The Housing Bubble

Some housing bubble news from Wall Street and Washington. The Guardian, “After Taylor Wimpey’s shock warning today that it will take months to secure a rescue package from investors and that it could breach its banking covenants next February, analysts say there is ‘a very real danger’ that Britain’s biggest housebuilder by volume could collapse. Taylor Wimpey is burdened with £1.7bn of debt after it was created through the £5bn merger of Taylor Woodrow and Wimpey last year.”

“It is the most indebted housebuilder alongside Barratt Developments which has similar borrowings.”

From Bloomberg. “Reeling from the worst housing slump in 30 years, Taylor Wimpey will close a third of its U.K. offices and cut 900 jobs, CEO Peter Redfern said. Shares of the 128- year-old company fell to their lowest in almost 16 years.”

“Annual U.K. house prices fell in June by the most since the end of the country’s last recession in November 1992, Britain’s fourth-biggest mortgage lender Nationwide Building Society said yesterday.”

“Taylor Wimpey said six-month home reservations, where a customer makes a deposit on a property, dropped by 45 percent. The company is currently trying to lure customers with offers such as paying half the monthly mortgage payments of U.K. buyers for the next two years if they reserve a home this month.”

“The average selling price of a Taylor Wimpey home in Britain was 8 percent lower than last year and margins there fell 5 percent, it said. The builder has also been hurt by collapsing sales and earnings at its Spanish and U.S. operations.”

“‘It’s a complete disaster,’ said Panmure analyst Mark Hughes. ‘It’s a lot worse than we expected.’”

“‘In the mortgage market, it’s almost a famine,’ said former Bank of England policy maker Stephen Nickell in an interview yesterday.”

From Hemscot News. “Taylor Wimpey said that it may breach its banking covenants in 2009 after it failed to raise money from investors. The group’s statement said: ‘Without an amendment to the terms of our banking facilities, in certain negative scenarios we might breach one or more banking covenants at the first testing date in 2009.’”

“The group’s US business has been hit particularly hard by the credit crunch and it has already written off £283m. The group as a whole sits on a valuable land bank, but with no demand for new houses, this is no use to it at the moment.”

From Introducer Today. “Data from the Building Societies Association (BSA) shows that net lending was down from £1,262 million in May to £125 million in June. This represents a decline of around 90 per cent.”

“Adrian Coles, director-general of the BSA, said: ‘The lending figures reflect the depressed state of the housing market. ‘With 74 per cent of respondents to the BSA’s property price tracker survey expecting property prices to fall over the next year, it is no surprise that demand for new mortgages remains low.’”

The Times Online. “The amount of money homeowners are borrowing on their houses has slumped by 64 per cent in the first quarter to a seven-year low as banks continue to withdraw cheap mortgage deals.”

“Housing equity withdrawal fell from £13.9 billion in the first quarter of 2007 to £5 billion this year. Today’s £5 billion figure is the lowest amount of money homeowners have raised since the second quarter of 2001.”

“Mortgage approvals in May also plunged, down 56 per cent on the same month last year to a new low of 27,986.”

From Aftenposten. “New figures indicate the latest decline in housing prices is the biggest so far, as sales slow to a trickle compared to recent boom years. The market is flooded with houses and condominiums for sale. Many properties aren’t selling at all, and owners are withdrawing them from the market.”

“Condominium prices were down 4.5 percent from last June. All told, residential real estate prices were reported as being down 2.7 percent. The figures were calculated by research firm Econ for Norwegian real estate brokers’ organizations and sales site Finn.no.”

“Finn Tveter of the real estate brokers’ association NEF..said condominium sales were especially sluggish, and it’s taking an average 25 days to sell a unit. That compares to sales that occurred almost overnight just a couple years ago. Tveter said there’s also an historically large amount of unsold units on the market.”

From France 24. “Prices of existing homes eased in France in the first three months of the year, suggesting that the tide may be turning in a country that’s stood largely aloof from the property slump afflicting neighbors such as Spain, Ireland and Britain.”

“France never really bought into the US-style property frenzy with the same zeal as Britain. The French have generally shunned variable-rate mortgages, with their element of unpredictability, and home-lending practices have toed a more conventional line. Nonetheless, a tide may be turning in France.”

“The real shock stats are to be seen in housing sales. Year-on-year sales of all homes plummeted some 17% in May in France. In Ile de France, sales tumbled some 21%.”

“Housing prices in Spain they are seen falling around 7%. France’s Les Echos daily says there’s a glut of about a million unsold homes on the Spanish market.”

“In Ireland, meanwhile, where the Celtic Tiger’s roaring growth has sputtered to a halt, GDP swung into reverse in the first quarter. Housing prices there have crumbled some 10%.”

The Independent. “The traumatic property experience of Japan. A monumental boom in the late 1980s and early 1990s reversed dramatically and house prices fell by 76.4pc from the peak.”

“Could it happen here? Will Irish house prices fall back to levels seen in 2000/2001 or even to levels seen last century? Will our house prices drop by 70pc before they stabilise?”

