Room rates in Dubai see drop of up to 30% _ The National - Amena Bakr - 23 November 08
…Four- and five-star properties in the emirate have cut room rates between 10 per cent and 30 per cent… many Dubai hotels had removed their surcharges.
…Among the hotel operators Lama Tours deals with is the Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury chain, which Mr Singh said had reduced its rates by 10 per cent from last year’s levels. A spokesman from the Jumeirah Group said in an e-mailed statement that most of the chain’s Dubai hotels were enjoying occupancy rates of 90 per cent and above.
Continued…
Posted in Real Estate Investing.
Sand Castles - Half-Price Mansions - Barron’s -Karen Hube - 24 November 08
LUXURY-HOME SHOPPERS HAVE COME DOWN with a bad case of cold feet. From Malibu to Manhattan, would-be buyers of $5 million-and-up properties are pulling out of pending deals and suspending their searches out of concern over jarring drops in the stock market and dire economic news…The market has slowed to a crawl. Properties that once took a few weeks to sell are now taking months and months, even as prices continue to fall. Luxury-home prices are down an estimated 20% since peaking last year, and some savvy pros think they’ll drop another 10% to 15% before bottoming in 2010. That would be later than the likely bottoming of the general housing market; Barron’s has maintained that a leveling-off of the broader housing market is imminent in many regions (”Bottoms Up,” July 14). But the luxe downturn also began much later than the general slump. Until the second half of last year, most of the $5 million-plus market looked to be headed ever skyward.
Continued…
Posted in Real Estate Investing.
There have been a number of articles about young US and UK bankers relocating to the Gulf. They think that they are surfing the financial waves to a new safe harbor but they may only be the flotsam and jetsam floating on the crest of the financial tsunami flooding the financial world (talk about bad writing.)
Amlak freezes home loans - The National - Rupert Wright and Sarmad Khan - 20 November 08
Amlak, the country’s largest home lender, is suspending new loan applications until further notice as it carries out a full review of its portfolio…
Continued…
Posted in Real Estate Investing.
When I started this blog way back in May - one of the first items I posted was a warning that the commercial real estate market would follow in the footsteps of the residential market. Unfortunately I was right.
UPDATE 3-Economy, TARP hits US commercial property debt, stocks - Reuters - Al Yoon and Helen Chernikoff - 19 November 08
The prices of bonds and stocks with exposure to commercial real estate plunged on Wednesday on fears the weakening U.S. economy could lead to a wave of defaults on loans for office buildings, retail stores, and hotels. Continued…
Posted in Real Estate Investing.
Report: Two Major Commercial Mortgages Near Default - CalculatedRisk - 18 November 08
…The $209 million Westin Portfolio loan and the $125 million loan for Promenade Shops at Dos Lagos … of loans bundled into bonds are about to default on their debt, according to Credit Suisse Group AG…
The analysts note that these were “pro forma” loans, and were based on significantly higher operating income in the future. Pro forma loans were the “stated income” loans for commercial properties… Continued…
Posted in Finance & Economics, Real Estate Investing.
Median Housing Prices Poised to Fall Back Below $200K - Seeking Alpha -18 November 08
Last December, I wrote about how out of whack home prices had gotten versus incomes - the traditional range was 2.6-3.0x income for median home price. We tagged just under 4.0x at the height of the bubble in 2006.
* -39.4%: Riverside/San Bernadino, CA
* -36.8%: Sacramento, CA
* -36.0%: San Diego, CA
* -35.1%: Los Angeles, CA
* -31.0%: Cape-Coral/Ft. Myers, FL
* -28.4%: Las Vegas, NV
* -27.6%: Anaheim, CA
* -27.6%: Phoenix, AZ
Click here for an explanation of the numbers
Continued…
Posted in Finance & Economics, Real Estate Investing.
New York City joins housing slump - Bubble Meter - 13 November 08
While the housing bubble decline has adversely affected much of the United States, some previous bubble markets like New York City, Boston, and Washington, DC proper, have been largely resistant. Well, according to Robert Toll, CEO of home builder Toll Brothers, New York City is now taking it on the chin…Unemployment Spurs Rise in US Subprime Delinquencies
Rising unemployment is pushing up delinquencies in US subprime mortgages at an “alarming” rate - CreditSights from Research Recap - 13 November 08
“The latest numbers from our Subprime RMBS sample show a huge jump in delinquencies in the past two months…As the chart shows, delinquencies as a percentage of the remaining balance in 2005 subprime RMBS had even started to fall despite the remaining balances continuing to shrink.”…
Click to Continued read the “not bad” stuff
Continued…
Posted in Real Estate Investing.
From Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed
Financial Engineers in Blue v. Physical Engineers in Red:
Posted in Finance & Economics.
How do I find a good small-cap fund manager?
Find a good large-cap fund manger, and wait.
Paul Kedrosky’s Infectious Greed
Posted in Finance & Economics.
I’ve been neglectful about posting and I apologize (except to those who were enjoying the lapse). As expected, the deal flow has taken a decided upswing as the end of the year approaches and even the cave dwellers admit that it isn’t getting better for Christmas. Of course there was also that election eve hangover but let’s not go there. I’ll try to be better.
Posted in Other Interesting.
