Re: Tema: PPCC - Pisitófilos Creditófagos - Primavera 2023

[Derby]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/britain-property-market-faces-reckoning-050000321.html

Britain’s property market faces a reckoning – the house price plunge is only beginning

James Setright, 36, has seized an opportunity to move house while prices are falling.

“I wanted to take advantage of the market. I don’t think I will be able to buy a five-bedroom Victorian house in London for under a million quid ever again,” says Setright.

Across Britain, homes are getting listed at prices far below what they would have sold for during the pandemic as homeowners, buy-to-let investors and first-time buyers alike creak under the strain of high mortgage rates and the cost of living crisis.

But the pain has only just begun – and it will be driven by the mortgage market.

Inflation has not come down as fast as expected, meaning the Bank of England will not yet cut its official rate, and lenders will keep mortgage rates high. The result could be a slow-motion crash, more akin to the early 1990s downturn than the sudden, but short, 2008 crash, some economists think.

Setright is snapping up his five-bedroom house for just over £875,000, a discount on its £895,000 asking price, which he thinks was already cheap.

“That property should be [selling for] £1.2m but the guy obviously needed to get rid of it. There is an awful lot of this happening. It’s obvious that they need to sell because they can’t afford to live there and they are moving somewhere else,” says Setright, who works in property himself.

House prices in March were down by 4.6pc compared to their August peak, according to lender Nationwide’s seasonally adjusted index.

The sale figures, which are not adjusted for seasonal variations, are more stark. In August, the average UK home sold for £273,751. In March this year, this figure was £257,122. That’s a drop of £16,629, or 6pc.

The British property market has become the domain of pragmatists. Those who don't need to sell have taken their homes off the market, leaving sellers who need to move or offload rental properties prepared to sacrifice some of their gains generated in the frenzy of the pandemic.

But the bigger question is not where house prices are now – but where they are going. Analysts say the top third of the market is where the blow will land first, as expensive houses being purchased with large mortgages become unaffordable.

Buy-to-let landlords – who can no longer offset mortgage interest against profits – have even more incentive to sell, which should also depress prices when the market is flooded with ex-rentals.

Back in the autumn of 2022 the market faced Armageddon. The mini-Budget fallout evoked the spectre of financial meltdown and sent mortgage rates soaring at the fastest rate on record. But the crisis passed. Mortgage rates have fallen, the market has stabilised and signs of green shoots have been emerging. Is the market out of the woods, or is this a false dawn?

There is a major threat that should not be ignored just because it is so far invisible.

Credit conditions – namely, how willingly banks will lend – are a major factor for the housing market that is not being talked about enough, says John Muellbauer, senior research fellow at the University of Oxford and a former government adviser.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in America was symptomatic of the slow, insidious toll of successive central bank interest rate rises. There will be more casualties, and economists do not yet know where they will be.

“These things take longer to work through than you might think. Not seeing an immediate effect can be misleading. The medium term effect could be bigger,” says Muellbauer.

Invisible threat

This presents a looming potential threat for the mortgage market. UK banks have substantial portfolios of government bonds, also known as gilts. As the financial system creaks under the pressure of rate rises, bond prices are fluctuating. “Banks’ portfolios have shrunk, which means their balance sheets become more constrained,” says Muellbauer.

House price falls, which will also hit the value of their portfolios, will add even more strain. “Putting all of that together, I think banks are going to be extra cautious, and their lending criteria will be tougher in the coming 12 months,” says Muellbauer.

This is likely to mean more stringent “affordability tests” for borrowers, smaller loans in proportion to income, and higher mortgage rates on loans for buyers with smaller deposits.

These changes will magnify the blow of higher mortgage rates, extra pressure that buyers can little afford. Debt service ratios – a measure of borrowers’ ability to service their mortgages – are around double what they were in 2019, says Muellbauer. “The cashflow effect on potential new buyers is very severe,” says Muellbauer.

If credit conditions tighten significantly, house prices could fall much further than expected.

The British housing market is much more exposed to higher mortgage rates than other European markets.

Across the Continent, debt service repayments increased on average by a third between 2021 and 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund. In the UK, the jump was 70pc. This is because debt-to-income ratios are particularly high in the UK, and because mortgage rates have climbed much higher than in other European countries.

Homeowners in Britain are also more exposed to changes in interest rates.

“In the Netherlands and Denmark, homeowners have higher debt-to-income ratios than we do, but they have much longer fixed-rate deals. While there is an impact on new buyers, there is much less of an impact on the cash flows for people with mortgages, which is what translates into arrears and repossessions, and in turn feeds back into the caution that banks exercise on their balance sheets,” adds Muellbauer.

While British borrowers are more protected from higher rates than those in countries such as Sweden, where the vast majority of mortgages are variable rate deals that fluctuate in line with interest rates, that security is short-lived.

