of being one of the most densely populated countries in Europe and a drop in supply of new homes may limit price declines."

yahoo: British Land upgraded

The US bank has upgraded British Land to "buy" from "hold" but cut its price target from 830p to 680p

Timesonline: ‘R’ word yields to ‘D’ word as source of anxiety

Money off everything! In a country that has made shopping its national pastime, the idea of persistent falls in the prices of all or most products and services sounds like the ultimate bargain bonanza. Yet in an economy already beset by dangers and difficulties on all sides, the emergence of just this trend – deflation – is rapidly emerging as the latest peril to Britain’s prospects. With the “R” word, recession, already a grim reality, now it is the less familiar “D” word that is provoking fear and loathing among economists and officials. Behind this alarm lies the knowledge that, although sustained falls in prices across the economy might seem like a dream for shopaholics, in practice this can swiftly become an economic nightmare.

Telegraph: Greenpeace activists scale Bank of England

Activists from environmental group Greenpeace scaled the Bank of England building in the City of London today, calling on the Government to invest in "green" industries as part of the response to the recession.

BBC Peston's Blog: Citi and Manic Monday

Worth a read occasionally. This made me especially angry: "If you're shocked by the thought that we as taxpayers may soon be financing car purchases, don't be...The motor makers want to exchange bonds or securities backed by car loans for Treasury bills - which would help them provide finance to those who might still want to buy a car, in spite of the inclement economic weather." If people want to buy brand new cars but can't get loans, they should try SAVING first. Oh no, car sales are falling! When did this country become so utterly perverted....

Posted by doom&gloom @ 12:32 PM 12 Comments

Las Vegas Sun: Struggling to hang on

Without close inspection, you could chalk up the receding monthly sales at the Maui Wowi smoothie shop to cooling temperatures. But slumping sales began in April. You could argue that fewer people today can afford a $4 or $6 smoothie. But Maui Wowi also sells 99-cent coffee. Co-owner Paul Goldberg has a different theory: declining foot traffic at Spanish Trail Business Park, on Rainbow Boulevard near Tropicana Avenue. And it doesn’t help that most of the new office suites in the rear of the complex still don’t have tenants — another source of smoothie and spa customers.

Bullionvault: Gold Ends Week 6.6% Higher as Stocks Lose 8% to 11-Year Low; UK Gold Price Hits Record Closing High - Saturday 22nd November 2008

Gold is now trading at £545. On its way to £1000 and beyond. So, Icelandic conditions on the way. Recent price slump was desperate manipulation to keep the economy from presidential debates. But, in reality, gold prices aren't rising, they are remaining stable, the supply of gold and its value is always stable. What is happening is that currencies are slumping and asset prices are deflating in real terms. But you only benefit if you have a real store of value. Anybody without at least 10% of their wealth in gold and other real assets will be left totally exposed. Physical coins are best because the institution holding your gold in a vault could fall if they have cash reserves in a bank that goes under.

Posted by planning4acrash @ 11:59 AM 36 Comments

FT.com: German business confidence plummets

German business confidence has plummeted to lows not seen since the early 1990s in the latest evidence that Europe’s industrial powerhouse has suddenly been thrown into reverse. The Munich-based Ifo index reported its business climate index had fallen much more sharply than expected from 90.2 in October to 85.8 in November, the lowest since February 1993. It was the sixth consecutive monthly fall in the index, which is closely watched as an indicator of future trends in activity. Businesses’ expectations about the next six months were the weakest since the pan-German series started in 1991 – and for almost 50 years using data for former West Germany, economists said.

Daily Telegraph: Gordon Brown vows to keep recession short

Gordon Brown has promised to do everything possible to ensure that the recession is as short as possible. Mr Brown told the Confederation of British Industry annual conference: "Simply letting the recession run its course, to say there is no alternative, is not an option. "To fail to act now would be not only a failure of economic policy but a failure of leadership.

MoneyWeek: Can Darling’s VAT cut save the UK economy?

Alistair Darling's pre-budget report will focus on a 2.5% cut in VAT. But in a recession we shouldn't be trying to encourage consumption - we've done enough of that already, says John Stepek.

Posted by damien @ 11:24 AM 6 Comments

bloomberg: Fed Pledges Top $7.4 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

he U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system since the credit markets seized up 15 months ago. The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $2.8 trillion already tapped by financial institutions

Posted by mark @ 11:00 AM 9 Comments

Telegraph: Pre-Budget report: Pre-Budget moves sum up paucity of both country and political thinking

The leaks on what will be announced in the pre-Budget report sum up the absolute paucity of both the country and of the political and economic thinking in the top echelons of government.

Fresh Business Thinking: Will Migrants Come Back When Recession Is Over?

Basically, every indicator (though not the government's flawed statistics) are pointing down, irrespective of this tax freebie (which actually makes it worse). >>> "Official figures released last week show that the number of central and eastern European migrants from the so-called A8 accession countries registering to work in the UK is running at a three year low. This is yet another indicator of worsening labour market conditions."

BBC News: Will a statement save the economy?

Can the chancellor rescue the economy with one statement? The BBC's political editor Nick Robinson and economics editor Hugh Pym go head to head on what we can expect from the pre-budget report.

Daily Telegraph: VAT cut is not enough to save the High Street

Leading retailers fear the VAT cut will be too little to save the British high street as the latest figures show "unprecedented" sales are failing to get shoppers to part with their cash.

Posted by ben hazell @ 10:14 AM 8 Comments

FT: Fears of deflation spark a rush for government bonds

The problem is a restriction of credit due to banks with insufficient capital. Why then, provide a safe haven in the form of government bonds? Understandably, the government cycles this flow of wealth back to the banks, but surely better for governments to refuse to provide any safe haven. This wealth would be obliged to go elsewhere. The UK government stimulus is a bit of a fake if it is funded by removing capital from the banking system. We are surely closer and closer to monetisation.

BBC Radio 2: Don't Cancel Christmas

That's right folks. A Christmas Carol gets rewritten with Bob Cratchit as the chief villain - how DARE he not get into even further debt?

Daily Express: END THIS HOMES GRAB SCANDAL

THE Daily Express today launches a crusade against the threat of hundreds of thousands of families losing their homes. On the eve of today’s Pre-Budget Report, this newspaper demands a proper amnesty to give struggling home-buyers a lifeline. Our crusade presses for an amnesty of at least one year’s grace for home owners slipping into mortgage arrears through genuine hardship. Other measures proposed, by housing charity Shelter, include allowing interest-only mortgages, extending the repayment term, repayment holidays and being able to put outstanding debt on to the mortgage.

Posted by little professor @ 01:10 AM 24 Comments

BBC: Top earners face income tax rise

Darling is probably gooing to announce todat thatt for those earning over £150,000 per annum income tax will rise to 45%. Just as the credit crunch came in waves so to will the tax rises!

Posted by who stole my pension? @ 10:47 PM 22 Comments

Independent: Why buy now if prices are plummeting? How deflation could drag us all down

Even as recently as August, we were being told by the Bank of England that the real economic risk was inflation ... Now, just a few months later, oil has dropped below $50, commodity prices have fallen by 40 per cent and, five weeks before Christmas, British retails stores are slashing their prices by anything from 20 to 40 per cent. UK and US interest rates have been cut sharply and will go even lower, and the Bank and the US Federal Reserve are now predicting inflation may go negative – perhaps as soon as the middle of next year. All talk is of recession, deflation and depression.

Posted by quiet guy @ 09:43 PM 25 Comments

BBC News: Empty home numbers 'on increase'

The number of empty homes in England is increasing because of the downturn in the housing market and a sharp rise in repossessions, a charity has warned. The Empty Homes Agency is urging the public to report homes left vacant for long periods so it can inform councils, which can bring them back into use.

Daily Star: CRUNCH-HIT FOWLER KOP OF THE POPS

FOOTIE ace Robbie Fowler is down £12million in the credit crunch.The Liverpool legend’s property empire – once worth £30million – has plummeted 40%. Robbie ploughed his earnings solely into flats and houses. It worked at first because he tripled his fortune. He would never have anticipated the economic meltdown that has left the property industry in freefall. Because Robbie has put his money into the top end of the market, he’s suffering more than most. So renowned was he as the “buy-to-let king”, fans at his former club Manchester City sang to the tune of Yellow Submarine: “We all live in a Robbie Fowler house.”

Posted by little professor @ 08:04 PM 19 Comments

Bloomberg: Obama Will Get Stimulus Bill First Day, Democrats Say

Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Congress will send President-elect Barack Obama an economic stimulus package the day he takes office Jan. 20, two Democratic lawmakers said today. Senator Charles Schumer of New York said on ABC’s “This Week” program that the package will be between five and $700 billion. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, of Maryland, said on “Fox News Sunday” that he believed the Inauguration Day goal would be met, but he declined to put a price tag on the bill. “I think Congress will work with the president elect starting now and will have a major stimulus package on his desk by Inauguration Day,” Schumer said. “I think it has to be deep. My view it has to be between $500 and $700 billion.”

Japan Times Online: Nomura hatches plan for huge capital boost

Nomura Holdings Inc. is considering raising several hundred billion yen in capital to strengthen its standing amid the global financial meltdown, sources said Saturday.

Telegraph: There is really no choice: we must back Gordon Brown’s blitz

If this crisis is botched by the major powers – as the lesser crisis of 1930-1931 was so botched by politicians stuck in a mould – we risk a self-reinforcing spiral into devastation. Matters are getting out of hand. The American bank JP Morgan has just told clients that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest to zero by February. This never happened in the Great Depression. You can’t cut below zero. At that point, deflation increases the “real” burden of debts at a compound rate.

CNBC: Strong Rebound Coming: Dr. Doom

Marc Faber says it is likely that reflation efforts of Central Banks will succeed and cause a rebound in asset prices, and yes that includes real estate - housing (he says this at 5.26 in the video). This will happen as money flows out of cash & Treasuries seeking higher yields. If this rebound does not happen and instead things go lower then it means we are in for something worse than 1929-1930.

Posted by mountain goat @ 04:55 PM 23 Comments

BBC: Citigroup seeks 'emergency cash'

Executives of Citigroup, one of the biggest banks in the US, are in emergency talks with the US Treasury to gain much-needed funding, reports say. The bank is also said to have contacted certain shareholders to assess their interest in increasing their stakes as as it faces an uncertain future. Citigroup stock ended 20% lower on Friday as its board members met. Last week the company announced 52,000 job losses worldwide on top of 23,000 job cuts previously announced.

this is money: Shop insurers signal High St collapses

Suppliers affected by the credit insurance firm's decisions can include product manufacturers, distribution firms, advertising agencies, landlords or even clothes hangar designers. Retailers affected to date include JJB Sports, Currys and Focus.

this is money: £2bn MoD shortfall 'will hit jobs'

BAE, which produces parts for the Eurofighter, has announced it will cut 200 jobs and plans further redundancies next year.

BBC wales: Former asylum fire investigated

Recently protests had been held at the site by local people at plans by the owner to demolish some of the buildings, which had been added after the main building had been constructed, in order for the development of new housing. But Ayub Bhailock, a consultant with Freemont Denbigh Ltd, said permission for demolition of certain buildings had been issued three years ago, in conjunction with Denbighshire Council, the Welsh Assembly Government and Cadw.

CNN: Crisis on Dealers' Row

"If I do 50% less volume, then my staff has to go down 50%," he said. "I'm just trying to hold on to the good salesmen I have." Customer traffic is way down, according to Park. "They're still worried about 'Am I going to lose this job? Can I make it through this Christmas season?' That's what they're thinking."

Beeb: Iceland protest ends in clashes

Iceland is the first country whose economy has toppled, destroyed by a deflating housing debt bubble that is sinking the world economy. They are calling for the gov to step down for these errors. Perhaps we should do the same to our chancellor who fell asleep with a smug smile while our bubble floated up into blissful insanity? Rage is understandable but not always useful. Better to channel it at protecting yourself now. Get rid of debt, keep your job, invest wisely if you don't trust cash in the bank.

Posted by mountain goat @ 01:23 PM 11 Comments

Guardian: Secret diary of an agent

They've had their boom, now they're having their bust. So, is Britain's most hated profession finally getting its comeuppance? A hilariously candid account from the frontline of the property crunch

The Times: Jaguar in secret plea for £1bn government loan

The speed of the economic decline has not just hit the motor industry. A number of large British-based industrial groups are also considering asking the government for financial support. If help is not given tens of thousands of jobs are at stake.

BBC News: Scottish recession 'not as deep'

Scotland is about to enter its worst recession since 1980, but will still fare better than the rest of the UK, economists have predicted. The study by the Ernst & Young Scottish ITEM Club said Scotland's GDP was likely to contract by 0.4% in 2009. But it said this would be significantly better than elsewhere in the UK, where there will be a fall in output of 1%.