“The similarities between both Ireland and Japan are striking. One is the capacity for self-delusion and failure to face up to the magnitude of our crisis. It was the same in Japan 20 years ago.”

“The other problem for Ireland is the sheer extremity of the housing boom. Irish house prices have risen 380pc since 1996, compared with 260pc in the UK — the next frothiest market. As a result of this binge, Ireland is the most indebted nation in Europe.”

“In 1990, the land upon which the imperial palace in Tokyo was built was valued at more than the entire real estate of Canada, the second largest country in the world. When I read the silly valuations in the ‘Irish Times’ property section,…I am reminded of the Japanese Imperial Palace delusion. Clearly a two up, two down in Rialto is not worth the same as a seven-bedroomed house in the Dordogne.”

“Now that prices are falling rapidly, the idea that pokey Irish houses are worth more than French chateaux will look increasingly daft.”

The Province. “After years of listening to customers vent about soaring housing prices, says North Vancouver realtor Jackie Reid, it’s nice to see a return to days where buyers have more selection and bidding wars are scarce.”

“And in Victoria and Vancouver, there is new evidence of some prices coming down. ‘They [buyers] just couldn’t afford it,’ she said of the boom years. ‘Who can? Think about it; it is ridiculous.’”

“Consumers fell behind on loans secured by their homes at the fastest pace in two decades in the first quarter, signaling deeper distress in the U.S. economy, the American Bankers Association reported.”

“Home-equity lines of credit at least 30 days past due rose 14 basis points to 1.1 percent of accounts in the quarter. Late rates worsened in five of eight categories of non-revolving loans tracked by the group.”

“‘People overstretched to take advantage of equity in their homes, equity which may not be there anymore,’ said Nigel Gault, research director at Global Insight Inc.”

“Mountain 1st Bank & Trust Co. CEO Greg Gibson is ’standing on the brakes’ because Mountain 1st can no longer sell trust-preferred stock to raise capital for loans, Gibson said.”

“The bank, with $650 million in assets, is among more than 8,000 across the U.S. caught for the past six months in the shutdown of the $117 billion market for the securities, a hybrid of debt and equity.”

“‘The investment community is now extremely skittish about the magnitude of future mortgage losses and that is damping demand for raising capital through this particular channel,’ said Richard DeKaser, chief economist for National City Corp.”

From McClatchy DC. “Californians may be at the epicenter of the nation’s foreclosure crisis, but more than half of the state’s population lives in high-cost areas that could be denied aid under a proposed federal bailout.”

“Earlier this year, Congress temporarily set the loan limits at $729,750. But the Senate is now proposing to reduce it to $625,000. ‘These provisions are a serious blow to California,’ said California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.”

“‘This isn’t about some ideological issue,’ she said. ‘This is about people being thrown out of their castles - their home - and thrown into the moat, and it is about communities that then begin to wither.’”

“During a Senate debate, Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida told the story of a man from Ruskin, Fla., who was approved for a $280,000 home even though he made only $12.50 an hour working with a lumber company in Bradenton, Fla.”

“‘These stories are all over the country,’ Martinez said. ‘There may be some parts of America that are untouched by this crisis, but I will tell my colleagues that Florida has been hit, and Florida has been hit hard.’”

The Herald Tribune. “Seeking restitution from Countrywide Financial Corp. through the lawsuits filed by attorneys general in Florida, California and Illinois might have seemed a fool’s errand when the big mortgage player was reeling toward bankruptcy this year.”

“That all changed Tuesday when Bank of America Corp. completed its purchase of the embattled company…putting it on the hook for the results of any suits. ‘There is technically a deep pocket. They’ve acquired them, they assume their liabilities,’ Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said Tuesday in announcing his Countrywide legal action.”

“‘They knew very well these people didn’t qualify,’ McCollum said. ‘We believe Countrywide took steps they shouldn’t have … to allow people to own property that they could not reasonably be expected to have made payments on.’”

“‘Countrywide in my opinion led the charge in exotic mortgage traps that resulted in mounting cases of mortgage fraud,’ said Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach-based real estate analyst.”

“McCabe also said it is possible criminal charges will arise against certain top executives at Countrywide. The mortgage market needs to see prosecutions of those who had a large hand in creating the current crisis, he said.”

“Thomas Luzier, a real estate attorney with Sarasota’s Dunlap & Moran, said that…his own experience was that many borrowers he counseled knew the mortgages they were getting into were risky, but thought they had it covered.”

“‘The typical response was, ‘I have a plan,’ Luzier said. ‘They would say to me, ‘The market is great, this investment is going to pay off for me.’ And later on if they got into trouble they could always refinance, they thought.’”

“Of course being able to refinance depended on one major assumption: that prices would continue to rise. When they started dropping, those borrowers were stuck.”

“Now, Luzier is getting calls almost daily from those looking to find a way out. ‘It’s the flip side now,’ he said. ‘People admit they took a risk, they know they got in over their heads. Now they need help to minimize the damage.’”