Fixed-rate deals in the UK are often only short term deals lasting two or five years, unlike in the US where buyers fix for 30 years. This means a large number of existing homeowners will still get hit when their fixes expire, as will be the case for 1.4 million borrowers across 2023.

“The distress will come from people coming off a low fixed rate and going onto a much higher repayment, which will be a massive stretch on top of the large hike in fuel prices and the general cost of living,” says Allan Fuller, a south London estate agent.

But mortgage rates have cooled steadily since their autumn peak. The average quoted rate on a two-year fixed-rate mortgage on April 6 was 5.32pc, according to Moneyfacts, an analyst. This was down from a peak of 6.65pc on October 20 last year. A buyer taking out a £200,000 loan will now pay £2,660 less per year in interest.

Deals are unlikely to get much cheaper. Mortgage rates have stopped falling and have seen marginal increases since March. Lenders have removed the premium they added in the wake of the 2022 mini-Budget and there is nothing left to take off.

Rates might no longer be approaching 7pc, but they are stuck at a level that is twice as high as a year ago, and five times the sub-1pc rates buyers were able to secure during the depths of the pandemic. They will not fall materially until the Bank of England starts reducing the Bank Rate, and the surprisingly high inflation data in February was a clear signal that that moment is a long way off.

“For the Bank of England, that was pretty horrendous,” says Muellbauer. The tight labour market is a further burden. “The Bank will be terribly wary about taking the pressure off and allowing inflation to remain high.”

Inflation will make it much harder for policymakers to step in and alleviate the strain on the housing market if values do fall dramatically.

After the global financial crisis, the Bank of England slashed interest rates. Back then, there was no inflationary pressure. “That meant that the fall in house prices that occurred then was relatively small and temporary,” says Muellbauer.

With inflation so high today, this is not an option on the table for the Bank. This downturn has more similarities with that of the early Nineties, when the Bank had a similar inability to lower rates, says Muellbauer.

Back then, the downturn was less sharp than in 2008, but it was far more protracted. House prices fell for years.

Even if these specific risks are averted, the British housing market must adjust to a painful new reality.

When mortgage rates hit 6pc, buyers saw their buying power reduced by 35pc compared to the start of 2022, according to calculations by Zoopla. Today, it is possible to get a mortgage at a little over 4pc. That means buyers have 20pc less to spend than at the start of last year, says Richard Donnell, executive director of research at Zoopla. And that is with the best deal on the market. The average two-year fixed rate is more than 5pc.

Cheaper to rent than buy

Robert Lewis, 36, is also buying a home in London with his partner and two children. Since they began their house hunt a year ago, the mortgage rate they can get has doubled. As a result, they have shifted their house hunt to a cheaper area.

But even this will not offset the blow. “When we first started looking, one of the main drivers was to save money compared to our rent. Now, whatever we do, we will be spending more on our mortgage than we do on rent,” says Lewis.

The family’s monthly rent is £3,500. Their mortgage bill will be £3,800, roughly £1,000 more than when they started house hunting. “That means a different lifestyle to the one that we are going to have, a lifestyle where you’ve got to worry about the bills,” says Lewis.

The property market is recovering from the mini-Budget, but it is adjusting to a new reality of permanently higher interest rates.

In October 2022, as mortgage rates soared following Kwasi Kwarteng's fiscal statement, agreed sales slumped by a third compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to TwentyCi. Rates have since cooled and sales have recovered. In March, they were up by 1.4pc on the 2017-2019 period.

But these deals are entirely price dependent. Back in October, the share of sales that were agreed after price changes was up only 2.5pc compared to the pre-Covid norm. In March, the share was up 44pc.

“Clearly, it is price sensitive. Maybe what you’re seeing is a realisation amongst sellers that circumstances have changed, that buyers’ budgets are more constrained and there isn’t much point in waiting for the market to catch up with their price expectations,” says Lucian Cook, head of UK residential research at Savills estate agents.

The Halifax house price index surprised analysts when it reported a 0.8pc monthly increase in house prices in March, meaning house prices were down 2pc from their August peak. The monthly change was the exact opposite of the Nationwide index, which reported a 0.8pc monthly drop.

But this divergence likely reflects the fact that buyers are shifting to different types of properties, says Andrew Wishart, senior property economist at Capital Economics. Both indexes are based on mortgage approvals, which means they can only reflect the types of properties each lender’s customers are buying.

“The average size of mortgage approval has fallen by 9pc as households can’t afford to borrow as much at higher mortgage rates. For the Halifax approvals-based index to only report a 2pc fall in prices despite that suggests that the homes being transacted are less valuable, they will be smaller properties and in cheaper areas,” says Wishart.