Independent: Treasury's dreadful position means a long squeeze on living standards

What troubles me is that the need to give a tax boost to the economy, which most of us would accept is desirable, is being used to conceal a really dreadful underlying fiscal position. If people realise that, they will realise that there will be a long squeeze on their living standards for a decade or so, as this deficit in gradually corrected. The rational response is to correct their own personal balance sheets, pay off debt as fast as they can, and get to work on improving their pension, because the Government in 10 or 20 years' time won't have the funds to help them. Golden periods don't feel like golden periods at the time. People who took out big mortgages, in effect borrowing to finance a standard of living they could not really afford, now face a harsh adjustment.

Times Online: Better to downsize than risk repossession

Property permabull Anne Ashworth suggests that if people are having trouble repaying their mortgage that they defy the laws of gravity, sell their homes and downsize. Genius. Forget that no-one will buy it, even if it is priced way below your mortgage, and forget the fact that if you're in a studio flat in central london (one of the worst affected areas) that you can only downsize to a garage. Why does the Times still employ ditzies like her?

Telegraph.co.uk: Bank will stamp down on future house price booms, says deputy governor

In what will be seen as a major about-turn by Britain's central bank, Charlie Bean pledged to do more to prevent major credit bubbles developing in the economy. He also acknowledged tacitly that central banks around the world did too little to prevent the housing boom from emerging in previous years. His comments, made at a conference in Istanbul, are likely to have serious implications for the path of Britain's housing market in future years.

Posted by v stor @ 07:52 AM 13 Comments

Merk: The Road to Financial Ruin: We Have to Spend Money Now

Fiscal spending is part of the problem, not the solution. At this stage, the dynamics over the coming years are shaping up. Investors may want to consider whether to take advantage of the panic buying of U.S. dollars to diversify their holdings. Typically, when a currency appreciates, the money is invested broadly in an economy; in recent months, most of the money flowing into the U.S. was invested in short-term Treasury Bills. We very much doubt that all this money will stay in the U.S. once the panic abates. Indeed, whereas just about everyone seems to be concerned about deflation, the risk of not only inflation, but hyperinflation increases with every step taken down this road.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 01:15 AM 11 Comments

TimesOnline: Gordon Brown to cut Vat as winter recession bites

Bad timing. An announcement of this cut, but today is 22nd November... The only plus is that I don't think anybody cares about a 2.5% change in VAT (good example of EU restrictions though). Probably £300 is a fairly substantial family gift but you are only going to save £7.50 .

Posted by stillthinking @ 11:28 PM 14 Comments

Associated Press: Obama economic plan aims for 2.5M new jobs by 2011

Obama; "We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels". Gordon; I'll cut VAT for XMAS - D'Oh.

GlobalReasearch.com: This Is Not A Normal Recession: Moving on to Plan B

"Neoliberal economists in the last three decades have denied the possibility of a replay of the worldwide destructiveness of the Great Depression that followed the collapse of the speculative bubble created by unfettered US financial markets of the 'Roaring Twenties'. They fooled themselves into thinking that false prosperity built on debt could be sustainable with monetary indulgence. Now history is repeating itself, this time with a new, more lethal virus that has infested deregulated global financial markets with 'innovative' debt securitization"

Yahoo UK & Ireland news: Citigroup talking to U.S. government

75,000 job cuts at Citigroup. Today it looks like a very optimistic figure.

Financial Times: Bankers are latest pantomime villains

Never mind wicked stepmothers, ugly sisters and evil witches. As London’s pantomime season gets under way for the Christmas season, there is a new villain in town – the banker. As the effects of the economic crisis make themselves felt, writers of the annual children’s entertainment are turning away from traditional characters and looking to the capricious world of international finance to find their baddies.

Guardian: Britain's worst price falls

Wasn't Greenbay operating in the Cardiff area?

Posted by wiltshire @ 12:56 PM 13 Comments

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.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 12:37 PM 25 Comments

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.

Posted by quiet guy @ 11:50 AM 10 Comments

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

Posted by sold out @ 11:01 AM 13 Comments

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.

The Times: Britain is in no position to laugh at Iceland’s problems

The scale of our problems has still not been understood. In essence the domestic banks are largely bust. The Government’s £500 billion bailout plan is primarily designed not to keep banks lending to small firms and to homebuyers but to prevent an unimaginable financial calamity.

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.

Reuters: UPDATE 4-Gold rises above $800 on strong physical buying

NEW YORK, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Gold rallied above $800 an ounce on Friday, ending the week 8 percent higher, as mounting economic uncertainties and strong physical bullion demand triggered a bout of heavy buying. Investor confidence was shaken after shares of Citigroup, the second-largest U.S. bank by assets, tumbled for a fifth straight day, as the company looked at options, including a sale of parts of the company or a merger. Anyone have an opinion as to whether this is a temporary blip or not ?

Posted by str 2007 @ 09:36 AM 15 Comments

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.

Posted by mytimeisnigh @ 09:23 AM 11 Comments

The Korea Times: Deflation Fears Turn Into Reality

Fears of deflation at home and abroad are looming larger as prices of commodities including oil and metals have begun to plummet amid the ongoing financial crisis, following those of shares and real estate. The opposite of inflation, deflation refers to a decline in general price levels, which creates expectations that they will drop further, choking consumption.

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.

Posted by little professor @ 01:18 AM 47 Comments

The Guardian: Anything is possible, but prepare for the worst

In the world of real business, the mood of chief executives has taken a discernible turn for the worse

Youtube: Real Estate Downfall

A little something I thought might entertain the troops..

FT.com: Banks see rise in voluntary repossessions

Banks are seeing an increase in the numbers of homeowners deciding voluntarily to hand back their properties because they cannot afford to keep up mortgage payments. Voluntary repossessions involve the bank selling the property at auction but this will not show up in official figures as a repossession because there has been no court order.

MailOnline: Number of landlords falling behind on mortgage repayments soars by 50% as buy-to-let boom turns to nightmare

Soaring numbers of buy-to-let investors have not paid a penny of their mortgage and face losing their property, official figures revealed today. The worst economic meltdown since the First World War has triggered a nightmare for the army of people with one of Britain's 1.1million buy-to-let loans

Squealing pig: little pig, little pig, let me in

A bunch of BTL landlords are getting a bit grumpy about the state of the housing market. In particular they are looking for the government to force banks to lend them more money at interest rates below what banks currently are offering. They are using the argument that tenants may be made homeless unless banks lend more money, and more cheaply than they are now. Here is the text of the petition:

Posted by sold out @ 06:22 PM 16 Comments

Time: The Global Economy's Big Fear Becomes Real: Deflation

The deterioration of the global economy in the wake of the ongoing U.S. housing bust and subsequent credit crunch is accelerating at a frightening pace.

Posted by whostolemyendowment @ 05:52 PM 11 Comments

BBC News: Taxes to fall and then rise

On Monday, the chancellor will admit, by implication, that the government's industrial policy of the past decade has been something of a disaster. Actually to call it an industrial policy is a bit misleading - but what I mean is the Treasury's celebration over many years of the UK's growing economic dependence on the City of London and financial services. The City contributed around a third of our economic growth in the recent past and about 10% of total output.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 05:08 PM 10 Comments

Washingtonpost.com: Stocks Slump As Signs Point To Harder Times

Key Indicators Suggest Deep Recession

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.

Times Online: Empty homes hit highest level for nine years

On July 1 Iain Wright, the Under-Secretary of State at Communities and Local Government, announced that the number of empty homes in England had risen to 762,635, the highest level for nine years.

Posted by whostolemyendowment @ 04:08 PM 11 Comments

The Telegraph: Choose your celebrity Chancellor

I would like Ethel from Eastenders or the Chuckle Brothers...............what say you lot?

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 03:24 PM 8 Comments

dailymail: Fury over £100million plan for hundreds of gipsy sites across the country

Towns and villages across England are bracing themselves for 'bombshell' news on the location of hundreds of new and upgraded gipsy and traveller camps. Work on some of the proposed 7,500 extra pitches will get the go-ahead within weeks under a controversial £97million scheme.

Posted by mark @ 03:20 PM 18 Comments

Bedlam asset management: Bedlam news letter

Another cracking newsletter from Bedlam - especially the ideas about the rebirth of the cartel - essentially government picked winners will soon be thriving (and raising prices as they see fit). Read on...

charlotteobserver: 215,000 German jobs threatened by crisis

BERLIN The German economy could lose up to 215,000 jobs in 2009 amid the global economic crisis, Germany's Bild newspaper said Friday, citing a survey it compiled.

Reuters via SOTT: Citigroup stock drops to 13-year low, fear grows

Citigroup Inc faced a crisis of confidence on Wednesday as investors questioned the survival prospects of the U.S. banking giant, and its shares tumbled 23 percent to a 13-year low. The second-largest U.S. bank by assets has been reeling on concerns that mounting losses from credit cards, mortgages and toxic debt could overwhelm its efforts to slash costs and add deposits. Last month, Wells Fargo & Co dealt a blow by derailing Citigroup's bid to buy Wachovia Corp. and check here : http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article7366.html Citigroup: If this is the day of reckoning, and this is the time to start confessing, I will be the first to volunteer. I can no longer stand here before you and refute the fact that Citigroup is effectively insolvent.

The Times: Honda to close Swindon plant for two months

"Honda, the Japanese carmaker, today said it will close its factory in Swindon for two months, leaving nearly 5,000 workers with only basic pay during February and March."............I wanted fair house prices not this many families will suffer the christmas.....Banking elite and politicians are fine though so its all ok phew

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 12:36 PM 27 Comments

NY Times: Fields of Grain and Losses

David Kanable at the Oregon Farm Center, a mill near Madison, Wis., was paying $7.25 a bushel for corn in June. “We never had a farmer lock in at that price. They wanted $8,” Mr. Kanable said. Now this Thursday, the mill was paying $3.17 a bushel. When commodity prices were feverish, the price of good farmland exploded, too. Cropland values rose about 20 percent in the Midwest farm belt last year, capping a multiyear rise. The market for land is definitely weakening. One reason is that the investors and part-time farmers are once again dropping away. " Farmers are trying to survive by cutting costs, planting less, using less fertilizer, owning cattle instead etc. Plan for food shortages ahead I recon, unless the dollar drops and US farmers can be profitable again.

Posted by mountain goat @ 11:35 AM 10 Comments

Times online: Home repossessions rise 12% as economy worsens

Repossessions in July, August and September jumped sharply by 12 per cent and, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, full year numbers are expected to soar by 70 per cent compared to 2007.

Posted by sold out @ 11:30 AM 17 Comments

Telegraph: Veteran US investor says global economy could recover quickly

David Herro, the veteran chief investment officer of Harris Associates, one of the US's leading activist funds and a major investor in UK companies, has said that the global economic slump could be more than half way through.

reuters: DSG and M&S likely Christmas turkeys

"Much depends on how much confidence the suppliers have in the business and things could quickly unravel after Christmas," he said. JP Morgan analysts are equally gloomy. "We expect the results to look very poor and give little support for those concerned about the group's prospects to survive the downturn intact," they said in a preview note.

Posted by mark @ 10:53 AM 6 Comments

Telegraph: Dubai's Palm Jumeirah sees prices fall as crunch moves in

More anecdotals than data, but Dubai property falls must be inevitable, more than anywhere else on the planet. Will be a shame to see all those footballers' investments take a tumble

cnn: Futures rise, with all eyes on Citi

Wall Street poised to bounce back from deep fall on report that financial giant may sell itself.

bbc: Singapore officially in recession

Singapore's economy shrank between July and September, confirming it was the first Asian country in recession in the current financial crisis. The island's economy shrank 6.8% in the third quarter, according to government data, worse than the first estimate of 6.3% the government made last month.

Telegraph: When money is tight, people spend less. Are you listening, Mr Darling?

Jeff Randall argues that the root cause of this economic misery is debt, and no recovery will be lasting until the Government starts to redeem its IOUs.

BBC: Property repossessions up by 12%

The number of properties repossessed by mortgage lenders rose by 12% to 11,300 in the third quarter of the year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said. The number of borrowers in arrears also went up compared with the previous quarter, by 8% to 168,000. The number of repossession orders made by the courts in England and Wales rose by 3% to 29,516 in the same period. The figures suggest that many more people are likely to lose their homes as the economy falls into recession.

FT: Network Rail to 'accept' cuts

The company that owns Britain's rail network yesterday edged towards accepting a tough funding package that will force it to cut costs by 21 per cent over the next five years.

