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Bargain-priced homes expected to drive Silicon Valley market next year

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

San Jose Mercury News - By Sue McAllister - Oct. 07 (News) - At a meeting of the state association of Realtors at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center this week, Appleton-Young on Wednesday predicted that about 527,500 previously owned single-family houses will sell in the state next year. That would be a 2.3 percent drop from the 540,000 properties that are projected to have changed hands by the end of 2009.

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Boston's Hancock Tower and the coming commercial real estate crisis.

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Daniel Gross - Sep. 06 (Special Report) - For most of its 34-year life, the Hancock Tower, which looms above its brick neighbors in Boston's Back Bay, has been the sort of place where money comes to be managed and protected. Its tenants include Ernst & Young and the investment firm Highfields Capital. The I.M. Pei-designed sliver of glass doesn't seem like a place where several hundred million dollars can vanish in a few months.[more ...]

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A superstar real estate agent plots his comeback

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Tamara Lush - Aug. 01 (Special Report) - It's the perfect Miami morning at Carlos Justo's penthouse — warm and bright, with luxury yachts powering through the sparkling blue Atlantic Ocean some 30 stories below. Justo, a 53-year-old real estate agent, has been awake since 3:30 a.m. but he shows no sign of fatigue. His eyes scan back and forth, from the high rise condos, to the water, and back to the condos. An assistant, sitting at a glass table with her back to the stunning view, is talking business. She wants to know whether he will receive any commissions or checks anytime soon.

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Historic Overhaul of Finance Rules

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Damian Paletta - Jun. 18 (News Report) - President Barack Obama urged policy makers to rewrite the rules governing U.S. finance, unveiling far-reaching proposals that would affect nearly every aspect of banking and markets. The White House hopes Congress can complete work on the plan by year's end. But it is sure to face opposition both from some on the right who say it threatens to throttle free markets and others on the left who say it doesn't go far enough. Some in Congress are cautioning against haste.

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Housing Bust Leaves Most Sellers at a Loss

Sun, 24 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Dina ElBoghdady, Dan Keating - May. 24 (Other) - Local Prices Expected to Continue Falling

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Boom-years borrowing hits churches

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Mar. 15 (News Report) - Add houses of worship to the list of casualties of the mortgage crisis. Foreclosures and delinquencies for congregations are rising, according to companies that specialize in church mortgages. With credit scarce, church construction sites have gone quiet, holding shells of sanctuaries that were meant to be completed months ago. Congregants have less money to give, and pastors who stretched to buy property in the boom are struggling to hold onto their churches.

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The worst recession since World War II? Shaping up that way

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0800

McClatchy - By Kevin G. Hall - Mar. 07 (News Report) - The government's report Friday of an 8.1 percent unemployment rate equals the jobless number that the Obama administration has projected for the entire year. Few economists think that optimistic projection will hold, and many think that more big job losses are likely, with grim implications for the housing and banking crises.

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Renters Lose Edge on Homeowners

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Nick Timiraos - Feb. 25 (News Report) - The relative cost of owning versus renting is swinging back in favor of homeownership in some U.S. markets, buoyed by several quarters of sharp declines in home prices. At the height of the housing boom, as home prices surged, demand for rentals started to rise as the gap between owning and renting widened significantly. Even after the housing market soured, apartment demand grew as former homeowners became renters, allowing landlords to push healthy rent increases.

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Housing Push for Hispanics Spawns Wave of Foreclosures

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Susan Schmidt, Maurice Tamman - Jan. 05 (Special Report) - California Rep. Joe Baca has long pushed legislation he said would "open the doors to the American Dream" for first-time home buyers in his largely Hispanic district. For many of them, those doors have slammed shut, quickly and painfully.

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Banks Got Bailout; Are They Making More Loans?

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

All Things Considered - By Wendy Kaufman - Dec. 30 (News Analysis) - With more money on their balance sheets, the thinking went, banks would make more loans, and that would help jump-start the economy. But it hasn't quite worked out that way.

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The beauty of bubbles

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Economist - By The Economist - Dec. 18 (Special Report) - So what about the rich world’s present miseries? Will the financial bubble that has just burst over our heads leave some legacy of lasting value? Searching for the positives from the recent debt binge may seem Panglossian. But the lesson of previous bubbles is that even the wildest manias may do some good. “You can start with misallocation of capital and stupidity and still end up with something useful,” remarks Mr Nairn.

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How deep a recession?

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Mark Trumbull - Nov. 21 (News Analysis) - A surge in layoffs, a sharp pullback in consumer spending, and a credit crisis that drags on despite a massive government rescue have prompted some forecasters to predict the worst economic downturn since World War II.

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Ohio Postcard: Eviction

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Peter J. Boyer - Nov. 20 (Special Report) - Fatheree had already handled one forcible eviction that day, and the little white house was next on his list. The prospect made him a bit uneasy. In only the rarest cases—maybe one in a hundred—did eviction day arrive without his having had some contact with the resident of the home.

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Phil Gramm, Unswayed Champion of Deregulation

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Eric Lipton, Stephen Labaton - Nov. 17 (Special Report) - He blamed others for the crisis: Democrats who dropped barriers to borrowing in order to promote homeownership; what he once termed “predatory borrowers” who took out mortgages they could not afford; banks that took on too much risk; and large financial institutions that did not set aside enough capital to cover their bad bets.

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Is Treasury Secretary Paulson Running Out of Gas?