“A lot of these movers, they’re not aspirational moves, they’re not people pushing for the most expensive property they can buy. They’re far more value-for-money, common sense, good decision moves,” says Donnell.

Higher costs mean a clear differentiation is emerging across the market with buyers flocking to cheaper properties. Sales in the cheapest third of the market were up year-on-year in March in every single region of Britain, according to Zoopla. In the West Midlands and Wales sales growth in this segment was up by 21pc.

The top third of the market is an exact mirror image. Sales in this part of the market fell dramatically in every region, with drops in Scotland and the South East down by 20pc and 12pc respectively. Sales also fell in the middle third of the market in every region except for Scotland and the North East, which recorded only marginal upticks.

“The housing market at the top end has been a bit slower to catch up post-mini-Budget. They have the most money, but equally if they have got the biggest mortgages, they are paying the most interest on it. They need to be more cautious about where the market is going,” says Kesha Foss-Smith, area director at John D Wood estate agents in London.

A two percentage point change in mortgage rates would cost a homeowner with a £1m loan an extra £1,670 per month.

City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority has handed lenders generous amounts of leeway to help homeowners who are struggling with their mortgage payments. This includes options such as making a temporary switch to interest-only payments without the usual affordability checks.

Few analysts are expecting a large number of repossessions. But the strain of higher rates can push people to sell up and move long before they get into financial distress.

And the data shows that more and more people are listing their homes for sale. The number of properties for sale per estate agent branch in March was up 65pc compared to last spring, according to Zoopla.

A major rebalancing between the supply and demand metric is underway. Buyer inquiries in March climbed on a monthly basis as the spring selling season kicked off, but they were down by more than a tenth on the five-year average and are just a little over half the level recorded in March 2022.

Bank of England data shows mortgage approvals rose by 10pc month-on-month in February. However, approvals are still subdued and, excluding the 2020 housing market shutdown, they are at their lowest level since the start of 2011.

In February 45pc of homes listed on Zoopla had their asking price cut at least once. “I think sellers are getting the message. If you’re serious about moving, you have got to get realistic on price. Homeowners have made so much money over the pandemic, they have got room to play with, it’s not like losing real money,” says Donnell.

“If you’re a vendor and you try to overprice, you’re gonna very quickly see that there is no interest and you’ll have to reduce that price,” says Foss-Smith.

But years of short supply mean buyers are keen to move when they can afford it. “The way agents used to value houses was never listing the same as the price that your neighbour sold for – you would always try higher. Now, we’re looking at what sold last year and saying let’s price it just under and see how much interest we get,” says Foss-Smith.

Sellers also have much more scope for price cuts than during previous downturns. From the start of the pandemic in March 2020 to the peak of the market in August 2022, the average house price jumped from £219,583 to £273,751, a rise of £54,168, or 25pc.

“Everyone is sitting on bigger gains and they are going to have to give some up,” says Donnell.

Landlord exodus

The most motivated sellers are likely to be in the buy-to-let sector.

Tax changes announced by George Osborne, which came into full effect in April 2020, mean that landlords who own properties in their own name can no longer deduct all of their mortgage interest from their profit calculations for their tax bills. This means that even if their mortgage bills soar, they will have to pay the same amount of tax.

These changes have been a blow for “the dinner party landlord”, says Richard Rowntree, managing director of mortgages at Paragon, a buy-to-let lender.

While larger portfolio landlords have the tax benefits that come with using company structures, many small-scale landlords who own one or two properties do not have the income to absorb higher costs, says Rowntree. Crucially, these smaller landlords make up the majority of the rental housing supply, he adds.

Property investors are slowly starting to sell up as they adjust to the toll of higher mortgage rates.

“If your mortgage has gone from £400 a month to £1,500 a month and your rental income is £1,800, you are still paying the same tax on that,” says Foss-Smith. “Particularly at the lower end, those one- or two-bedroom, accidental landlords, they’ve most certainly started to come to the market,” says Foss-Smith.

“We haven’t seen as many as I think we had anticipated, but I think a lot of landlords haven’t yet come to the end of their fixed rates,” she adds.

Now that house prices are falling, slightly fewer landlords are shedding their assets. Buy-to-lets made up 11pc of the homes for sale on Zoopla, down from 13.5pc in 2022, but these figures are still high compared to historic averages.

But many may be pushed into selling when their fixed rate deals expire, says Donnell. Incoming energy efficiency regulations for the private rental sector will be another key driver. The Government will announce deadlines for new minimum Energy Performance Certificate requirements in the private rental sector at the end of the year.

Those who quit are unlikely to find many buy-to-let investors willing to replace them, particularly in London, where high house prices mean lower yields.

