Builder Price Cuts Could Delay Sector’s Recovery – WSJ
Builder Lennar Corp. recently cut some Las Vegas prices more than 15%, but that isn’t enough to encourage buyers like Linda Primm.’
Is There a Bottom in Sight for Commercial Real Estate? – Minyanville
Although the Obama Administration has continued to assert that the economic recovery is on track, the most recent statistics for the commercial real estate market cast serious doubts on that premise.
In early May 2010, the real estate data firm Trepp reported that the 60-day delinquency rate in April for CMBS hit a record 7% up from only 1.8% in April 2009. Topping the delinquency list were the lodging sector with 17.1% of loans at least 30 days delinquent and multi-family residences with a 30-day delinquency of 13.1%.
With federal stimulus funds running out, economic worries grow – LA Times
With home sales sliding, employers reluctant to hire and world stock markets gyrating wildly, the U.S. economy is in danger of stalling. Now one of its only reliable sources of fuel is running out: federal stimulus spending.
Mortgage Refinance Applications increase, Purchase Applications near 13 Year Low – CR
The purchase index has collapsed following the expiration of the tax credit suggesting home sales will fall sharply too. This is the lowest level for 4-week average of the purchase index since 1996.
Short-sale datapoint of the day – Felix Salmon
Too few staff, with too few qualifications, are trying to do too many things at once.
Warning signals of a double-dip recession flash brightly across the world – Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Global bond markets are flashing warning signals of a sharp slowdown in growth across the world and a possible slide toward a double-dip recession and outright deflation
ECB Shuts off Liquidity, Spanish Banks Scream Murder; Spain and Greece Will Both Default – Mish
For just under a year, the ECB has offered €442 billion to encourage lending. Instead, and easily predictable, the program did not increase lending and did nothing more than allow weak banks to roll over debts.
The program is now ending and Spanish banks are screaming about the ECB’s “obligation to supply liquidity”.
Banks Face $5 Trillion Rollover by 2012 – Naked Capitalism
Banks around the world must refinance more than $US5 trillion ($5.8 trillion) of debt in the coming three years, a massive rollover that poses threats to financial stability and growth.
The need to replace these funds, which are medium and long term, will place pressure on bank profit spreads and in turn may either prompt deleveraging, where banks sell assets that they can no longer economically finance, or simply lead to a bout of credit rationing, where borrowers must pay more to borrow, thus crimping investment and economic growth…
In U.S. Bailout of A.I.G., Forgiveness for Big Banks – NYT
“This really suggests they had myopia and they were looking at it entirely through the perspective of the banks,” Mr. Skeel said.
“I find it saddening and frustrating that none of these problems, which we among other people identified to Treasury over a year ago, have been meaningfully addressed,” said Diane E. Thompson, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center. “And as a result, we lost a major opportunity to stem the foreclosure crisis.”
Time to shut down the US Federal Reserve? – Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
I venture to say that a common jury of 12 American men and women placed on the Federal Open Market Committee would have done a better job of setting monetary policy over the last 20 years than Doctors Bernanke and Greenspan.
Dude, Where Are The Homebuyers? – Redfin
The real estate market has fallen asleep in a lawn chair…
California Cities Shutting Police Forces to Close Budget Gaps – Bloomberg
“It is a growing trend,” said Frank Benest, a former city manager in nearby Palo Alto, California, who’s now a consultant to local governments. “Cities and counties are looking for ways of delivering services at a lower cost. A lot of the easy cuts have already been made.”
