New York's real estate hothouse feels a draft (Reuters)
Reuters - New York City's famously overheated real estate market is shivering as the number of homes on the market reaches an eight-year peak and sales activity falls to its lowest level in five years. More »
Asian Banks May Gain From Wall St.'s Pain (Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - After largely avoiding the subprime mortgage morass, Japanese and Chinese financial giants are poised to take advantage of Wall Street's crisis. More »
Wells Fargo Rides Through Crisis After Avoiding Subprime Slime (Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - In the midst of global financial crisis, the Wells Fargo wagon is still coming down the street thanks to savvy risk management. More »
Restaurant companies see prime sites opening up (Reuters)
Reuters - Executives from restaurant chains Darden Restaurants Inc , California Pizza Kitchen Inc and Buffalo Wild Wings Inc said on Thursday they are seeing prime real estate open up as tenants back out of deals. More »
Bailout plan offers vague help to homeowners (AP)
AP - The harsh reality for Murielle Montes and hundreds of thousands of homeowners who are behind on their mortgages is this: A $700 billion bailout of the financial industry will probably do little to help them avoid foreclosure. More »
30-year mortgages rise to 6.10 percent (AP)
AP - Rates on 30-year mortgages have risen for a second straight week, climbing to the highest level in a month. More »
Mortgage Rescue Returns To Senate; House Vote Friday (Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - The $700 billion financial rescue plan seemed back on track Wednesday after lawmakers added a higher deposit insurance limit and several tax breaks. More »
Trends & Innovations - Wednesday (Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - Spare bedrooms across the country are filling up with family members, according to new U.S. Census data. The number of U.S. heads of households who share their homes with parents, siblings or other relatives grew 42% from 2000 to 2007. Experts say factors behind the trend include higher housing costs, the economic slump and the fact that intergenerational households are more common in the nation's increasing immigrant population. It's not just the elderly moving in with their children; the number of parents under age 65 who have moved in with their kids rose 75%. More »
'Wings' unveiled for Abu Dhabi
Kuwait-based developer Dar Al Dhabi Real Estate has announced plans to build the 'Wings' project in Abu Dhabi. The mixed use development will feature two 300m tall towers on the southern part of Reem Island. The $1.9bn project will feature one residential tower and one commercial building, which will have 6,000sqm of retail space. More »
Tristar wins Arabian Canal works
Tristar Transport & Contracting has been awarded the contract for the first phase of earthworks on its $11bn Arabian Canal project. Works involves removing more than 200 million cubic metres of earth - to be re-used to form new landscapes, including valleys and hills up to 200 metres high - along a nine kilometre stretch of the waterway's route. More »
Memon to build Frankfurt tower
Memon Investments has launched a Dhs338m tower called 'Frankfurt Sports Tower I' (FST I) in Dubai Sports City. With a German-inspired ambience, the tower is designed by Al Hatmy Consultants to comprise 224 units, including 140 studios, 56 one-bedrooms and 28 two-bedroom apartments within a total built-up area of 177,378sqft. The tower is scheduled for completion by the first quarter of 2011. More »
Colliers set up investment unit
Colliers International has added an investment services unit to its UAE business operations, launching a dedicated Capital Investment Division. The unit aims to provide investors with access to the firm's market intelligence and network of clients when investing in the global real estate market. More »
ADIH to buy Chinese property
Abu Dhabi Investment House has set up a joint venture with Shanghai Construction (Asia) Co to build projects in China, Gulf News has reported, citing Abu Dhabi Investment House Managing Director Rashad Janahi. The new firm will have capital of $6bn and plans to acquire 16 real estate projects across China. More »
UBS expects small profits in third quarter (AFP)
AFP - Switzerland's biggest bank UBS, one of the worst-hit by the subprime crisis, said Thursday it expects a small profit for the third quarter after sharply cutting its US mortgage-related positions. More »
US Senate approves economic bailout plan (AFP)
AFP - The US Senate on Wednesday approved a 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout package by a vote of 74-25 amid a widening global crisis sparked by the collapse of the US housing market. More »
Judge hands 10-year sentence for foreclosure scam (Reuters)
Reuters - A New York man was sentenced on Wednesday to 10 years in prison and will forfeit $2.5 million for his part in a home foreclosure "rescue" scheme targeting distressed homeowners. More »
Gov't launches mortgage aid program (AP)
AP - The government kicked off a program Wednesday that aims to prevent foreclosures by letting an estimated 400,000 troubled homeowners swap their mortgages for more affordable loans. More »
Should Congress Be 'Perp-Walked'? (Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - Justice: A federal grand jury in New York is probing the accounting shenanigans at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It's about time, and we hope it doesn't end there. More »
ACORN's Senator (Investor's Business Daily)
Investor's Business Daily - Election '08: Barack Obama wasn't just the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac political contributions. He was also the senator from ACORN, the activist leader for risky "affirmative action" loans. More »
Barclays gets most Fannie, Freddie, FHLB business (Reuters)
Reuters - Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of Barclays Plc , retained its spot as top underwriter in the $3 trillion federal agency debt markets in 2008 year-to-date from a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters. More »
Microsoft Calls for Passage of Bailout Plan (NewsFactor)
NewsFactor - Software giant Microsoft is not saddled with subprime mortgages, nor is it a bank threatened by a run of angry depositors. Nonetheless, the financial crisis currently roiling Wall Street is being felt in Redmond, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said, and Congress needs to take action. More »
Housing bust may not bottom till 2010: Moody's (Reuters)
Reuters - The U.S. housing market bust may not bottom until 2010, later than previously thought, and more home builders may fail before the housing market recovers, Moody's Investors Service said in a new report. More »
Home prices plunge record 16.3 percent in July: S&P (Reuters)
Reuters - Prices of U.S. single-family homes plunged a record 16.3 percent in July from a year earlier, extending declines that have plagued the housing market for two years, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes. More »
Fannie, Freddie disclose subpoenas, investigations (AP)
AP - Adding to their woes, mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are facing a federal grand jury investigation into their accounting practices. More »
Fannie, Freddie get federal grand jury subpoenas (Reuters)
Reuters - Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. mortgage finance giants that were taken over by the government this month, said on Monday they were subpoenaed for documents as part of a federal grand jury investigation into their accounting. More »