In the first three months of this year, to purchase a typical buy-to-let in the capital, an investor needed a 50pc deposit, or £257,000, according to Zoopla. A year ago, the figure was only £129,000. The property will have a gross rental yield of only 4pc, pretty low compared to what is on offer to investors in the north and Midlands.

Concentrated pockets of landlord sales could trigger larger house price falls in areas such as city centre flat markets.

There is another cohort of sellers who could emerge en masse over the next few years, says Donnell.

“We’ve got the biggest number of over 75-year-old homeowners we have ever had. Their insurance bills are going up and council tax is going up and their energy bills are going up. That’s a group of people who haven’t moved very much in the last few years and they are going to become a really important group for the housing market,” says Donnell.

[Derby]

https://www.axios.com/2023/04/08/banks-retreating-mortgage-market

A different kind of mortgage crisis

The 2008 financial crisis was caused, in part, by mortgage lenders taking on too much risk. Now, the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction that the private sector has all but ceased taking on mortgage risk any more.

Why it matters: Private-sector risk aversion has prevented millions of Americans from buying houses. It is also driving banks out of the mortgage game. That might be OK, if the nonbanks weren't disappearing too, and unlikely to return any time soon.

Flashback: Banks paid more than $100 billion in mortgage-related fines after the financial crisis — a stark reminder that such activity can prove extraordinarily costly.

That, alongside more stringent government rules about how much capital banks need to allocate to such activity, has resulted in what one banker described to Axios as a "derisking" in mortgage lending — a/k/a an ongoing exit.

How it works: Most mortgage lenders make money in two ways.

After they originate the loan, they hold it on their books for a relatively short amount of time before selling it to the government — either directly (the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs both buy mortgages) or to agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

After selling the loan, the originator generally continues to service it — to collect mortgage payments and send them on to the loan's new owner. Servicing fees are low, generally about a quarter of a percent, and servicers need to make the payments even if the homeowner is in arrears.

Banks retreat

Bank capital and liquidity rules implemented after the 2008 financial crisis make both activities unattractive to banks trying to maximize their return on capital — especially once compliance costs are added in.

"The Basel rules on capital are so punitive the banks really can’t afford to be in the servicing business," Urban Institute fellow Ted Tozer tells Axios.

Add in an unknown chance of fines and/or shaming from regulators and politicians, and banks have broadly concluded this isn't a business they want to be in.

Where it stands: Nonbanks now originate 71% of agency-backed loans and 86% of government-backed loans, per Inside Mortgage Finance.

While those figures are the result of a long-term trend going back more than a decade, they're probably growing faster than ever at the moment. "Over the last month, I think it’s begun to accelerate," BTIG analyst Eric Hagen tells Axios, as deposits have fled banks.

Banks still eclipse nonbanks in the relatively small market for jumbo loans that aren't backed by the government, since such products help to build relationships with high-value customers, and can be held as long-term assets on the bank's balance sheet.

The big picture: The mortgage market is now dominated by nonbanks that operate with relatively thin cushions of capital and need substantial economies of scale.

Between March 2021 and January 2023, total mortgage originations fell by 83%, per Black Knight. Refinancings — which were more than 70% of the total at the beginning of the period — dropped by a stunning 95%, as spiking interest rates killed demand.

Refinancings are the relatively cheap and easy way for nonbanks to make money in the mortgage business. Without them, more of those lenders are likely to close.

Given that most outstanding mortgages are at 3% or lower, refinancings aren't going to pick up any time soon. The result is that few if any new nonbank lenders are likely to enter the market, even as the number of existing lenders continues to dwindle.

Why it's so hard to qualify for a mortgage

Because loan servicers have to make mortgage payments even when homeowners don't, they have a strong incentive to avoid that situation.

The result is that while government agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are willing to buy riskier mortgages, lenders aren't willing to originate them, and would-be homebuyers with less-than-stellar credit find it extremely difficult to buy a house.

"It is becoming increasingly difficult for banks to stay in the mortgage business, which ultimately hurts everyday Americans," wrote JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in this year's shareholder letter.

The Urban Institute estimates that if mortgage credit reverted to normal levels — below the excesses of the mid-2000s but much looser than today — an extra 1 million loans could be written per year.

The problem is not so much that lenders aren't willing to take on credit risk. As the higher default rates on government-backed loans demonstrate, lenders will do that — if they're paid more for servicing such loans. (FHA and VA loans typically pay about 0.45% to servicers, compared with the 0.25% paid by Fannie and Freddie.)

The real issue isn't credit — it's liquidity. Lenders need to be liquid enough to front a large number of mortgage payments pending some kind of resolution like a foreclosure or a workout.

Many servicers, for instance, would have run out of cash very quickly during the early weeks of the pandemic were it not for official government mortgage forbearance programs.