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Time - By Justin Fox - Nov. 13 (News Analysis) - Over the past two months, Paulson's public image has taken quite a beating. The former Goldman Sachs CEO entered September as the can-do dealmaker who seemed to have finally gotten the yearlong mortgage crisis under control. Now, after the expensive rescues of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG, the failure of Lehman Brothers, and the painfully dramatic struggle to get a $700 billion financial bailout bill through Congress, he is a much-diminished figure.

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Home sales see biggest gain since July 2003

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By Patrick Rucker - Oct. 25 (News Report) - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose 5.5 percent last month, the biggest gain since July 2003, and the inventory of unsold homes fell, a hopeful sign for a housing market mired in a long slump. The National Association of Realtors said on Friday that sales of existing homes rose to a 5.18 million-unit annual rate from the 4.91 million unit pace set in August. Economists had expected sales to rise to only a 4.93 million unit rate. It was the first time the sales pace had risen above its year ago level in nearly three years, a sign the market could be stabilizing. The surprisingly large jump in sales pushed the inventory of unsold homes down by 1.6 percent to 4.27 million, or a 9.9 months' supply at the current pace, the lowest since February. "We're not out of the woods yet by any means when it comes to falling house prices and our fundamental problem of an oversupply of homes, but we're getting near to the bottom every day," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

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Grim economic news from Britain, as world stockmarkets slump

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Oct. 24 (News Analysis) - The dollar’s recovery is a little harder to fathom. After all, the origins of the credit crunch lie in America’s housing bust, which has resulted in huge losses for banks worldwide on securities backed by souring American mortgages.

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Frank talk about the economy

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - By Ross Kerber - Oct. 24 (News Report) - The US economy is likely to bottom out early in 2009 and resume growing by the middle of the year if Congress passes a stimulus package soon and does more to help homeowners facing foreclosure, US Representative Barney Frank said yesterday. In a wide-ranging interview with Boston Globe editors and reporters, Frank emphasized the need for more government action to check a quickening economic slide. Despite a series of interventions over the last several weeks, stock markets around the world have continued to post steep declines, financial markets are still struggling with losses related to bad loans, and business activity at companies is dropping sharply. "If we get aggressive about reducing foreclosures and we pass a good stimulus package of upwards of $150 billion, then I could see this starting to turn around by next summer," said Frank, the Newton Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee.

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AIG Has Used Much of Its $123 Billion Bailout Loan

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Carol D. Leonning - Oct. 23 (News Report) - The troubled insurance giant American International Group already has consumed three-quarters of a federal $123 billion rescue loan, a little more than a month after the government stepped in to save the company from bankruptcy.

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It's the Housing Market, Stupid

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Barbara Kiviat - Oct. 21 (News Analysis) - "It's the housing market, stupid." That's what an increasing number of policymakers and economists are saying as they push for widespread mortgage modifications as a way to address a root cause of the financial crisis.

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Taking Aim at a Debt Burden

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Kris Hudson - Oct. 21 (News Report) - Shopping-center owner Developers Diversified Realty Corp. intends to sell stakes in several of its retail properties to institutional investors in a bid to raise capital to pay down debt. Meanwhile, Developers Diversified said the liquidation of a large tenant, retailer Mervyn's LLC, won't sap its financial results to a "material" extent. In a statement released Monday, the company said that other retailers have shown "significant interest" in the 38 Mervyn's locations in its shopping centers. Developers Diversified's statement came after research firm Green Street Advisors distributed a report to its clients late Friday outlining that Developers Diversified will need to take "costly and painful" measures to refinance and pay off $5.2 billion in debt coming due by the end of 2012. That includes roughly $450 million due in 2009 and $1 billion due in 2010. Green Street estimated Developers Diversified's odds of paying off and refinancing its debt during the next four years at 80%, adding that "bankruptcy risk is a real, albeit low probability, issue." Green Street calculates that Developers Diversified will need to sell $1.5 billion to $2 billion in assets to deal with its debts coming due. Scott Wolstein, Developers Diversified's chairman and chief executive, countered in an interview on Monday that speculating about an investment-grade company's ability to repay debts coming due in 2010 and 2011 is "a bit of a stretch." Developers Diversified, based in Beachwood, Ohio, owns or manages 730 retail properties.

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American heartland is suffering from Wall Street's woes

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Kevin G. Hall - Oct. 10 (Special Report) - While all eyes Thursday were on Wall Street's plunge, its effects are being felt across America as the snowballing financial crisis sends an already weak economy into an accelerating decline.

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The Bailout: An Owner's Manual

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Forbes - By Brian Wingfield, Liz Moyer - Oct. 04 (News Analysis) - Congratulations. If you're an American taxpayer, you've just become the owner of a brand-new $700 billion attempted bailout of the U.S. financial system. After a 263-171 vote by the U.S. House of Representatives Friday, President Bush signed the legislation, aimed at rescuing the freezing credit markets in an effort to shore up the failing economy. Actually, it's a bit bigger than $700 billion. The version of the bill that passed Friday contains some expensive add-ons, including a provision that keeps the alternative minimum tax (AMT) from encroaching upon the middle class in 2008, clean-energy tax incentives, disaster relief and the extension of expiring tax cuts for businesses and individuals. It also expands government insurance on bank deposits from $100,000 to $250,000 through 2009. You probably have questions. So do we.

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As Credit Crisis Spiraled, Alarm Led to Action

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Joe Nocera - Oct. 02 (Special Report) - This is what a credit crisis looks like. It’s not like a stock market crisis, where the scary plunge of stocks is obvious to all. The credit crisis has played out in places most people can’t see.

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Congress to vote on bailout Monday

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Kevin G. Hall - Sep. 28 (News Report) - Congress to vote on bailout Monday

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