property

Consumer credit quality is weakening across the US, especially in the former housing boom states. While over $450 billion in credit writedowns have already been taken by the global financial sector, most of these losses ave been…

Stories of commercial real estate distress in the U.S. are mounting. As the residential real estate fallout takes form, commercial real estate has come under pressure as well. The Wall Street Journal has a front-page story out today that…

For the first time in 9 years, year-on-year prices in Canada are down. With the largest province, Ottawa Ontario, in a recession, it is no wonder that house prices have followed suit. Canadian home prices have started falling, marking the…

Back in June, I wrote about financial investors in bank shares having lost $10 billion. Then, I predicted that losses would mount and bank shares will fall. It seems that one part of that equation is true already as bank shares have…

Martinsa-Fadesa, a large real estate company in Spain has gone to the wall. As is usual, bankruptcy came in the form of a liquidity crisis, not as a technical bankruptcy. Below is a report from El País in Spain, followed by a report from…

For those of us who remember the Japanese rise and subsequent meltdown in the 1980s and 1990s, what is going on now is like deja-vu all over again. Except this time it is on a bigger scale. Remember Yamaichi, Nikko, Nomura and Daiwa? These…

When the Economist warned in 2005 that residential property prices were in bubble territory in many national markets, South Africa led the list by far with an eight-year price appreciation of 244%. Now it seems that bubble has popped…

Ontario's economy shrank last quarter with GDP adjusted for inflation declining by 0.3%. With the largest economy in Canada in tatters, the mining boom in Alberta and BC is ever more important.From the Globe & Mail:Ontario's economic…

No one is paying a whole lot of attention to Australia right now because of the massive busts in the US, the UK, Spain and Ireland. But, Australia has had a property boom as well. And this boom looks like it's coming to an end.IN further…

New York City has held pretty well in this housing downturn to date. However, with money center banks reeling from the credit crisis, this has changed. Bloomberg reports sales in Manhattan falling 22% in the second quarter of 2008. Sales…