The bottom line: So long as the government continues to backstop mortgages, they won't go away. But homebuyers shopping for loans aren't going to find themselves with a lot of choice.

[sudden and sharp]

En línea con pp.cc.:

“La desigualdad contemporánea es una realidad estructural que supera la lucha contra la pobreza, porque el binomio compuesto de ricos y pobres está pasado de moda”. Formulada casi como un principio, esta declaración vertebra el informe elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas), que debe guiar al Gobierno en la lucha contra los desequilibrios sociales. Este tipo de estudios se efectúan de forma periódica, pero los expertos socioculturales han ampliado ahora el marco de su labor. No solo han analizado variables como el empleo, los ingresos y la educación. Han incluido, además, el capital social (a quién conoces), el capital cultural (dónde encajas) y el capital personal (la salud y el atractivo) de los ciudadanos para elaborar un mapa de Países Bajos distinto al habitual. Un espacio de 17,8 millones de habitantes donde hay, en su opinión, siete clases sociales.

https://elpais.com/economia/negocios/2023-04-08/y-de-repente-paises-bajos-descubre-que-tiene-siete-clases-sociales.html

Pues yo niego la mayor: la desigualdad no es por sí misma ningún problema, sino la pobreza. A mí que haya más o menos megarricos me da lo mismo; no tener lo básico, eso sí me preocupa.

Pero claro, queda mucho más pintón decir que se lucha contra la desigualdad que contra la pobreza.

Mis dos céntimos...

Suele coincidir. Es lo que pasa cuando usas tanto la media como la mediana. Que se ve claro.

[wanderer]

La revolució dels sonriures (revolución de las sonrisas) de 2017 anda muy de capa caída, pero sus efectos permanecen, y nuestro Antonio El Presi está más que complacido de tratar con ellos. El Confidencial nos trae dos entradas en días consecutivos sobre el tema:

HABLA EL AUTOR, JOAN FERRAN
Los frikis del 'procés' se quedan desnudos (ideológicamente hablando) en un libro
El socialista Joan Ferran recopila los principales episodios de la política catalana de la última década sacando los colores al independentismo
https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/cataluna/2023-04-08/frijis-proces-catalaluna-independentismo_3607167/

15 DE ABRIL DE 2018
Un independentista, condenado por apalear a una señora mayor que quitaba lazos amarillos
"Mi compañera era joven y pudo escapar. Entonces, vino hacia mí llamándome 'hija de puta', 'fascista' y 'española de mierda'"
https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/cataluna/2023-04-09/quitalazos-mujer-apaleada-por-un-independentista_3607581/

Diría que esa caterva de nacioncitas están más allá del desprecio, pero eso supondría darles una atención que no merecen; me contentaré con señalar que ellos mismos se sitúan más allá del ridículo.

[wanderer]

En línea con pp.cc.:

“La desigualdad contemporánea es una realidad estructural que supera la lucha contra la pobreza, porque el binomio compuesto de ricos y pobres está pasado de moda”. Formulada casi como un principio, esta declaración vertebra el informe elaborado por la Oficina holandesa de Planificación Social y Cultural (SCP, en sus siglas neerlandesas), que debe guiar al Gobierno en la lucha contra los desequilibrios sociales. Este tipo de estudios se efectúan de forma periódica, pero los expertos socioculturales han ampliado ahora el marco de su labor. No solo han analizado variables como el empleo, los ingresos y la educación. Han incluido, además, el capital social (a quién conoces), el capital cultural (dónde encajas) y el capital personal (la salud y el atractivo) de los ciudadanos para elaborar un mapa de Países Bajos distinto al habitual. Un espacio de 17,8 millones de habitantes donde hay, en su opinión, siete clases sociales.

https://elpais.com/economia/negocios/2023-04-08/y-de-repente-paises-bajos-descubre-que-tiene-siete-clases-sociales.html

Pues yo niego la mayor: la desigualdad no es por sí misma ningún problema, sino la pobreza. A mí que haya más o menos megarricos me da lo mismo; no tener lo básico, eso sí me preocupa.

Pero claro, queda mucho más pintón decir que se lucha contra la desigualdad que contra la pobreza.

Mis dos céntimos...

Suele coincidir. Es lo que pasa cuando usas tanto la media como la mediana. Que se ve claro.

Los megarricos en efecto, disparan las medias salariales hacia arriba, pero la mediana permanece incólume.

Asimismo, que los pisos en Serrano o en el Paseo de Gracia cuesten un h*** y parte del otro, pues me deja indiferente (incluso aunque se peguen una castaña, que seguirán siendo inasequibles salvo para una exigua minoría, que además no precisa de financiación).

