HONG KONG : Hong Kong property consultants said the government’s move to raise transaction taxes for luxury apartments will do little to stabilise residential prices.
However, they said plans to increase residential land supply will help.
The measures were announced in the government’s Budget speech on Wednesday, and are aimed at averting a property bubble in the [...]

Hong Kong, housing Hide

The Great Bailout is mostly over for the banks. But for those troubled behemoths of the nation’s housing bust, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lifeline from Washington just keeps getting longer.
Fifteen months after Fannie [FNM  1.01   -0.02  (-1.94%)   ] and Freddie [FRE  1.21  -0.02  (-1.63%)   ] were effectively nationalized, neither the Obama administration nor Congressional leaders see a quick solution to one of the [...]

debt, fannie, freddie, housing, housing loans, subprime, US Hide

For Singaporeans looking to invest in property, the home market is just one option.
Ms Jacqueline Wong, head of residential at Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), says that as prime residential properties in Singapore become more expensive, investing overseas becomes an affordable option.
This year, investors may want to venture further – particularly to Britain and Australia, cited [...]

housing, housing loans, investments, UK Hide

I REFER to last Monday’s report, ‘Moneylenders target HDB sellers‘, which mentioned that ‘agents…introduce desperate sellers to moneylenders, and may get a fee for the referral, usually about $500 a customer’.
The Singapore Accredited Estate Agencies does not support the practice of estate agents obtaining referral fees from moneylenders for introducing their clients to them.
Estate agents [...]

credit, debt, housing loans, Singapore Hide

BEIJING, Jan 14, 2010 (AFP) – Property prices in Chinese cities continued to soar in December, rising at the fastest pace in 17 months, official figures released Thursday showed.
Property prices in 70 medium and large cities increased by 7.8 percent in the last month of 2009 from a year earlier, and 1.5 percent from November, [...]

China, housing, housing loans Hide

SINGAPORE - The Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC) has written down most of its US$675 million investment in a giant New York apartment complex that was bought at the height of the property boom in the United States but which has since suffered from the collapse of the housing market there.
The joint owners of Stuyvesant [...]

housing, investment banks, Singapore, US Hide

Thousands of American homeowners are starting to see their monthly mortgage payments skyrocket, dealing a fresh blow to the already shaky housing recovery.

The widely feared reset of thousands of option adjustable-rate mortgages—where both interest and principal payments rise sharply—is already leaving many homeowners struggling to keep a roof over their head.
“It’s going to kill off [...]

debt, housing loans, subprime, US Hide

BEIJING: China ordered vigilance against foreign “hot money” flows and speculative real estate investment on Sunday in its latest expression of concern over a surging property market.
The order issued by the State Council, or Cabinet, called on authorities nationwide to take a range of measures to “promote the stable and healthy development of the real [...]

China, housing, inflation Hide

At a hearing last fall, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told lawmakers that he and his team were working to put the $700 billion financial bailout fund “out of its misery.” But some in Washington now see a second, backdoor bailout in its place.
On Dec. 24, the Obama administration announced it was extending an unlimited [...]

bailout, credit, fannie, freddie, housing loans, subprime, US Hide

The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.
Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people [...]

foreclosure, housing crisis, housing loans, mortgage, mortgage modification, US Hide