Posted by matt_the_hat @ 08:39 AM 12 Comments

Guardian: Honda to close Swindon factory for two months

The plant's 5,000 employees will be laid off for the duration of the closure without pay.

Posted by matt_the_hat @ 08:36 AM 10 Comments

MailOnline: More than 130 families a day lose their homes

More than 130 families a day are losing their homes to banks and building societies, shocking figures will reveal today. They show soaring numbers of people are paying the price for 'super-size' loans taken out during the property boom.

Sky News: European Central Bank: Britain Welcome To Join Euro

"As the pound struggles against other major currencies, the president of the European Central Bank has told Sky News that Britain is "welcome at any time" to join the euro." You think its bad now, imagine an ECB affecting our liquidity because of decisions made in Germany.

Posted by planning4acrash @ 01:48 AM 20 Comments

LA Times: Price of Southern California homes falls 41% from peak

What IDIOTS borrowed that much money?! "With the median price of Southern California homes down more than 40% from its peak, the housing market has now slid further than most economists expected. The median sales price for homes in the region fell to $300,000 in October, a level not seen since 2003 and a 41% drop from the peak price set in the spring and summer of 2007, according to San Diego-based MDA DataQuick."

Posted by planning4acrash @ 01:23 AM 9 Comments

Reuters: U.S. bank shares plummet

* Citigroup Inc (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares fall as much as 25.5 percent to $4.77 * Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares fall as much as 10.6 percent to $11.68 * JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares fall as much as 18.5 percent to $23.21 * S&P financials index .GSPF falls as much as 8.5 percent * Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares fall as much as 11.1 percent to $49.00

mail Online: Darling threatens to FORCE banks to lend to firms and families

Alistair Darling is so exasperated by the 'moral failure' of banks to help small firms and families that he is poised to toughen the law. The Chancellor is studying legal options to end the 'unacceptable' behaviour of the banks towards companies struggling in the downturn. The Government argues that when the taxpayer-funded recapitalisation scheme was agreed, the banks entered into an undertaking to restore lending to 2007 levels. But Mr Darling also has a range of legal options open to him, including the creation of a 'bank enforcer' to supervise their lending behaviour, or the imposition of a cap on the interest charged for business loans.

Posted by sold out @ 01:07 AM 22 Comments

freerealtime: Banks reduce maximum mortgage financing: Union Bank will lend only up to 60% of a home's value.

Israel's banks have tightened their mortgage policies in recent months. In addition to raising their mortgage interest rates, they have also reduced the maximum funding they will extend to borrowers, even safe borrowers. Some banks have also stopped working with Ezer Mortgage Insurance Company Ltd (EMI), and will not provide borrowers with financing amounting to 90-95 percent of a home's value.

The Times: Mortgage debt forces thousands to sell up

"A survey of estate agents suggests that at least 5,000 properties a week are being put up for sale by “forced downsizers” – people who are in financial difficulties.".................very sad

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 12:09 AM 28 Comments

The Daily Mail: Exposed: The sinister secrets of Labour's party list

A list of members posted on a website shows it to be a declining rump of lecturers, school teachers, social workers, trade union officials and former councillors. Many of them have never had a proper job in their lives and harbour dubious histories, in some cases descending into outright criminality.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 11:12 PM 6 Comments

CNN: End of Capitalism?

YouTube of CNN. "They don't believe in free enterprise or free market. They want socialism for themselves. They want a handout and a net for themselves. To hell with everybody else, but give it to them. And I think, really, what we're seeing now — with them, with the banks — we're seeing the end of capitalism, the end of capitalism as we know it ..." – Michael Moore

Posted by alan @ 09:54 PM 6 Comments

MarketWatch: Fannie Mae to Suspend Foreclosures

Fannie Mae today issued a notice to its loan servicing organizations and retained foreclosure attorneys directing them to suspend foreclosure sales on occupied single-family properties as well as the completion of evictions from occupied single-family properties scheduled to occur from November 26, 2008 until January 9, 2009

marketoracle: Kirstie and Phil's Location, Location, Location Returns as UK House Prices Crash

Kirstie and Phil self professed property experts make a return to the UK's TV screens with a more muted version of their long standing delusionally bullish UK property candy floss show titled location, location, location that helped feed the get on the property ladder frenzy of the last few years

BBC via CNN & CBNC & Cspan: Congresswoman Waters Grills Treasury Sec Paulson

congress congresswoman maxine waters economy bailout recovery fannie mae iraq bush gitmo habeas corpus

MarketWatch: Aid plan for Big Three falters in Congress

Democratic leaders said Thursday there is no deal on aid yet for the Big Three U.S. automakers, and asked the chief executives of those companies to return to Congress with concrete plans on how they would use federal funds to turn their companies around before getting any money from Washington. "Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at a press conference.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 08:31 PM 7 Comments

Financial Times: Why the Brown critics are wrong

The FT columnist Samuel Brittan attempts to Poo Poo the Brown / Government Poo Pooers. Somehow it doesn't quite work resulting in a blatantly confusing one sided article.

The Economist: The TARP trap

Holders of toxic mortgage-backed securities had pinned their hopes on the American government’s plan to buy large piles of the stuff through auctions as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP). The decision on November 12th to abandon that approach in favour of direct capital injections has left them shattered.

Bloomberg: U.S. Needs to Pump $1.2 Trillion Into Banks, FBR Says

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. may need to spend another $1.2 trillion to recapitalize the eight largest financial institutions and stabilize the markets because private investors won't take the risk, an FBR Capital Markets analyst said. ``The sheer size of the capital deficiency, coupled with the opaque nature of credit risk, will keep private capital sidelined,'' Paul Miller said in a research note yesterday.

Timesonline: Shares freefall halted by car bailout support

US senators reached a bipartisan agreement on a bill to support the ailing auto industry, with an announcement expected this afternoon. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been down more than 200 points in morning trade in New York, rose by 78 points to 8,075.89 at lunchtime as investors welcomed the news. Wall Street had been bracing itself for the possibility that Washington would not approve an emergency $25 billion (£16.7 billion) bridging loan to bail out America’s car industry in time to avert the bankruptcy of at least one big manufacturer.

BBC News: RBS boss apologises over losses

"Sir Tom told the meeting he was "sorry" about the financial and human cost that the bank's troubles have caused". So are we. But dont worry, nothing will ever happen to you. You may even be rewarded with a lordship later on for service rendered to GB.

Telegraph: Daily Mail owner cuts 400 jobs as profits fall

Daily Mail & General Trust's (DMGT) Associated and Northcliffe newspaper divisions have already cut 400 jobs in the past two months as part of a £100m cost-cutting drive.

contract journal: Taylor Wimpey faces new bank deadline of 1 January

As a result, Fitch has downgraded its rating on Taylor Wimpey’s debt from B to CCC which is well into “junk bond” territory. A forced liquidation is now a possibility, says Fitch. The credit rating agency says: “Fitch now believes default at Taylor Wimpey is a real possibility, with a distressed debt exchange, such as debt-for-equity swap, looking increasingly likely. “Although Fitch believes it less likely, a forced liquidation of the company is also a possibility.”

Posted by mark @ 04:53 PM 12 Comments

bbc: Bosch jobs threat 'devastating'

It takes the number of job cuts threatened in Wales this week to more than 750, including 337 jobs at the Hoover factory in Merthyr Tydfil. Twenty jobs have also been cut at a drug factory in Ceredigion, and in north Wales 20 jobs will go in Llangefni and Denbigh at a farm machinery firm.

The Scotsman: It's all over for the offers-over system, say estate agents

ONE of the central principles of the Scottish property market – the "offers-over" price – will die out with the introduction of next month's Home Reports, estate agents said yesterday.

New Statesman: Catastrophe averted?

The leaders of the rich countries went to Washington to save the world from sliding into deep recession. We asked key politicians, commentators and economists whether they succeeded and what we should expect, and hope for, in the coming weeks.

Yahoo: Lowest UK Oil Price In Three Years

London oil prices have slipped below $50 a barrel for the first time since May 2005.

Posted by mark @ 03:47 PM 8 Comments

reuters: Recession to last more than a year

The recession is likely to last more than a year as growth falls off a cliff despite the Bank of England continuing to hack away at interest rates as inflation comes down, according to a Reuters poll.

reuters: Job cuts rise as global recession plays on

"I'm still having conversations with people. But it doesn't look good."

reuters: Prospect for auto bailout dims

Congress has at most two days remaining in its post-election session. Without a deal in that time, any bailout is likely to have to wait until the new Obama administration takes over in January.

mortgagestrategy: Beckett calls for house builders to keep building

Housing minister Margaret Beckett is urging the house building sector to remain on task and continue building in the face of the economic downturn....................

Posted by jack c @ 03:13 PM 10 Comments

mortgagestrategy: Consumers set to benefit from development collapse, says Assetz

Homebuyers and investors could benefit from the current market as developers try to sell off their housing stock, says Assetz. The company says that as lower interest rates take effect, coinciding with increasing pressure by banks on developers to sell existing stock and the cost of LIBOR continuing to fall, the cost of financing property purchases is set to dip even further in the run up to Christmas. It says that this, combined with banks putting pressure on struggling developers to reduce housing stock could meand discounts of 30 - 40% bringing about the lowest prices for new build housing ever in the UK.

Posted by jack c @ 03:04 PM 7 Comments

Wall Street Journal: A Different Banking Crisis in Need of Fresh Capital

"As the nation's financial crisis spread earlier this fall, several thousand people pressed forward in a line to make a withdrawal from a bank in suburban San Diego. The line stretched out the building, up the street and past the fire station. They walked away with boxes filled not with money but vegetables, fruit, pasta and juice." Food Banks are running short here in the UK too. Christmas and cold weather coming as well ..........................

Albania Properties: Is Albania the new chapter of holiday and investment property destination?

A Mediterranean country with beautiful frontage on both the Adriatic and Ionian seas and its great landscape and long range mountains, Albania is a country that is attracting a lot of attention from international property investors, large corporate companies and holidaymakers. Albania is undergoing huge improvements in infrastructure and developments, and offers fantastic opportunities for property investors. New Airport, roads, NATO member, EU expected in 2014, Albania is experiencing an increase on tourism year on year. Albania property prices are the cheapest in all of Europe at least 70% cheaper. Beach apartments starting from just £20,000 and capital city (Tirana) apartments cost from only £19,000. Albania has not shown any econimoc downturn due to the current financial crisis.

Indian Express: Indian BPOs bring Christmas jobs cheer to UK

Christmas in 2008 could have been the gloomiest in UK in recent decades but for Indian companies, which are coming to the rescue of Britons, facing lay-offs in the face of a looming global recession. This week, Indian call centre major Firstsource sparked early Christmas cheer in Northern Ireland by announcing plans to create 160 more jobs in the region.

Posted by little professor @ 02:02 PM 8 Comments

Evening Standard: Boris: 50,000 cheap homes pledge

The Mayor said he wanted to build the ambitious total, including 30,000 social housing units, within three years. The £5 billion scheme will attempt to get middle-income families on the property ladder and ditch previous mayor Ken Livingstone's target that all new schemes are 50 per cent affordable. Mr Johnson said: "These plans aim to put London on a strong footing for the eventual upturn in the housing market." The scheme will see: ● Stalled developments receiving public money to go ahead, in return for providing affordable homes. ● Unsold new houses being bought and made affordable. ● More flexible schemes for existing social tenants who aspire to own their own home. ● An increase in the number of family-sized homes available to rent or buy.

Metro: Mortgage lending increases by 7%

Same facts as a post below this, just a slightly different spin ..."Mortgage lending rose by nearly 7% during October but it remained well down on 12 months ago, figures show. A total of £18.7 billion was advanced during the month, compared with just £17.5 billion during a "weak" September, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said. But the figure was still 44% lower than the £33.38 billion lent in October 2007, and it was also down on August's advances of £19.66 billion. Despite the increase in lending during October, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) warned that demand was likely to remain subdued due to falling house prices and the deteriorating economy. " (I do like that last sentence. A lot!)

MoneyWeek: Commercial property shares crash – but they're not cheap yet

It's not just Britain's houses that have fallen in price, the value of commercial property has slumped too. Property company shares have crashed 43% in the last year. And as the recession really starts to bite, they're going to come down even further.

BBC: October mortgage lending picks up

Mortgage lending rose slightly in October, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). Total lending rose to £18.7bn, 7% up from the previous month.

Posted by crash n burn @ 12:39 PM 7 Comments

bloomberg: GM, Ford, Chrysler Leave Congress Empty-Handed After Hearings

The companies are seeking aid as industry-wide sales have plummeted to a 17-year low. GM this month said it lost $4.2 billion in the third quarter and almost $73 billion since the end of 2004.