Pero por todo eso ese discursito de "luchar contra las desigualdades" me parece un ejemplo canónico de "ten cuidado con lo que deseas, que quizá lo consigas" (los socialistas podemizados son expertos en ello, pero no son ni mucho menos más que el último ejemplo de una tendencia secular). Y son además tanto desde el punto de vista intelectual como del más práctico profundamente deshonestos.

[senslev]

La no-correlación o correlación de la señorita Pepis sigue a tope.

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/a8a56860-6092-4b55-aa50-78d989601bab

Hedge funds made $7bn from betting against banks during turmoil

Short sellers’ March haul was their largest from the banking sector since 2008

Hedge funds made more than $7bn in profits by betting against bank shares during the recent crisis that rocked the sector, their biggest such haul since the 2008 financial crisis.

The bumper gains came during a bleak month for banks, with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the emergency sale of Credit Suisse affecting the wider sector. Amid plunging share prices, German chancellor Olaf Scholz was forced to dismiss fears about the health of Deutsche Bank and California-based First Republic was bailed out by larger rivals.

Short sellers — who borrow stock and sell it, hoping to buy it back at a lower price — made estimated total profits of about $1.3bn from short positions taken against SVB, according to data group Ortex. A further $848mn in gains came from bets against First Republic, whose shares fell 89 per cent in March.

Investors made $684mn from shorting Credit Suisse, as a crisis of confidence in the Swiss lender sent its shares tumbling 71 per cent, according to the data. Profits from short positions across the US and European banking sector as a whole totalled $7.2bn.

“March was the single most profitable month for short sellers in the banking sector since the 2008 financial crash,” said Ortex co-founder Peter Hillerberg. While bank stocks also fell sharply in early 2020 during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, fewer funds were shorting the sector at the time, limiting gains, he said.

Barry Norris, chief investment officer at Argonaut Capital, said he had enjoyed a “stellar” month, thanks to bets against banks including Credit Suisse and First Republic. His Argonaut Absolute Return fund gained more than 6 per cent.

London-based Marshall Wace, one of the world’s biggest hedge fund groups, was also among those placing bets, shorting 0.7 per cent of Deutsche Bank’s shares. Funds netted gains of about $40mn from bets against the German lender.

Many hedge funds responded to the growing turmoil by increasing their short positions.

Bets against Credit Suisse, for instance, were running at just 3.5 per cent of the bank’s outstanding shares at the start of March, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, as measured by shares out on loan, but had jumped to 14 per cent by March 20, the day after Credit Suisse was sold to UBS.

Short interest in First Republic rocketed from just 1.3 per cent at the start of March to 38.5 per cent by March 30.

Other managers who benefited include Ravi Chopra’s US-based hedge fund group Azora Capital, which profited from bets against US regional banks, according to a person familiar with its positions. Azora did not respond to a request for comment.

Short sellers’ gains on Deutsche, however, were more muted. While bets against the bank were quickly raised from 1.4 per cent at the start of March to as much as 6.1 per cent by March 28, the bank’s shares had already bottomed on March 24 — the day of Scholz’s comments — and have since recovered some ground, eroding funds’ gains.

Hedge funds appear to be expecting further problems to emerge in the sector. Short interest in First Republic remains only marginally below the March high at 37.3 per cent, while bets against Deutsche have also fallen only slightly.

Argonaut’s Norris highlighted the US Federal Reserve’s liquidity assistance programme announced last month. This, he said, reduced the risk of weaker US regional banks going bust owing to a lack of liquidity, but the high rate of interest being charged could lead to “a catastrophic impact on net interest margins, creating a solvency risk”.

“The liquidity crisis is probably over, but the solvency crisis is about to begin,” he said.

[Derby]

https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1645028097568174080

@Schuldensuehner Bank run in slow motion continues: Since the #Fed began to raise rates in March 2022, total deposit outflows from the US banking sector is now $967.5bn, almost $1trn, the biggest outflow on record. (via Apollo)

[el malo]

https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1645028097568174080

@Schuldensuehner Bank run in slow motion continues: Since the #Fed began to raise rates in March 2022, total deposit outflows from the US banking sector is now $967.5bn, almost $1trn, the biggest outflow on record. (via Apollo)

¿No debería ser al revés? ¿La FED sube tipos y al ahorrador no le compensa el riesgo de otras opciones y prefiere conservar su cash en depósitos al 3, 4, 5%?

¿A qué se debe está huida? ¿Desconfianza en el sistema? ¿Bancolchón? A pisitos ya hemos visto que no 

[Derby]

https://economiccollapsenews.com/2023/04/08/federal-reserve-money-supply-contracts-for-third-straight-month-falls-2-35-in-february/

Federal Reserve money supply contracts for third straight month, falls 2.35% in February

The Federal Reserve’s money supply keeps contracting.

Last month, the U.S. central bank’s M2 money supply contracted 2.35 percent, the third consecutive monthly decline.

