Investor Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst. The Shanghai Composite Index has failed to regain its 2009 high while industrial commodities and shares of Australian resource exporters are acting “heavy,” Faber said. The opening [...]

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March 29 (Bloomberg) — China’s banking regulator ordered lenders to take more care when making real-estate loans, widening efforts to prevent property speculators from causing asset bubbles and bad debt. Banks should not lend to developers found by state agencies to have held land without building houses, the government said in a statement posted online late on [...]

China, credit, housing, housing loans Hide

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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DAVOS, Switzerland : Global leaders and bankers will be looking for firm signs at the Davos forum this week of China’s determination to control the hot money pouring into its economy. A year after China’s Premier Wen Jiabao sternly lectured the United States and other western nations at the World Economic Forum for causing the [...]

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WASHINGTON : The lead author of a World Bank report on the global economy published Wednesday said the bank sees “signs of bubbles” in the Chinese economy, a problem he said the Chinese government acknowledges. “We can already see some signs of bubbles and signs of tensions in the Chinese economy, in particular in the [...]

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When stock markets rallied dramatically last year, soon after the financial crisis, it was mainly the bold and the brave who leapt right in. Many others were wary. Was this a false dawn, only to be followed by more market mayhem? They were reasonable fears, given the prognostications of so-called experts. But now that the [...]

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SYDNEY : French bank Societe Generale on Monday said that it was considering pulling out of Australia and was in discussions with regulators regarding its banking licence. Australian branch chief executive John Harvey said no decision had yet been made but that a total exit was “clearly on the agenda”, adding that the bank was [...]

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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 [...]

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