Carpetright in profit blow as sales tumble December 14, 2010 CARPETRIGHT, the country’s biggest floor coverings retailer, said the outlook for 2011 looked poor as sluggish mortgage approvals meant housing market activity was unlikely to pick up quickly. British mortgage approvals, which are a key lead indicator for Carpetright, fell to 30,766 in October, their lowest monthly level in more than one and a half [...]
Looking ahead to 2011: some likely winners and laggards December 14, 2010 FROM sovereign debt crises threatening the very future of the euro to currency wars and more quantitative easing, 2010 has been an eventful year in the foreign exchange markets. Currency traders will be pleased to hear that volatility, which has been so characteristic of the FX markets since the crisis, is unlikely to disappear any [...]
500,000 households in negative equity December 12, 2010 CLOSE to half a million British households could be facing negative equity, according to survey released today by the Bank of England. Between four and five per cent of mortgage holders owe more than the value of their properties, it was revealed in the Bank’s final quarterly bulletin of this year. There are 11.4m mortgages in [...]
Newcastle merry-go-round will unsettle players December 8, 2010 A FEW weeks ago it was Ray Wilkins, now it’s Chris Hughton. Another club dispensing with the services of an important part of their success. I just can’t understand it. More baffling still is the idea of Newcastle replacing Hughton with Alan Pardew, a manager who has achieved little that the previous incumbant hasn’t. Pardew [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 6, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES EMPLOYER OPTIMISM INCREASES IN BIG ECONOMIES Hiring in the US and half a dozen other leading economies will increase for the first time in more than two years during the first quarter of 2011, according to a report released on Monday by Manpower, a global recruiting firm. Manpower’s Employment Outlook Survey shows plans [...]
US home sales rise but jobless claims also up December 2, 2010 PENDING house sales surprisingly shot up in the US for October, according to data released yesterday. The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) showed that contracts exchanged on properties increased by 10.4 per cent compared to September, defying a predicted fall. The result comes as a boost for the housing market, after the index fell by [...]
Home-builders ramp up incentives to lure hard-up first-time buyers December 2, 2010 HOME-BUILDERS have always offered buyers deals, but some are more valuable than others. Take, for example, the West Bromwich Building Society’s offer in 2004 of a free Rover car worth over £7,000 – a year before the car-maker went into administration. The downturn has left house-builders with new-builds sitting empty all over the country, and [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING December 1, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES AUSTRALIA’S GROWTH RATE STALLS IN THIRD QUARTER Australia’s economic growth rate slowed markedly in the third quarter to its weakest level in two years as higher interest rates cut into housing investment and the rise in the Australian dollar hit exports. The 0.2 per cent rise in gross domestic product compared with the [...]
House prices down 3.9 per cent on June December 1, 2010 HOUSE prices fell by another 0.3 per cent in November, mortgage-lender Nationwide announced yesterday. The news follows an even sharper drop in the previous month, as prices fell 0.7 per cent on September. Prices have either fallen or stagnated since June, according to Nationwide’s statistics. The average house price in the UK is now £163,398, [...]
Demand for homes falling, finds survey November 28, 2010 DEMAND for homes fell at the fastest rate for nearly two years last month as buyer confidence dipped, industry figures showed. The number of new buyers registering with agents fell by 4.3 per cent in November, according to the monthly national housing survey from property website Hometrack. The monthly fall was the fifth in a row [...]