Posted by mark @ 10:09 AM 20 Comments

bbc: Peugeot Citroen cuts 2,700 jobs

French car company Peugeot Citroen has announced plans to shed 2,700 jobs because of falling demand in Europe.

bbc: Rolls-Royce plans 2,000 job cuts

Aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce has said it plans to cut between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs in 2009.

Market Oracle: U.S. Treasury the Final Bailout

it’s a millennial rite of passage for all mankind. Treasury Secretary: Millennial? Fed Chairman: I didn’t say I agree with that. I merely said that’s what’s being said. Treasury Secretary: I accept the 100-year storm concept. But let’s not get carried away by the public mood of gloom. Yes, I know debt liquidation and price deflation continue to be at the heart of our economic challenges and remain our most significant downside risk. I know real estate prices are down as much as 50% in some sectors and stock market barometers are down nearly 70% from their former peaks. And I know all about the tsunami of home foreclosures. Citigroup: I can no longer stand here before you and refute the fact that Citigroup is effectively insolvent. Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.

Market oracle.co.uk: Kirsty the Phil's Location, Location, Location Returns as UK House Prices Crash

Finally, Kirstie has been forced to recognise the fact that house prices can actually fall which follows earlier near religiously opinionated programming that fed on and reinforced the fervour that gripped much of the country as annual house prices roared ahead every month by more than that which people earned in wages, that house prices are a one way bet.

Posted by housebear @ 09:10 AM 9 Comments

FT Alphaville: Stony Broke Fresh Rumblings From Northern Rock

A serious trauma for the UK mortgage market

News Letter: House prices fall £46k in year

"IT could have been cheaper to stay in a five-star hotel for the last year than to own a house in Northern Ireland, according to dramatic figures released today. The University of Ulster's Quarterly House Price Index today reveals that the average house price in Northern Ireland has slumped by £46,881 over the last 12 months, meaning the average house has fallen in value by £128 a day." ... "Incredibly, according to the survey, at least 10 per cent of estate agents reported no sales during the three-month period and many other agents had less than five sales."

The Telegraph: Edinburgh house prices fall 11.4 per cent

It's official. The credit crunch now has Edinburgh in its grips. More than £20,000 has been wiped off the average value of an Edinburgh home this year, according to The Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre, and the number of homes being sold has halved...............like London this city will be hit hard

Mises Institute: Did the Fed, or Asian Saving, Cause the Housing Bubble?

Just about the only good thing to come out of the housing bubble is that many financial analysts are coming to see the virtue of the Austrian theory of the business cycle. Specifically, though Greenspan did his best to blame deregulation and foreigners who saved too much, many people now think that the Maestro's ultra-low interest rates in the wake of the dot-com crash may very well have sowed the seeds for our current crisis. Naturally, there is more to the story of the housing boom than simply saying, "The Fed chairman did it." But the original Misesian insight has withstood the test: it still seems that the Fed was a necessary condition for the worst speculative bubble in world history.

reuters: Deutsche Bank to axe roughly one in seven traders

FRANKFURT, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Deutsche Bank will cut roughly one in seven jobs in its trading business, or about 900 staff, its single biggest reduction to investment banking since the onset of the global financial crisis, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

Reuters: Glitzy Greenwich feels hedge fund pain

As many hedge funds suffer big losses and anxious investors yank out their money, the town synonymous with the riches of their recent glory is now hurting. In Greenwich, Connecticut, the luxury car dealers are quiet, the prices of mansions are declining and the retailers who have made a good living serving its wealthy residents are complaining about a sudden drop in business. "Everything is down. We started to see it in the summer, but October is when the bottom caved in," said James McArdle, whose family has run McArdle's Florist and Garden Center in Greenwich for 98 years. "Housing sales are down and so that always cuts into our market. Fewer buyers, fewer makeovers."

FT: Gold’s safe appeal attracts record interest

121% increase in gold sales over a year ago. Mints around the world have run out of gold. German gold demand up 533% on a year ago. Swiss demand up 500%. This is from the World Gold Council, reported in the Financial Times. Whether gold is about to increase in price is of course up for debate. Really, I'd just like to see a thread with the hot flame and over 50 posts due to boredom....

Posted by doom&gloom @ 08:13 PM 24 Comments

Bloomberg: Home Prices Tumble in 80 Percent of U.S. Cities

Home prices fell in four out of every five U.S. cities in the third quarter, a record spurred by distressed foreclosure sales across the country. The median price of a U.S. home declined 9 percent from a year earlier and sales of properties with mortgages in default accounted for at least a third of all transactions, the Chicago- based National Association of Realtors said today. Prices fell in 120 U.S. metropolitan areas, rose in 28 and were unchanged in four, the biggest share of declines in data going back to 1979. The financial turmoil sparked by the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market has caused $666 billion of losses for U.S. banks, lenders and insurers. U.S. companies slashed 1.4 million jobs in the last six months, the biggest cut since 1975.

mortgagestrategy: NAEA calls for more government action

The National Association of Estate Agents is calling for more action from the government to prop up the property market. More than half - 54% - of estate agents surveyed said they did not have confidence in current government policies and that more must be done, including a suspension of Stamp Duty. They also called on the Bank of England to further cut interest rates.The survey further revealed that consumers are cutting their asking prices on property - a difficult decision that is already helping the market.

Yahoo News: World freight prices collapse amid financial crisis

LONDON (AFP) – Freight shipping prices for transporting dry raw materials collapsed in November, slammed by the global financial crisis, slowing economic growth and falling commodity prices, industry experts said

Global Research: The Great Depression of the 21st Century: Collapse of the Real Economy

The financial crisis is deepening, with the risk of seriously disrupting the system of international payments. This crisis is far more serious than the Great Depression. All major sectors of the global economy are affected. Recent reports suggest that the system of Letters of Credit as well as international shipping, which constitute the lifeline of the international trading system, are potentially in jeopardy.

BBC News: The brighter side of the credit crisis

Going on holidays is the right thing to do.

Posted by fjcruiser @ 06:19 PM 13 Comments

The Market Oracle: G20 Central Banks Unite to Fight Economic Depression

Amid the worst financial crisis and market meltdowns since the 1930's, the world's top-20 central bankers and finance ministers are busy at work, inflating the world's money supply, slashing lending rates, and crafting stimulus packages, in order to prevent a normal recession from morphing into a Great Depression. The ECB has cut interest rates by 100-basis points to 3.25% since early October, and is telegraphing another 50 basis point cut at the next policy meeting in December.

Bailout Sleuth: Eight more banks

At least eight more banks announced their participation in the Treasury Department's share purchase program in the past two days, adding roughly $1.48 billion to the total amount of taxpayer money to be invested in the institutions.

Telegraph: House sales pick up as sellers become realistic

The number of properties changing hands rose for the second consecutive month in October as sellers began to price their homes more realistically. Earlier this week it emerged that sellers had cut their asking prices by almost 3pc in just four weeks.

reuters: BASF issues profit warning, cuts global output

BASF says now sees full-year profit below 2007 level * Says to cut production at about 100 plants * Says could reduce working hours at its sites * Shares drop 13.1 percent

BBC News: Global liquidity crisis 'is over'

Crisis is over folks.

Posted by fjcruiser @ 03:19 PM 12 Comments

Timesonline: Lloyds TSB wins vote for HBOS merger

Lloyds TSB’s shareholders today voted through the bank's rescue takeover of HBOS, owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, with 96 per cent of investors backing the deal. A merger between the two banks, brokered by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in September, will create a lender with 145,000 staff and 3,000 branches across the UK. At today's meeting, shareholders also supported Lloyds TSB's plan to raise £5.5 billion to shore up its balance sheet, including £1 billion from the Treasury which will buy preference shares in the bank. Until Lloyds TSB pays back the Government’s £1 billion investment, it will not be allowed to pay bonuses to its directors

Posted by flintster1994 @ 03:11 PM 10 Comments

Bloomberg: Roubini Says U.S. Recession to Be Worst in 50 Years

Short interview with Roubini.

BBC: Premium bond payouts reduced

National Savings & Investments (NS&I), which runs the popular savings account, said the total Premium Bond monthly prize payout would drop from £87.8 million this month to about £57 million in January 2009. The number of Premium Bond prizes will fall from 1.54 to 1.1 million.

Boston Globe: Depression 2009: What would it look like?

In a deep and sustained downturn, home prices would likely sink further and not rise, dimming the appeal of homeownership, a large part of suburbia's draw. Renting an apartment - perhaps in a city, where commuting costs are lower - might be more tempting. And although city crime might increase, the sense of safety that attracted city-dwellers to the suburbs might suffer, too, in a downturn. Many suburban areas have already seen upticks in crime in recent years, which would only get worse as tax-poor towns spent less money on policing and public services. In a modern depression, the swelling ranks of the unemployed would likely change the landscape of the country, uprooting people who would rather stay where they are and trapping people who want to move.

Bloomberg: It Isn’t a TARP Without Troubled Assets to

Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Every time Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson updates us on the government’s efforts to stabilize the financial system and announces the latest twist in the Troubled Asset Relief Program, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I know he will introduce a host of new acronyms for new lending facilities to rescue new asset classes from new and anticipated distress. And I know that, no matter how hard I focus on what he says or how many times I read the press release and accompanying stories, I won’t be able to get my arms around the details.

Timesonline: Santa Brown's great Christmas giveaway

They can't give it away. So bad is the economic situation that the Government will have to admit next week that it cannot stimulate the economy by fast-tracking great capital projects. So complex are the systems now, so unwieldy the planning process and so untrusted the Government, that the proposals and partners do not exist to build our way out of the downturn. Many billions of pounds are already stuck in the system, unspent. The £43 billion Building Schools for the Future programme, for instance, that aims to rebuild 3,500 schools in 15 years, managed in its first three years to rebuild... 13.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 02:30 PM 7 Comments

bbc: House sales rise as prices fall

A property search website, Globrix, said price cuts on homes last week averaged £16,871 across the UK. The UK property market is in the middle of the worst slump in living memory because of the credit crunch and a subsequent mortgage drought. Average prices, according to the biggest lenders, have fallen by about 15% in the past year and sales have fallen by more than half.

Posted by mark @ 02:28 PM 10 Comments

Telegraph: British Land posts £1.3bn loss

The results follow similar figures from rival Land Securities, which announced a £1.7bn loss, as commercial property values fall steeply because of plunging demand amid the credit crisis.

Tgraph: Becoming a landlord: Word on the street

... but a new wave of "reluctant landlords" are spoiling the BTL party.

Posted by confused76 @ 01:36 PM 10 Comments

ThisIsMoney: Interest-only mortgage borrowers forced to sell as property prices fall

"Around 1.3m homeowners with an interest-only mortgage could be facing financial problems, research claims today." These are mostly BTLs, who in the past bragged to have made a fortune but will soon lose a fortune "If the UK does become blighted with deflation, not only does it mean people hold on for lower prices on cars, houses and big ticket items, it also means mortgages will grow relative to wages and other prices" BTL = Buy To Debt

cnn: The 'Great Crash' in the history books

You are both too young to read this letter now. But in a decade or so, I suspect you'll be hearing about the events of autumn 2008 in your history class. You might wonder what it felt like to live through a global crisis. And when you learn about the years just before the crash - the houses that magically doubled in value, the no-questions-asked mortgages - you'll surely ask what all of us crazy old folks could have been thinking.

bbc: Spain 'to slide into recession'

Spain is likely to slip into recession in the fourth quarter and stay there into 2009, Bank of Spain head Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez has said. His comments followed figures showing that the Spanish economy had contracted by 0.2% in the third quarter, the first shrinkage since 1993. "The scenario for the next quarters is very similar to that of the third quarter," Mr Ordonez said. The eurozone officially entered recession last week. CSFB analyst Giovanni Zanni said: "We have a slightly worse forecast for Spain than for the rest of the euro area."

CNBC: Financial Crisis Tab Already In The Trillions

Try $4.28 trillion dollars. That's $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources*. Not only is it a astronomical amount of money, its' a complicated cocktail of budgeted dollars, actual spending, guarantees, loans, swaps and other market mechanisms by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other offices of government taken over roughly the last year, based on government data and news releases. Strictly speaking, not every cent is a direct result of what's called the financial crisis, but it is arguably related to it. £££££££££££££££££ has anyone done this in the UK?