Here is the chart:



For the first time it started sharing this data in the 1960s, the Fed witnessed its first contraction ever in December.

Of course, this is a lagging indicator, so it should be interesting to see if it will increase in the next update (March), which should factor in the Eccles Building’s bailout of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

[Derby]

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20230404-1

6% of EU youth severely materially & socially deprived

In the EU in 2021, the severe material and social deprivation rate among young people (aged 15-29 years) was 6.1%, while the severe material and social deprivation rate among the total population (all people living in private households aged 0 and up) was slightly higher at 6.3%.

Among the EU countries, the highest proportion of young people who were severely materially and socially deprived in 2021 was recorded in Romania (23.1%), followed by Bulgaria (18.7%) and Greece (14.2%). On the other hand, the proportion was less than 3% in 11 of the 26 EU members with available data: Luxembourg, Poland, Sweden, Cyprus, Czechia, Netherlands, Croatia, Slovenia, Finland, Austria, and Estonia.

[Derby]

Efectivamente, alquilar un piso es como postularse para un trabajo.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/apr/09/landlords-demanding-renters-send-photo-cv-and-character-references

Landlords demanding renters send photo, CV and character references

Prospective tenants are being asked to provide personal details in order to secure a contract, raising fears of discrimination

Renters are being subjected to extreme vetting procedures by letting agents and landlords who are demanding personal statements – and even photographs – to choose between prospective tenants.

Amid the worst rental market conditions to date, campaigners say that letting agents and landlords are increasing the potential for discrimination by telling renters to submit personal biographies to try to sell themselves as desirable tenants.

Tenants are being encouraged to “put their best foot forward” by including as much personal information as possible in their applications, renters told the Observer, with details such as having attended Oxbridge or a Russell Group university and high salaries seen as an advantage.

Prospective tenants also reported being asked to give letting agents access to their LinkedIn profiles.

Other tactics being adopted include mass viewings, encouraging tenants to bid over the market price or pay multiple months’ rent upfront and not providing thorough information about energy costs.

An employee of the London letting agent Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward (KFH) asked a group of prospective tenants to each send a photo of themselves and a short profile along with their application to rent a property in north London.

When challenged about the need for a photo, the letting agent said, in documents seen by the Observer: “We ask for photos to help landlords form a connection with the prospective tenants – otherwise it would just be names on paper to them.”

Carol Pawsey, KFH group lettings director, said that while in a busy rental market it is “not uncommon” to provide landlords with personal biographies “to help them decide between multiple competitive offers”, letting agents should not ask for photos.

“It is not our company policy to request applicant photos, which are not relevant to the application, and we will be reiterating our policy to all branches to make certain of this.”

Dan Wilson Craw, acting director of campaign group Generation Rent, said the use of bios, akin to a rental version of a university personal statement, is “very intrusive” and that requesting photos is “a recipe for discrimination”.

“Landlords might pick the tenants who appear more conventionally attractive,” he added. “If you don’t have regular work or if you don’t have a long-term contract at work it puts you at a disadvantage compared with other renters. It just adds another opportunity for discrimination.”

Calling for greater regulation of checking processes and what information landlords are permitted to use, he said it is currently “very opaque”.

The government released a white paper in June and the levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Michael Gove, recently said that the renters reform bill would be published in “a couple of months”.

On Saturday, it was revealed that the number of housing projects granted planning permission in England last year fell to its lowest level since 2006, when collection of the figures began.

The failure to build enough homes in places that people want to live has created “the worst rental market we’ve ever seen”, said Wilson Craw.

“According to Zoopla, rent on new tenancies is worth 35.6% of earnings, which is higher even than the last housing boom in 2015-16.”

Paris Williams, 24, has been looking to move from her flatshare in north-west London for a year and a half without success, sending up to 15 messages a day about properties, The policy officer said: “I started to come across some really corrupt things. Racism, classism, all the isms, it’s there.

It’s just a cesspit, the rental market. It’s like applying for jobs.

“It probably is worse than applying for a job because at least in job applications employers have to be a bit more discreet about racism … Landlords can get away with saying ‘can we see your LinkedIn?’”

Tom Darling, the campaign manager for Renters’ Reform Coalition, made about 10 applications, which all required bios, when he was looking for a new home between December and January.

In one of the applications he was also asked for a photo, which he declined to do.

“It doesn’t take a genius to work out what might be being done with that photo is some form of discrimination,” he said.

The ambiguity over what to include in a personal statement is also a problem. “Estate agents know that they probably shouldn’t be saying ‘you need to really sell yourself hard’, but that is the implication. So they say put your best foot forward and look at you with wide eyes.”

Legislation has failed to keep pace with the mounting housing crisis, Darling said.

