Forget the Recession - London Mansion On Sale for £300m

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: It could be yours for just £300 million. Britain’s most expensive house, the former residence of the Lebanese Prime Minister, has gone on sale complete with a view of Hyde Park, bullet-proof windows, lifts and an underground car park.

The white palazzo-style building, which has 45 bedrooms, is being discreetly offered to a select group of wealthy international buyers.

A reported price tag of £300 million would smash Britain’s existing house-price record of £140 million, which was achieved on a 300 year-old house in Henley-on-Thames last year.

The 60,000 square feet house is the former residence of Rafiq Hariri, the late Prime Minister of Lebanon, and is located at 2 to 8a Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, equidistant between Harrods and the Royal Albert Hall.

The building, which is rumoured to contain millions of pounds worth of gold leaf decoration, is on the site of the old German Consulate General’s office. It was redeveloped in the 1980s and turned into four separate flats before it was converted into one house by Mr Hariri.

The asking price shows just how far adrift the London property market is from the rest of Britain. According to Halifax, the average house in the UK costs £160,250, meaning that whoever buys the mansion would be buying the equivalent of 1,872 typical homes. » | James Hall, Consumer Affairs Editor | Thursday, September 13, 2012

Housing Rebound 'Runs Out of Steam'
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: House prices fell at their fastest pace for six months in April as a recent rebound in the housing market "ran out of steam" following the ending of a stamp duty concession for first-time buyers, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said.

The number of newly agreed sales has weakened, with a balance of 6pc of chartered surveyors across the UK reporting decreases rather than increases in sales in April, the first time transaction levels have entered negative territory since last September.

Some 19pc more surveyors reported house price falls rather than rises and a balance of 17pc believe that prices are set to drop further, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said.

London, which has had strong demand from overseas buyers, was the only region to report a general rise in prices, while the West Midlands and Wales experienced the worst price deteriorations, the study said.

The situation for Scotland remained largely unchanged, while Northern Ireland continued to see a deterioration. Read on and comment » | Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Insight: Falling Home Prices Drag New Buyers Under Water
REUTERS.COM: More than 1 million Americans who have taken out mortgages in the past two years now owe more on their loans than their homes are worth, and Federal Housing Administration loans that require only a tiny down payment are partly to blame.

That figure, provided to Reuters by tracking firm CoreLogic, represents about one out of 10 home loans made during that period.

It is a sobering indication the U.S. housing market remains deeply troubled, with home values still falling in many parts of the country, and raises the question of whether low-down payment loans backed by the FHA are putting another generation of buyers at risk. » | Tim Reid | Thursday, April 26, 2012

US House Price Drop Accelerates
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: US house prices have suffered their biggest quarterly fall since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, underlining the scale of the headwinds still facing the world's biggest economy.

Average house prices slumped 3pc in the first three months of this year, a decline that pushed the number of homeowners in negative equity – where a mortgage is higher than the value of a property – to 28pc from 22pc a year earlier, according to new research from Zillow, a major US property website.

American homeowners are enduring the first national drop in prices on record after the most recent boom drove up values and fuelled a boom in homebuilding. Average prices are 33pc below the peak they reached in July 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Schiller Index.

As in Britain, the outlook for prices remains uncertain.

That excess of supply has left repossessed homes accounting for between 30pc and 40pc of current sales, which is in turn driving prices lower.

"Home value declines are currently equal to those we experienced during the darkest days of the housing recession," said Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. "Rising foreclosures and high negative equity rates make it almost certain that we won't see a bottom in home values until 2012 or later." Continue reading and comment » | Richard Blackden, US Business Editor | Monday, May 09, 2011

U.S. Housing Slump Deepens
Mar 23 - Summary of business headlines: New home sales plunge to record low in the U.S.; Japan quake could be costliest natural disaster; Goldman Sachs CEO takes witness stand at insider trading trial. Conway G. Gittens reports

Australian Housing Market Defies Critics
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: While housing markets in the rest of the world crumbled, Australia's market stayed robust. Critics, however, warn of a housing bust. WSJ's Geoffrey Rogow went to Sydney's Property Expo to find out what average Australians think of the debate.

UK House Prices Not Set to Recover for Another Ten Years, Says PWC
THE TELEGRAPH: Property prices will not recover for another decade and should be viewed as "risky assets", according to PricewaterhouseCooper's Economic Outlook report.

Nationwide Building Society is raising costs by up to 0.86 per cent. Photo: The Telegraph
The PwC research, published on Tuesday, not only puts British growth lower than the official Office of Budget Responsibility's (OBR) forecast but also paints a grim picture for home ownership in the UK for the next 10 years.

After 30 years of almost uninterrupted house price rises, Britons have piled in £3,500bn into bricks and mortar. Only pension contributions equal the 39pc of total net private wealth that is invested in the property market.

But according to PwC: "Housing is a risky asset that is not guaranteed to generate positive real returns in the future even though this has been the pattern in the past."

In fact, PwC says, there is a strong possibility that house prices continue to fall for the next five years and could drop further even beyond 2020. According to the report, this would significantly drag back the speed of economic recovery – which PwC claims faces a risk of a double-dip recession. >>> Helia Ebrahimi, Senior City Correspondent | Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Obama's New Mortgage Mess

House Sales Fall Worst in 30 years, Says RICS
THE TELEGRAPH: The number of houses changing hands has "collapsed" to the lowest level in 30 years, an influential housing market survey shows today.

The fall in sales far exceeds the depths of the last housing crash in the 1990s and is the lowest since records began in 1978.

The average number of houses that estate agents sold in the past three months was 17.4 - almost a third lower than a year ago, says the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).



Its report also says that gazundering, the controversial practice of buyers dropping their offer price after they have agreed to purchase a property, has returned.

While prices have started to fall in earnest only in the past two months, the report makes clear that the property market is in a dire state.

Buyers are refusing, or unable, to hand over any money to purchase a house.

"The continuing lack of demand in the housing market is reflected in the collapse in transactions," says the report." House Sales Fall Worst in 30 years, Says RICS >>> By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Correspondent | June 10, 2008

THE GUARDIAN:
UK Economy: Recession Fears Grow as House Buyers Vanish: City expects three rises in interest rates within months to curb inflation >>> By Larry Elliot, economics editor | June 10, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Dust Jacket Hardcover, direct from the publishers
The Dawning of a New Dark Age –Paperback, direct from the publishers

House Prices in UK Will Plummet, Says Economist
DAILY MAIL: The housing market is on the brink of a record slump, one of the country's leading experts warned.

Morgan Stanley's chief UK economist David Miles warned that prices will drop 10 per cent next year.

That would be the biggest full-year decline since records began in 1969.

A drop on that scale could plunge thousands of people into negative equity and recall the worst days of the recession of the 1990s.

Mr Miles, who has advised Gordon Brown on mortgages, said the pain would not end there, as prices could continue to fall in 2009. House prices 'will plummet by 10pc over the next year', says banking chief economist >>> By Sam Fleming

Mark Alexander