New Scientist: Prophesy of economic collapse 'coming true'

Things may seem bad now - with fears of a world recession looming - but they could be set to get much worse. A real-world analysis of a controversial prediction made 30 years ago concludes that economic growth cannot be sustained and we are on track for serious economic collapse this century. In 1972, the seminal book Limits to Growth by a group called the Club of Rome claimed that exponential growth would eventually lead to economic and environmental collapse. The group used computer models that assessed the interaction of rising populations, pollution, industrial production, resource consumption and food production. Most economists rubbished the book and its recommendations have been ignored by governments, although a growing band of experts today continues to argue cont.

Guardian Blog: GolemXIV comments on recent articles

This blogger is on my favourites list - always insightful. Page takes 20secs to load up. Everything written in this newspaper, by all the journalists and by the editorial writers is from the point of view that what HAS to happen is to get spending started again. Get money into the system. If the banks won't do it by spending/loaning then lets get the consumer to do it by tax cuts ( which is just Bush's stimulus checks by another name.) Every word written here ignores utterly, never mentions at all, the possibility that the real problem is the outstanding cliff of bad debts. No one is willing to write a word about how that debt is what is stopping the financial sector from being able to do its job. No one wants to say that even big firms have to go bankrupt.

CBS: Report: MTA To Slash Jobs, Multiple Subway Lines

1,500 Jobs On The Line; - [I don't think they have realised!] NEW YORK (CBS) ― The MTA reportedly is ready to make deep cuts in its budget that could lead to reduced service, layoffs and more crowded trains. Sources tell CBS 2 the association board is preparing a worst case "Doomsday" scenario that will be presented during its monthly meeting on Thursday. When describing the agency's budget crisis last week, MTA CEO Elliot Sander said, "The word 'Draconian' is not inappropriate."

yahoo: Insulation Firm Axes 100s Of Jobs

SIG is axeing 900 jobs and shutting 65 trading sites after warning annual profits will be at the bottom end of market forecasts.

Posted by mark @ 12:14 PM 6 Comments

MoneyWeek: Is Britain set to turn into Japan?

Latest figures show that prices in the UK are falling at the fastest rate for 20 years. It's good news that essentials such as petrol and food are getting cheaper, but there's a dark side to falling prices - we could soon be in serious danger of a Japan-style deflationary slump.

Posted by damien @ 11:57 AM 6 Comments

FT: M&S to hold 20%-off sale for one day

Marks and Spencer is turning to a tactic it has not used since the business was in the doldrums in 2004, in a sign of its anxiety about the retail climate. The retailer will on Thursday hold a one-day “20 per cent off” sale – its biggest pre-Christmas promotion for four years – to stimulate flagging revenue, according to people familiar with the retailer’s plans.

BBC: Bank hints at further rate cuts

There could be more cuts in UK interest rates, according to the minutes from the Bank of England meeting at which rates were lowered from 4.5% to 3%. The Bank's nine-member committee voted unanimously for the cut on 6 November, but considered a bigger one. The Bank's own calculations showed that a cut to 2.5%, or even lower, would be needed to stop inflation falling too far below its target next year.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 11:39 AM 12 Comments

mail: Homeowners with interest-only mortgages face financial ruin as their property prices plunge

Around 1.3million homeowners with an interest-only mortgage could be facing financial problems, research claims today. The terms of their mortgage mean they pay only the interest on the loan each month, and they are failing to save money to pay off the capital, says the report from investment firm Liverpool Victoria. Forty-one per cent were hoping to use the increase in the value of their property to pay off their loan in the future. With prices plunging at a record rate, this is not an option for many homeowners who bought in recent years. Prices have now dropped to October 2005 levels. It raises fears of a worrying 'mortgage gap', with an estimated £75billion of mortgages on their properties.

independent IE: Lenihan to sanction huge bank rescue plan

The Government is on the brink of launching a multi-billion euro rescue plan for the country's banks as the share price of a second major institution fell below €1 yesterday. Officials are going through an expert report forensically examining the loans given out by the banks to work out their levels of bad debt.

Independent IE: Mortgage lenders to demand 20pc cash deposits

THE housing market suffered a new blow after it emerged last night that house buyers will have to come up with at least 20pc of the value of properties they plan to buy. The move will mean buyers will have to produce deposits of €54,000, based on the average price of a house at the moment. One of the largest lenders in the State, KBC Homeloans said it would now only provide mortgages for 80pc of the value of homes. Mortgage market experts said other lenders were now likely to follow KBC.

Estate Agent Today: Sales of For Sale boards slip to all time low

"As a sign of the times, orders of For Sale boards have reached an all-time low, while printing firms reliant on estate agency have also been hit." But what about all those 'For Rent' signs that must be required according to the BTL VIs ....................... ?

Times Online: We must defend our high seas from more than just pirates

"Every year $50 billion goes up in smoke because of the world's inability to control the sea. According to a recent World Bank report condemning the staggering inefficiency of heavily subsidised fishing fleets, the money is squandered as fishermen vie with each other to chase the ever-diminishing stocks of fish, building bigger and bigger boats in the process. If world fish stocks were rebuilt, today's catch could be achieved with about half the current global fishing effort. But a measured approach is impossible when no one owns the sea. It is a classic tragedy of the commons: if one country leaves the fish alone, another will reap the benefits. The result is a rush that will only stop when the fish have disappeared."

Posted by fahrenheit451 @ 09:59 AM 14 Comments

Timesonline: Deflation is the new bogey word as crunch sends prices tumbling

The spectre of 1930s-style deflation in the British economy loomed yesterday after figures showed that prices of many goods slumped last month as recession tightened its grip. Consumer price inflation posted its biggest drop since records began in 1992, falling to 4.5 per cent last month from a 16-year peak of 5.2 per cent in September. The drop could lead to further aggressive interest rate cuts. Rates are already at a 54-year low of 3 per cent.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 09:20 AM 10 Comments

mail: A very middle-class recession: One moment you're planning your holiday, the next you're on the abyss...

Last year, he was told his team made £300million for the corporate arm of the Bank of Scotland. With a bonus, his salary could exceed £150,000 in cash, with share incentives. His job, the whole family felt, was utterly safe - until the day a few months ago when, with no warning, he was made redundant.

Press Association: Concern over interest only mortgages

Nearly half of people with interest-only mortgages have no investment in place to repay the money they owe, research has shown. Around 2.9 million homeowners are on interest-only deals, but 45% of these are not contributing to an investment to repay the capital they have borrowed, according to LV. Instead 41% of people plan to repay the money they owe by selling their house and cashing in the equity. Despite falling house prices, many of these homeowners hope to raise enough money to not only repay their debt, but also to buy a new property. Borrowers have not been obliged to have an investment plan linked to an interest-only mortgage since the early 1990s.

Posted by little professor @ 01:22 AM 16 Comments

of two minds blog: Housing Writedowns Resisted

The discussion concerns America but is not irrelevant to our plight either: "Today's "trend that will stick": writing down housing values and mortgages to reality will be resisted by lenders, homeowners and government every step of the way, lengthening the recession. Why will this resistance lengthen the recession/depression? For what happens when writing down bad debt (uncollectable debt, debt based on impaired assets, etc.) is resisted, we need only look at Japan 1989-2002 for an example: hiding bad debt and acting as if assets will rebound to bubble heights someday leads to decades of stagnation."

CNBC: Luxury Brands Struggle to Attract Clients

The Wall Street stockbroker had used FlatRate Moving, a high-end moving service, a half-dozen times over the years. They moved him from a modest apartment on the Upper East Side to a grander one on the Upper West. He called when he moved to an even better building in Midtown. Most recently, FlatRate helped settle him and his wife and child into a 3,000-square-foot loft in Soho, one of Manhattan's priciest neighborhoods. FlatRate got another call two months ago. The client was packing up his family for a two-bedroom apartment in the less expensive Park Slope, Brooklyn. He had lost his job and was no longer in a position to pay the $3,000 to $5,000 a month he'd shelled out before. "We did the move almost at cost"—for under $1,200, says FlatRate's vice president of marketing.

Posted by lvmreader @ 08:13 PM 13 Comments

BBC News: Fraudulent mortgage broker banned

"The FSA said it would have also imposed a substantial fine on him, but for the fact that Mr King is now bankrupt". What a shame.

The Guardian: Days that shook the world

I am ordering his books for X-mas.

Posted by fjcruiser @ 07:55 PM 6 Comments

Scotsman: Now is the time to secure a property bargain

Recent figures from the ESPC have shown that it is easier than ever to secure a home at a bargain price, with 75% of properties going for below their advertised fixed price. And as there is less competition in the market, buyers are realising that it's easier than ever before to get their first-choice home. With Bank of England's decision to dramatically slash interest rates, providing that the new rate is passed on to customers by the major banks, we're expecting more first-time buyers to start considering taking their first step on the property ladder, which will swell the number of sales even more. If you miss the boat and prices start to rise again you won't be able to buy the home you want or to get on the ladder. It's only when it's too late that people start to realise that

Posted by little professor @ 07:50 PM 13 Comments

The Market Oracle: Worse than the Great Depression?

It's a minority but growing view, including from 86-year old former Goldman Sachs chairman, John Whitehead, at the November 12 Reuters Global Finance Summit in New York. As disturbing evidence mounts, he said: "I think it would be worse than the depression. We're talking about reducing the credit of the United States of America, which is the backbone of the economic system. I see nothing but large increases in the deficit, all of which are serving to decrease the credit standing of America.

mortgagestrategy: B&B admits hands tied over self-cert fraud

Bradford & Bingley has admitted there is little it can do to tackle self-cert mortgage fraud where borrowers lie about their income. The revelation emerged during a grilling of B&B’s chief executive Richard Pym and chairman Rod Kent at a Treasury Select Committee session held this morning as part of a wider banking crisis enquiry. Richard Pym says the nationalised lender is attempting to tackle the fraudulent loans held on its buy-to-let portfolio, but says there is little in the bank’s armoury to stamp out self-cert fraud.He says: “One of the emerging issues within our books is mortgage fraud. There is a fraud element in our book and we regret that.

Posted by jack c @ 05:16 PM 23 Comments

contract journal: Building work under threat in Aberdeen following bank collapse

Building work on new Aberdeen schools could be halted unless the council provides a loan of up to £17.5m. Aberdeen council has been asked to provide between £3m and £17.5m to keep the £120m 3Rs project on track after its financial backer collapsed.

Yahoo: Independent News & Media to cut 90 jobs

"This restructuring will produce a significantly lower cost base, which will allow our titles to weather whatever storms the next few years will bring," it added.

Times Online: House rents fall as unsold properties flood market

"Rents fell for the first time in five years between July and October as home-movers flooded the rental market with properties that they could not sell." a good read... unless you are BTL

Posted by growler @ 03:25 PM 10 Comments

BBC news: Can you still get a mortgage?

Recession, what recession?

BBC News Magazine: The myth of record debt

Despite the condescending 'P4AC' writing style, this is an informative read. Author proposes that the UK debt situation is not as bad as reported, when taken in context. Good to read some articles contrary to the Zeitgeist. Have yet to verify his assertions myself however....

Posted by doom&gloom @ 01:38 PM 21 Comments

cnn: Pepsi Bottling to slash 3,000 jobs

Pepsi Bottling Group Inc., which bottles Pepsi beverages, on Tuesday cut its 2008 profit outlook and announced a restructuring plan that will affect more than 3,000 jobs worldwide.

rightmove: Lea Bank Close, Macclesfield SK11 £350,000

BUY TO LET INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY- currenntly tenanted until 15th August 2009 @ £995pcm.

Posted by mark @ 12:24 PM 9 Comments

bbc: Buy-to-let market 'is now closed'

The buy-to-let housing market is "closed", the boss of nationalised bank Bradford & Bingley has said during scrutiny from a committee of MPs. Executive chairman Richard Pym said that so many deals had been withdrawn that the market was completely different to a year ago. He also said a higher proportion of B&B's customers were in arrears compared with the industry average.

MoneyWeek: How zombie companies suck the life from an economy

Once a company needs state aid to remain viable, it becomes a monster. The usual justification for government backing for an industry is that it’s a temporary measure, just to see it through the hard times. But income tax was also a temporary measure when it was first introduced...

Safe Haven: The Descent of Niall Ferguson

"The twilight of gold appeared to have arrived," claimed Professor Ferguson, stepping out of the lecture hall and into his gypsy fortune-teller's tent, in his 1999 tome, The Cash Nexus. "True, total blackout is still some way off," he forecast, and "gold has a future, of course, but mainly as jewelry."

Posted by sold 2 rent 1 @ 11:39 AM 6 Comments

BBC: City helps pay mortgage arrears

Wakefield council will provide a limited number of interest-free loans of up to £15,000 to those worst-affected by the economic downturn.

Posted by cheekie charlie @ 11:34 AM 7 Comments

Channel 4: Location Location Location. Survival Guide

Did anyone watch Location Location Location. Survival Guide on Channel 4 last night?. I was sligtly amused that Phil offerred £130k and £150k to two £180k (overpriced) house, which would be unthinkable until a few weeks ago. But Kristy still seemed couldn't bring herself to do it. She even claimed that she always adviced people to buy at a price that they can afford. Ha!!

Posted by peter_2008 @ 11:07 AM 13 Comments

contract Journal: Countryside Properties (Northern) to shed 80 jobs

The Warrington-based firm has already shed 30 employees in May.

reuters: Car firms can't be bailed out like banks

The European car industry cannot expect to be treated in a similar way to the financial sector and countries must not offer automakers unfair incentives, the EU competition commissioner said on Tuesday

Posted by mark @ 10:32 AM 8 Comments

bbc: Wolseley to shed 2,300 more jobs

Plumbing and building materials firm Wolseley says it is to cut 2,300 more jobs, the majority in the UK, and close more than 200 branches. Wolseley, which owns the Plumb Center and Build Center chains and operates in Europe and North America, said it had already cut 5,000 posts since August. It added that trading conditions were expected to worsen in the short-run. "We continue to react swiftly to market conditions with aggressive but measured cost reduction," the company said.

Dundee Courier: Depositors unlikely to see refunds

10 days ago, the BBC reported that the development was going ahead, in spite of the fact that a number of redundancies had been made and none of the depositors could get through to the company. Sounds like the BBC are complicit in money escape.

Property Week: UK property values in October plunge to 22-year low says IPD

UK commercial property capital values have plummeted by the largest ever monthly figure in the Investment Property Databank’s 22-year history, at -4.3%, according to the UK Monthly Property Index for October 2008 In the IPD index published today it showed all property total returns falling to -3.8%, fractionally deeper than the monthly returns recorded last December, which were -3.7%, which the IPD said ‘served to emphasise that the UK commercial real estate market has now fully entered a ‘double dip’ phase.

Property Week: CBI says recession to be as harsh as 1991

The UK will enter a recession as severe as that of 1991, with the economy shrinking 2.5% from its peak before reaching a trough late next year, according to a sharply revised forecast from employers’ body the CBI. Unemployment is expected to reach 9% by 2010, leaving nearly 3m people out of work. In 2009, the economy is expected to contract by 1.7% against a growth forecast of 0.3% made in September.

Posted by fahrenheit451 @ 09:51 AM 6 Comments

BBC: Consumer inflation falls to 4.5%

Official figures show that UK inflation fell to 4.5% in October, as oil prices and transport costs fell. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure reached 5.2% in September. This was the highest level for 16 years. The Retail Prices Index, (RPI) the alternative measure of inflation, which includes housing costs, fell from 5% to 4.2%, the biggest fall since 2003. The Bank of England has said inflation could fall below its target of 2% next year - and might drop as low as 1%.

Posted by jack c @ 09:43 AM 9 Comments

BBC: Glut of unsold homes hits rents

A glut of unsold homes has flooded the rental market, driving down rents at the fastest rate on record. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said new instructions to sell flats and houses had been at record levels in the past few months. However, Rics said many people who cannot sell their homes have decided to let their properties, and this increase in supply has pushed rents down. The proportion of surveyors reporting lower rents was its highest since 2003.

Posted by jack c @ 08:59 AM 10 Comments

Independent: The buy-to-let dream has turned into a nightmare

Pop. There goes another housing bubble. Two years ago, you could barely move without bumping into someone who'd given up on pension plans and savings in favour of bricks and mortar. The buy-to-let boom was the single most important contributory factor to the meteoric rise in UK house prices. Bad enough that the value of property has fallen by at least 15%. Now RICS says rents are falling too. It's not difficult to see why. The market is saturated with unsold flats and houses. This is an alarming development for buy-to-let investors. Until now they could take comfort in the fact that house prices might recover in time. But with rents falling too, and the cost of remortgaging escalating, the monthly cashflow will force many to sell their properties in a falling market.

Posted by little professor @ 01:33 AM 13 Comments

Telegraph: Volcker issues dire warning on slump

[Apologies for straying slightly off-topic] Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has warned that the economic slump has begun to metastasise after a shocking collapse in output over the past two months, threatening to overwhelm the incoming Obama administration as it struggles to restore confidence. "What this crisis reveals is a broken financial system like no other in my lifetime," he told a conference at Lombard Street Research in London. "Normal monetary policy is not able to get money flowing. The trouble is that, even with all this government protection, the market is not moving again. The only other time we have seen the US economy drop as suddenly as this was when the Carter administration imposed credit controls, which was artificial."

Telegraph: House price falls hit 20pc

House prices have already fallen by 20pc from their peak, according to one of Britain's largest property websites [no, not this website...]. Evidence suggests that prices will continue to fall sharply, with sellers dropping their asking prices by almost 3pc last month, Rightmove reported. Agents are reporting sales at 20% below peak asking prices. The number of new sellers has fallen to 20,000 a week (down from 35,000 a week a year ago). Full Rightmove press release link in comments below.

Posted by drewster @ 12:58 AM 17 Comments

Portfolio.com: The End of Wall Street's Boom

"To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which stocks and bonds would rise and which would fall. The essential function of Wall Street is to allocate capital—to decide who should get it and who should not. Believe me when I tell you that I hadn’t the first clue." Michael Lewis, author of "Liar's Poker", explains where it all went wrong.

WSJ: Iceland Abandoned

Superb article outlining how that cretin in charge is also an a-hole.

Posted by frizzers @ 10:22 PM 14 Comments

Wales Online: House price slump has cost average family £30,000 in one year

"Commercial director Miles Shipside said: “Some sellers could avoid months of disillusionment and despair if they started marketing at an asking price a lot closer to where the evidence indicates they are likely to end up."..............yes 50 grand for a 4 bed in centre should do it :-) "Alison Shaw, from Porthcawl, has just sold her house after having it on the market for two years.She was forced to reduce the price from £575,000 to £499,000 and sold at a price she asked to remain confidential.".......400 quid? :-p

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 08:04 PM 7 Comments

BBC NEWS: Cameron warns of 'tax bombshell'

"He said the danger next year would be deflation, adding: "This seems to be the only party that is now standing against what is a consensus developing across Europe and across the world."......correct up to the word adding

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 07:56 PM 11 Comments

ft.com/westminster: Brown’s vow of silence on sterling?

Gordon Brown's recent criticism of George Osborne for talking down sterling has received much press. But surprise surprise it appears Gordon Brown did exactly the same thing himself.

Fool.co.uk: Rents falling as houses fail to sell

It’s good news for tenants and bad news for landlords: according to the latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), residential rents fell dramatically in the third quarter of this year. The record fall comes thanks to the lettings market being “flooded” by unsold properties being put up to let. This news tallies with my own personal experience. Recently, I made an offer to rent a property in a city in the Southeast. The previous tenants had lived there for two years, paying £1,800 a month. I offered the landlord £1,650 a month, which he promptly accepted -- saving me £1,800 a year. And I'm not alone. Disclosure: The author sold to rent in 2005, and has no plans to buy till 2010/11

Posted by little professor @ 06:25 PM 9 Comments

BBC News: Problems looming for buy-to-let

Between 20% and 40% of buy-to-let (BTL)landlords will fall into negative equity if house prices keep on falling at their current rate, a report says. The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's says that by June this year BTL mortgages had a repossession rate greater than ordinary home loans. It warned that financial problems were concentrated among BTL mortgages granted in the past two years. The report was based on studying 200,000 BTL loans, 20% of the total. "We believe that the BTL sector could suffer above-average loss severities on repossession cases due to a concentration of certain property types that are witnessing above-average price declines," said Kate Livesey, an analyst at S&P.

RICS: Sales hit a new low but expectations of a recovery increase

Transactions fall further though lead activity indicators improve.

The Daily Mash: Somebody Sells a House

It's all getting a bit heavy for me at the moment (the big bad financial world) so I tuned out and went in search of 'a laugh'. Hope it cheers someone elses day.

Posted by vindicated @ 04:05 PM 12 Comments

Could the UK face a sterling crisis, or are we in one already?: FT Blog

"a triple financial crisis: a combined banking crisis, sovereign debt crisis and sterling crisis"

BBC News: Citigroup set to cut 75,000 jobs

On top of 22,000 already announced. Here we go....

Posted by doom&gloom @ 02:55 PM 13 Comments

Yahoo: Recession to claim 8% of London jobs

LONDON (ShareCast) - Around 370,000 jobs could be lost in London by the end of 2010, according to the Local Government Association (LGA), that's 8% of all jobs in the Capital.

Telegraph: Up to 40pc of buy-to-let borrowers face negative equity

Buy to let mortgages are seeing higher reposession rates than owner occupier mortgages, 3.7% are in arrears vs 2.9% and 40% face negative equity vs 20% for owner occupier mortgages.

Posted by jonb @ 02:21 PM 12 Comments

CNN: Citigroup to cut more than 50,000 jobs

Citigroup said Monday it planned to cut more than 50,000 jobs, the latest move by the struggling bank to cut costs in order to weather the credit crisis plaguing Wall Street

BBC News: Citigroup set to cut 75,000 jobs

Citigroup set to cut 75,000 jobs Breaking News US bank Citigroup has announced plans for up to 75,000 job cuts, up from a previously announced total of 23,000. Citigroup said in a statement that the cuts represented a reduction of about 20% of its staff, leaving the bank with 300,000 jobs worldwide. The cuts will come from redundancies, the sale of units and natural wastage, the bank said.

bbc.co.uk: Everyone Loves Kirsty and Phil

"But the perfect tonic to Monday Blues....yes Phil and Kirsty from Location, Location, Location and other such offshoots! Such lovely lovely people..Definitely cheered me up this morning - absolute legends of the property world." ...'WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Posted by bystander @ 01:26 PM 11 Comments

TIMESONLINE: Homeowners slash asking prices £6,500 in a month

British homeowners are slashing the asking price on their property by as much as £6,500, as some estate agents reduce the value of deals by as much as a fifth in an effort to shift houses. According to Rightmove, the property search website, the average asking price of a home in England and Wales in the four weeks to November 8 was £223,000 - a 2.9 per cent decline on the previous month and the biggest fall since records began in 2002. Over the year, the asking price fell by 7.1 per cent and Rightmove said some estate agents are selling houses for about 20 per cent under peak prices. Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said: “Some sellers could avoid months of disillusionment and despair if they started marketing at an asking price a lot closer to where the evidence".

Posted by plato @ 12:02 PM 11 Comments

ifalife: Banks will disappear soon - centuries of tradition to be replaced by Internet systems

People aged over 40 are often amazed by what is happening online. Sometimes they find it difficult to consider things the way those born in the 1970s do. The world is changing fast. For example, many business people - the younger ones - are avoiding banks altogether as a source of funding. Instead they are going to cooperative ventures such as Zopa, where you borrow money from other people, rather than banks.Bank accounts as we know them will become obsolete for millions of people within a matter of a few years (for many they already are obsolete).

Posted by jack c @ 11:44 AM 20 Comments

BBC: Surviving the property turmoil

The article offers no hopes of "Surviving the property turmoil". The BTL bubble is truly and forever burst

Posted by confused76 @ 10:44 AM 14 Comments

bbc: London 'worst hit in recession'

London could suffer the most in a recession while many northern cities will fare better, a report has said. ******Only a year ago reports were saying all would be OK and no recession and houseprices will keep going up*****

Posted by mark @ 10:21 AM 12 Comments

bloomberg: HeidelbergCement Drops on Concern Merckle Must Sell

A failure could have repercussions for Merckle's holdings, which span as many as 30 companies in the cement, machinery and pharmaceutical industries, said the people. VEM holds about 25 percent of the Heidelberg-based company, and, including holdings by affiliated companies, Merckle controls at least 86 percent in total, according to Bloomberg data.

bloomberg: Cancer Patients Lose Chance of Longer Life as U.K. Curbs Costs

``There is a view that all treatments should be available. Unfortunately, that's not possible,'' said Peter Littlejohns, NICE's clinical and public health director. ``There is a limited pot of money.''

Posted by mark @ 10:08 AM 11 Comments

FT.com: Jim Rogers gives his outlook for the US Dollar

A small set of interviews with Jim Rogers. Someone I enjoy listening to.

Timesonline: If you can’t sell your home, then swap it

Well-maintained fourbed detached house in one acre seeks three-bedroom cottage with small garden for serious relationship.” Welcome to the world of the property lonely hearts: house-swap parties at which agents, desperate to keep sales moving and the commission rolling in, attempt to match would-be buyers and sellers.

Posted by flintster1994 @ 07:35 AM 11 Comments

BusinessWeek: Key Questions From the G-20 Summit

There are five fundamental questions that went unanswered at this past weekend's G-20 summit in Washington. In their attempt to show solidarity, the world leaders skipped over the complicated and contentious questions. But that's no long-term solution. Once they go home to their respective capitals, the finance ministers and other officials who met in Washington are going to be forced to make some tough decisions. Here are five puzzlers that will demand to be sorted out in the months ahead:

Times: Falling prices prompt slump in home sellers

Rightmove reported a decline of 2.9 per cent in asking prices this month, to £222,979. Asking prices have fallen 7.1 per cent this year, the biggest annual decline ever recorded by Rightmove. The number of homeowners selling their properties has dropped by 43 per cent in the past year, as falling house prices deter potential sellers. But Rightmove said tighter constraints on mortgage availability were likely to ease next year. Miles Shipside, of Rightmove, said: “Whenever it does, there is likely to be a degree of pent-up demand fuelled by historically cheap borrowing and cheaper property, lessening the advantage of those in a privileged position to proceed now.”

Posted by little professor @ 01:04 AM 25 Comments

Times: Treasury may sell shares to City to cut taxpayers’ bank bailout bill

The Treasury is apparently considering dangling the lure of lucrative shares in the banks to pension funds and other City investors to reduce the cost to taxpayers of its bailout plan. The preference shares pay 12 per cent a year and the idea is to allow City fund managers to buy some in the hope that they will be encouraged to purchase further ordinary shares in the three stricken banks.

Telegraph: Cutting taxes or spending more – the Government's options

Its happened. The first mention of printing money as a solution in the mainstream UK press. Let us put our(your) doubts aside, we are facing a deflationary recession and its going to be a stinker.

thinkmoney: Low-deposit mortgages: ‘only 60 left’

A bit of an older article, but really it illustrates the point quite well. Also there are probably no low deposit mortgages left. Chose this link because the BBC one has already been posted. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7729291.stm. Leverage is what props up house prices, not interest rates. And the banks are being forced to pull the 95% (20:1 leverage), 90% (10:1 leverage), 85% (7:1), and now we are looking at 75% (4:1 leverage). This is the biggest determinant of house prices, not the interest rates. The BOE can't force anyone to lend at higher ratios, so all the interest rate stuff won't help house prices. I am sure Mark Wadsworth has pointed this out. The important thing to understand is that the *main* lever is still with the banks and they are using it.

Posted by last_days_of_disco @ 09:38 PM 34 Comments

manchester news: HE chairman of the North West Development Agency has taken on another job with one of the region's biggest developers.

John Whittaker, UKIP MEP for the north west, said he felt there could be a potential conflict of interest with Mr Gray's new job. "One has to be a little suspicious", he said. "It looks to me like a conflict of interest. Bryan Gray has a place on the NWDA board so he's certainly got influence there. Peel's done terribly well out of this." It is understood that Peel decided to employ Mr Gray only after the NWDA's last-minute decision to extend his contract on Wednesday.

bbc: Sun Micro to cut up to 6,000 jobs

The computer hardware maker Sun Microsystems has announced it will shed up to 6,000 jobs in a bid to cut costs.

Japan Times Online: Real estate faces another major downturn

And the ultimate victim in the real estate depression and a nationwide economic slowdown will be individuals and families who bought the condominiums at ambitious prices beyond the scope of their income. "Young people in their 30s bought condominiums with heavy debts and these people will go bust as they lose their jobs and as their income declines,"

BBC: How low will house prices go in 2009?

Halifax spokesman Martin Ellis states "We are comfortable with the view that there will be a 20% fall over 2008 and 2009". So if prices fall 15% this year, will they drop by just 5% next year? "We don't want to be too specific about next year," he replies. Jonathan Davis, spokesman for housepricecrash.co.uk says next year reality will kick in, even more than in 2008. "Next year prices will fall by 15-20% because unemployment is kicking in, house repossessions will rise rapidly and houses will go through auctions at previously silly prices - and banks aren't lending," he predicts. After forecasting the end of the house price bubble for several years his worst predictions appear to be coming true.

Posted by little professor @ 06:35 PM 17 Comments

The Times: Car firms ask Darling for cheap loan deals

Senior industry sources said that car companies were eager not to be seen “holding out a begging bowl”. “We are not asking for subsidies for a dead-end sector. We are asking for help to tide a healthy industry over an unprecedented period of turbulence,” said one.

Times: Under-fire George Osborne says: 'I was just telling the truth about sterling'

George Osborne has defended his warning that sterling could be about to collapse saying it was his job was to tell the truth about the consequences of ballooning debt.

Posted by sovietuk @ 05:21 PM 32 Comments

The Scotsman: Capital house prices fall 11%

THE rate at which house prices are falling in Edinburgh is accelerating, with values plunging 11.4% over the past year to the end of October, according to the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre......

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 04:22 PM 7 Comments

Telegraph: Car groups face ultimate MOT

"This is a depression, not a recession," said Professor Garel Rhys, a leading car industry expert at Cardiff University. If you want an example of the pain suffered by the global motor industry, look no further than our own domestic market. The speed with which the downturn has suddenly hit has shocked the industry. In September new UK car sales fell a stunning 21pc, and came off an 18.6pc drop in August. But the fall was even larger last month, down 23pc. "October was the steepest monthly fall since June 1991, the height of the early 1990s recession," said Paul Newton, automotive analyst at Global Insight. "It is a stark indicator of the depth and speed of this economic slowdown... How long this translates into real job losses is just a question of time."

The White House: November 15, 2008 President Bush Attends Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy

One of the things we did, we spent time talking about the actions that we have taken. The United States has taken some extraordinary measures. Those of you who have followed my career know that I'm a free market person -- until you're told that if you don't take decisive measures then it's conceivable that our country could go into a depression greater than the Great Depression’s. So my administration has taken significant measures to deal with a credit crisis. And then we worked with Congress to deal with the credit crisis, as well.

Times: Housebuilders face implosion

"The living dead" - they can be kept alive but really they are just ghost companies. That is the shocking description of the state of many of Britain’s housebuilders by Alastair Stewart, analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort. He sums up the housing market neatly in one word – carnage. Job losses are soaring, firms are going bust every day, house and land values are plunging and new-home construction has collapsed to levels not seen since the 1920s. Taylor Wimpey's share price has plummeted 98% while rival Barrats has dropped 95%. Builders have closed down sales offices and laid off workers. Government ministers are starting to panic.The Homebuilders Federation is calling for government action to halt the housing crisis.

Posted by little professor @ 02:03 PM 9 Comments

FC Exchange: Foreign Currency Report 14 November 2008

"The only hope is that the Government / Bank of England steps into save the ailing Pound, however these clowns are notoriously slow off the mark, and we have them to thank for this sorry situation." ...fat chance!!!!!!!!

Telegraph: Alistair Darling seeks delay on Northern Rock repayment

Northern Rock is no longer to be run down, and will instead become a state-owned bank. Without NR handing out 125% mortgages, the remaining banks cannot maintain 2007 levels of credit supply (or more probably don't want to). NR must therefore, arise like a phoenix to resume its former role. NR will presumably become an entity unlike other banks, with a non-profit mandate of credit expansion. International funding will be obtained by tax-payer guarantees for NR mortgage securities. Well, to me, this seems to be illegal under EU state assistance, also essentially this must count as an extension of government borrowing and so push the pound down further, and presumably this must also push up real long-term interest rates.

Posted by stillthinking @ 11:39 AM 11 Comments

Telegraph: Thousands of City workers axed in jobs bloodbath

JP Morgan, the US investment bank, is drawing up plans to axe thousands of jobs across its worldwide operations. The move is likely to mean redundancy for hundreds of City workers, compounding the growing sense of crisis in London's financial services industry and the broader British economy.

Posted by mytimeisnigh @ 11:01 AM 7 Comments

Independent: Savers told to act fast as rates descend from the heights

The 7 per cent interest rate is long gone, but it's still not too late to get a good deal. "The message is that the banks still want your cash, and the longer they get to hold on to it, the better for them. This means that despite the turmoil of the past week or so, fixed-rate deals that tie their customers in for a specific period (usually a year) remain competitive,". "But if you want the very best rates, you have to move now as repricing is still going on." But memories of the collapse of the Icelandic banks are still sharp among UK consumers. No wonder many savers are cautious about where they put their money; not only do they want a good rate of return but they also need to feel sure their cash will be safe. "Don't put your eggs in one basket," even if you are below the £50,000.

Posted by mytimeisnigh @ 10:47 AM 9 Comments

CBS NEWS: Holiday Jobseekers Overwhelm Retailers

From department stores and convenience chains to call centers, managers who only a year ago had to scramble to fill holiday jobs are seeing a surge in the number of seasoned applicants - many of them laid off in other sectors and desperate for a way to pay the bills.

Times: Winners in the housing downturn

This is, after all, the cheapest time to buy property for years – and it could prove one of the best. If you have the cash to get into the market today and are able to drive down the price further, you’re set to become even wealthier in the future. If you think I’m being overoptimistic, just look at those who bought during the dark days of the early 1990s – and what happened to the value of their homes in the decade that followed. This time around, as then, confidence will eventually return – it’s all just a question of time. In a Credit Crunch Special edition of Location, Location, Location, my television co-host, Kirstie Allsopp, and I look at the property troubles of three sets of people affected by the current market [AND PRESSURE THEM INTO BUYING UNSUITABLE OVERPRICED HOMES]

Posted by little professor @ 12:46 AM 22 Comments

Times: Are house prices really falling at a record rate?

Many people say to me that they keep reading house prices are falling at a record rate, but that their memory of the housing bust in the early 1990s is that it was a lot worse. House-price data from the two main lenders, Halifax and Nationwide, suggests a record annual fall, down 14.9% and 14.6% respectively. Other house-price measures, however, continue to point to smaller falls. The government's DCLG figure is down 5.1% since last year, while the FT index is down 6.2%. Last week, at a Chartered Institute of Housing conference, I shared the stage with David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation. He reminded us that the factors that pushed up prices have not gone away, and their research suggests shortages will push prices up 25% over 2011-2013.

Posted by little professor @ 12:40 AM 13 Comments

Telegrath: Gordon Brown prepares to unveil tax cuts for Christmas

Brown says that the case for trying to rescue the economy through tax cuts was now "unanswerable", and "What you want is fiscal action that can show results as quickly as possible." Doh, about as much use as a sticking plaster on a broken leg then.

Posted by enuii @ 09:43 PM 12 Comments

Business Week: Sex, Lies, and Subprime Mortgages

Wholesalers also offered sexual favors to co-workers. To drive up their commissions, some enticed loan underwriters at their companies to approve questionable applications. A vice-president at Washington Mutual who once wielded $500 million to make loans recalls an incident in which a female wholesaler wanted him to approve a loan that didn't fit guidelines. The manager, who requested anonymity, says the co-worker, wearing a low-cut shirt, knelt down at his desk and said: "I really need this. What do I have to do?"

Independant: It's official: eurozone collapses into its first recession

Europe's economy officially collapsed into recession for the first time since its inception during the third quarter, boosting hopes that the European Central Bank will be forced to cut interest rates again in December. In spite of further expected rate cuts in Europe, the euro continued to strengthen against the pound, as investors speculated that the recession would be deeper and longer in the UK than on the Continent.

Forbes: Nouriel Roubini, The Worst Is Not Behind Us Doctor Doom

--Obama will inherit an economic and financial mess worse than anything the U.S. has faced in decades: the most severe recession in 50 years; the worst financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression; a ballooning fiscal deficit that may be as high as a trillion dollars in 2009 and 2010; a huge current account deficit; a financial system that is in a severe crisis and where deleveraging is still occurring at a very rapid pace, thus causing a worsening of the credit crunch; a household sector where millions of households are insolvent, into negative equity territory and on the verge of losing their homes; a serious risk of deflation as the slack in goods, labor and commodity markets becomes deeper; the risk that we will end in a deflationary liquidity trap

BBC: Bush warns over protectionism

Pot Kettle Black?

Mortgage Introducer: Three per cent mortgage likely, but housing correction still probable

Capital Economics outlook for the mortgage and housing market expects to see low interest rates, possibly 3%, but even this they conclude may not stop the housing market correction running its course.

Your Mortgage: Homeowners overestimating house prices

"Research by Impartial shows that British homeowners are dramatically under-estimating the reduction in the value of their properties over recent months." ... "Homeowners under the age of 34 actually believe the value of their property is still increasing. They reported an average value of £173,960 in July, increasing to £176,056 in September. By comparison, the average Londoner seems more realistic – believing their house value to have dropped by £46,361."

Scotsman: House prices slashed in one-day Scottish property clearance sale

DOZENS of homes will be sold at knock-down prices in a one-off, multi-million-pound, property clearance sale today, estate agents have announced. Some houses will have discounts of up to 40 per cent, and nearly £100,000 off. The sale follows the biggest price fall in at least 16 years in the Scottish housing market.

Posted by quiet guy @ 11:54 AM 11 Comments

The Telegraph: Nearly a million buy-to-let properties are standing empty

Almost 1m homes are standing empty across the United Kingdom, and the vast majority – more than four out of every five – are believed to be owned by private landlords. An empty home could just as easily be a rundown terrace house in an urban back street as a luxury newbuild apartment in a city centre filled with identical blocks. It might be empty because a glut of rental property means no tenants, or because vandalism, or simple disrepair, has made it unlettable.

Energy Bulletin: The Five Stages of Collapse

I don't mean to imply that every part of the country will suddenly undergo a spontaneous existence failure, reverting to an uninhabited wilderness. I agree with John-Michael Greer that the myth of the Apocalypse is not the least bit helpful in coming to terms with the situation. The Soviet experience is very helpful here, because it shows us not only that life goes on, but exactly how it goes on. But I am quite certain that no amount of cultural transformation will help us save various key aspects of this culture: car society, suburban living, big box stores, corporate-run government, global empire, or runaway finance.

Posted by malct @ 11:09 AM 13 Comments

Evening Standard via SOTT: UK: 20,000 jobs go in one week

London bankers were facing a new wave of redundancies today as Britain headed for 20,000 job losses in five days. Citigroup is to send redundancy notices to 10,000 workers worldwide, many in Canary Wharf, while Royal Bank of Scotland is to shed 3,000 investment bankers, including hundreds in the City, within a month. In addition, Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks are to axe 350 jobs next year, the union Unite said today. The scale of the cuts means 20,000 jobs have gone across the country since Monday as the economic downturn strengthens its grip and sends unemployment soaring. In just a week some of the country's biggest names - including BT, Virgin Media, GlaxoSmithKline and Taylor Wimpey - have slashed jobs.

The Money Programme / Yahoo! Video: The Money Programme: Property - the end of the affair?

BBC2's The Money Programme investigates whether buying, or renting is more profitable over the long term. (Full recording)

The Times: Saving car giants will cause havoc, Gordon Brown warns US

Tensions at the start of the G20 summit run high as Prime Minister deems return to 1930s policies ‘unacceptable’ “If we get into a situation where countries made decisions irrespective of what happened anywhere else, then we will see the same problems of other times. The dividing line here is between an open society capable of trading round the world, against a protectionist response that happened in the 1930s and is totally unacceptable.” The EU said that it was ready to take action against the US at the World Trade Organisation if aid for the stricken US car industry was judged by the European Commission as illegal under international rules.

Posted by gardeniadotnet @ 09:58 AM 9 Comments

MailOnline: Property crash is so bad even the 'For Sale' signs aren't selling

We had been warned the housing market was in meltdown. But now come signs the plunge could be even worse than we had feared - as even 'For Sale' boards themselves are not selling.

TimesOnline: House price recovery 'could take ten years'

Homeowners will have to wait a decade before property prices return to 2007 levels, a leading estate agent said yesterday

Times: First-time buyers may lose race to investors

First-time buyers hoping that falls in house prices will mean they finally make it on to the housing ladder may be disappointed — because the size of deposit required by lenders means that by the time first-timers have saved up, buy-to-let investors with big deposits will have snapped up all the bargains. Savills said that it did not expect mortgage availability to improve for first-time buyers until at least 2010, by which time, it predicts that house prices will be on their way back up, meaning that would-be homeowners could miss out on the chance to secure their first home at a good price.

Posted by little professor @ 01:08 AM 16 Comments

Citwire: Buy to Let landlords face new competition

Buy to let landlords face increasing competition from developers who are unable to sell their new build properties and so are renting out brand new apartments and houses. This increases the amount of properties available to rent at a time when demand from tenants in some areas is likely to fall as unemployment takes a grip and pay increases become a thing of the past. Meanwhile, BTLers continue to be squeezed by the shortage of mortgages. ‘It's about time lenders started to play ball and pass the rate cuts on to landlords,’ said Simon Gordon of the National Landlords Association. ‘Part and parcel of the government bailout was the requirement for lenders to start lending to consumers. It's critical for the health of the property market for landlords to have access to mortgage finance"

The Times: Gordon Brown risks run on the pound, says George Osborne

"Britain is heading for a “collapse of sterling” if Gordon Brown persists with trying to borrow his way out of trouble, George Osborne says in an interview with The Times today."..................

Posted by titaniccaptain @ 12:09 AM 22 Comments

Bloomberg: GM Collapse Would Cost U.S. Up to $200 Billion, Forecaster Says

Yip Yip finar finar To big to fail...Anyone got a note of their pension commitments? To big to fail, and many muni bonds downgraded to junk, WHO exactly wants in on that action? I hope it is not my pension fund! Why exactly is the USD so strong?

BBC: HBOS sees risk of nationalisation

HBOS says that it could face nationalisation if its proposed takeover by Lloyds TSB is not approved by shareholders. It said it would need significantly more capital were the deal with Lloyds to collapse, making the loss of private sector status more likely. HBOS urged shareholders to vote in favour of the merger. Two former top bank executives had opposed the deal, saying it should remain independent.

Mint: A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis

Almost overnight, the talking heads went from perpetuating the euphoria of investors to rushing to pronounce the economy dead. Last year, when lenders started dropping like flies as foreclosures rose and margins were called, the problems of Wall Street became more and more apparent, and lending guidelines were tightened to the point that many individuals were stuck in their time-bomb loans, and thus began a vicious cycle. But what led to this? Here is a visual guide to help you understand the events leading up to the bailout.

Posted by nopensionnohouse @ 08:50 PM 27 Comments

Channel 4: Location, Location, Location a Survival Guide

This is just a general sort of reminder for Monday evening at 9 o'clock. We can discuss on Tuesday who had the overwhelming urge to smash their TV in, and who succumbed to it ...

Posted by mark wadsworth @ 08:11 PM 13 Comments

Washington Post: Kashkari Accused Of Bailout “Bait and Switch” During Angry Hearing

Neel Kashkari, the fox appointed to guard the henhouse and front the multi-trillion dollar bailout, faced angry questions from Dennis Kucinich and Rep. Darrell Issa during a hearing today, as Issa accused him of playing a “bait and switch” game with taxpayers’ money. Cash n Carry, I mean, Kashkari, did not do well in the proceedings, have a listen to the youtube clips on the original source, here.

Sorry I can't Remember, it's my age: Celente Predicts Revolution, Food Riots, Tax Rebellions By 2012

The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012. Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week. Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts. satire should be censored - it's no jo -

Posted by malct @ 06:41 PM 21 Comments

BBC: 'Surprise' leap in card spending

Some 497 million purchases were made on on debit cards in September, a 12.7% rise on the previous month, according to UK payments association Apacs. Is this because a) we are out of recession now b) we are spending while we can c) just a blip d) paying off debt by racking up more

Posted by peter_2008 @ 05:19 PM 6 Comments

FT: The next lost decade?

Could the UK repeat Japan’s 1990s experience of minimal growth, falling asset prices and deflation?Both countries share similar characteristics prior to the initial downturn. Unemployment was low and inflation was under control, but just starting to rise. Asset prices soared, driven by increased borrowing. While there are similarities, there are also some important differences. The UK does not suffer from Japan’s excess capacity created by overinvestment. Unfortunately, the UK also has some less favourable characteristics. It starts the downturn with a weaker fiscal position than Japan and a very low household saving rate.

Posted by jack c @ 04:19 PM 20 Comments

Bloomberg: Icelanders Protest Government Failure to Clinch Loan

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Icelanders will take to the streets in their thousands tomorrow to protest the government's failure to clinch a $6 billion International Monetary Fund-led loan while countries in less dire economic straits jump the IMF queue.

BBC: Low-deposit mortgages evaporate

Mortgage deals for people offering a 10% deposit have almost evaporated from the market, according to figures obtained by the BBC. Only 66 deals of this kind are still available, compared with 586 three months ago and 1,197 in February. The figures, from Moneyfacts, reveal how the dramatic financial downturn has almost killed off traditional deals for those without large savings. Mortgage brokers say they will not return until house prices level off.

Posted by jack c @ 03:52 PM 13 Comments

MoneyWeek: The great British property myth

"Booms and busts may come and go, but in the long run the British people know that 'you can't go wrong with bricks and mortar' and that 'renting is dead money'. But is this really the case? In conjunction with the BBC's The Money Programme, we decided to run the numbers and find out whether buying a house in Britain really always makes more financial sense than renting one."

FT Alphaville: Caption competition: Hedgies on the Hill

Posted by mountain goat @ 02:46 PM 27 Comments

FT Alphaville: The parabolic Fed: divorcing monetary policy from money

Following up on my post on Monday on what to watch this week - Treasury sales as the US tries to fund itself and the bailouts. Not a train wreck yet, but getting closer. Yield on 30 year bonds - "the lowest since regular sales of the security began in 1977". Shorter term - "The U.S. sold $34 billion in four-week bills yesterday at the lowest rate on record." The article goes into some more technical central bank theory related to a Bernanke speech in 2004 which I don't fully understand. He was talking about a Zero Interest Rate Policy ZIRP. I think he is saying that a ZIRP, and increasing the money supply, discourages people from hoarding cash in their portfolios and encourages investment into higher yielding corporate bonds and stocks, which is needed to get the economy going again.

MoneyWeek: Russia shows what investors should fear the most – the state

You can't buck the market forever. And even though there have been plenty of bail-outs, prices just keep on falling. But governments don't seem to learn…

Guardian: Brown: major countries must cut taxes

"Gordon Brown tonight called on the world's most powerful industrial nations to agree a programme of immediate and coordinated tax cuts to prevent the global economy sliding deeper into recession." The sheer arrogance of this amazes me, has any other leader, ever told other countries around the world to cut their taxes ? Is it just me or does anyone else think that Gordon Brown has lost it completely ? I know there is a tendency for Brits to stand behind a leader and prove that British is best but this is getting embarrassing.

Posted by andrew @ 02:13 PM 9 Comments

Belfast Telegraph: Reposessions in Northern Ireland go up by 93%

The figures reveal the true extent on the credit crunch on property owners with a soaring number unable to keep up repayments on their homes.

BBC2: Property: The End of the Affair ?

BBC last night. I'm presuming most of the "savvy" BTL editors & senior producers have now full dumped their "portfolios".

Posted by doomwatch @ 01:23 PM 10 Comments

Mail Online: Official figures are only the tip of a terrifying iceberg of debt that amounts to £150,000 for every family

Take a look at this depiction of an iceberg. It provides a frightening illustration of just how much trouble we are in, and explains why the markets are in turmoil and the pound is in freefall as investors around the world lose confidence in Britain.Our true Debt is 157per cent of our GDP.This makes us the most indebted nation in the developed world, paying interest of £263million a day.

Posted by sold out @ 12:11 PM 7 Comments

Bankrupt.co.uk: Bankruptcy figures jump in third quarter of 2008

Surprised more isn't being made of this by the media - businesses going bust up 26.3% YOY, people going bankrupt up 9.5% YOY - and remember that's completed bankruptcies so all entered the system a while ago.

cnn: G-20 gets down to business

I think there are a couple of prices which appear out of date, such as petrol in the USA, i have been reliably informed it is around $2.85 a gallon , this article is interesting when you look at the figures.

contract Journal: JCB announces almost 400 job losses

The plant manufacturer has already announced over 700 job losses this year but said the extreme deterioration in business levels and confidence around the world has lead to a significant reduction in orders. *******WITH ALL THIS DAILY BAD NEWS, WHEN WILL HOUSEPRICES REALLY DROP, OR WILL SELLERS CONTINUE WITH STUPIDITY?*********

Posted by mark @ 10:36 AM 14 Comments

bbc: Eurozone officially in recession

The eurozone has officially slipped into recession after EU figures showed that the economy shrank by 0.2% in the third quarter. This follows a 0.2% contraction in the 15-nation area in the previous quarter from April to June. Two quarters of negative growth define a technical recession. The news was widely anticipated and follows data showing that Germany and Italy, two of the biggest eurozone economies, are already in recession.

Posted by mark @ 10:27 AM 8 Comments

WSJ: Stick With the Job You Know, More Employees Are Saying

This is from the Wall Street Journal, but I think it applies to the UK too and not just managers "A growing number of professionals are saying "no, thanks" to prospective employers asking them to cha