A spokesperson for the National Residential Landlords Association condemned the personal statement phenomenon.

“Practices such as this, which have the potential to lead to discrimination, are wrong and have no place in a modern rental market.

“The only criteria landlords should use when making decisions about who to rent to should be factual measures of an applicant’s ability to sustain a tenancy and meet their obligations – best confirmed through credit checks, verification of their income and references regarding previous tenancies,” the spokesperson said.

Nathan Emerson, the chief executive officer of Propertymark, which represents property agents, said: “The requirement of such bios is not a blanket practice we would advocate but a landlord may instruct an agent to find out as much as they can to assess if a prospective tenant can sustain a long-term tenancy in their property.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: “We are committed to delivering a fairer deal for renters. We will bring forward a renters reform bill in this parliament, abolishing ‘no fault evictions’ so that all tenants have greater security in their homes and are empowered to challenge poor conditions and unreasonable rent rises.”

[Lem]

https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/1645028097568174080

@Schuldensuehner Bank run in slow motion continues: Since the #Fed began to raise rates in March 2022, total deposit outflows from the US banking sector is now $967.5bn, almost $1trn, the biggest outflow on record. (via Apollo)

¿No debería ser al revés? ¿La FED sube tipos y al ahorrador no le compensa el riesgo de otras opciones y prefiere conservar su cash en depósitos al 3, 4, 5%?

¿A qué se debe está huida? ¿Desconfianza en el sistema? ¿Bancolchón? A pisitos ya hemos visto que no 

la respuesta es money markets:

Any money that flows out now is not because of a worry about bank failures (since recent backstop), but rather that seeking a higher return. (@biancoresearch 'bankwalk'). For that they'll go to brokerages and invest in money markets and short term treasuries. 

The non-billionaires moderately rich will just remember SIPC guarantees: SIPC coverage insures people for up to a limit of $500,000 in cash and securities per account. SIPC protections also include up to $250,000 in cash coverage.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1644758534427496450

[R.G.C.I.M.]

Efectivamente, alquilar un piso es como postularse para un trabajo.

Muchas gracias Derby.
El tiempo que hace que no veo a alguien utilizar correctamente el verbo español postular(se)  reflexivo, y no el anglicismo "aplicar", que a pesar de haberse impuesto,  no "aplica".

Sds.

[Derby]

He tenido que buscar qué es el "residencial granular" de alquiler. Básicamente, son carteras de pisos de alquiler que se encuentran en diversos edificios.

El artículo, más allá de que es pura propaganda, sería un guión ideal para el canal Syfy 

https://www.elconfidencial.com/inmobiliario/residencial/2023-04-03/tikehau-socimi-residencial-granular-blackstone_3602869/

estrategia para residencial granular
El fondo francés Tikehau lanza la socimi que Blackstone soñó levantar en España

La gestora de origen galo ha aprobado construir un vehículo de vivienda granular en España, el proyecto que Blackstone acarició durante años y que, finalmente, nunca terminó de crear

Cuando Diego San José se despidió de Blackstone, hace ahora dos años, lo hizo con una espinita clavada: no haber podido lanzar la primera gran socimi de vivienda granular en alquiler de España.

Aunque el ejecutivo siempre defendió que había una oportunidad de construir un gran vehículo con pisos repartidos por diferentes edificios y ciudades, al final, el fondo apostó por el pragmatismo y aparcó esta aventura.

La idea de San José, que sí existe en otros mercados, ha sido recuperada por Tikehau Capital, que ha aprobado desarrollar una estrategia para residencial granular en alquiler. Su objetivo es arrancar de manera inminente, entre abril y mayo.

"El residencial granular es un asset class en el que creemos mucho y creemos que va a ser un producto institucional en Europa", señala Emilio Velasco, director de Real Estate Iberia del fondo de origen galo.

De hecho, Tikehau ya puso en marcha esta estrategia en Portugal el año pasado, cuando adquirió una cartera de 3.600 pisos distribuidos por todo el país, aunque el 60% se concentra en Oporto, Lisboa y Setúbal.

En España, Tikehau prevé abordar esta inversión con su segundo fondo, que el pasado verano hizo un primer cierre de 400 millones de euros, casi la mitad de los 1.000 millones que aspira levantar en total.

Este vehículo, cuya potencia de disparo,  al sumar la deuda, rondará los 2.000 millones de euros, se centrará en encontrar oportunidades en el segmento hotelero y en residencial granular en alquiler.

El estreno de esta estrategia será en el centro de Madrid, donde la idea de Velasco es "ir construyendo la cartera con compras una a una, eligiendo los activos, porque pretendemos ir a un producto de mayor calidad. Solamente Cerberus está haciendo algo parecido".

Tikehau ha desarrollado una herramienta tecnológica propia sobre la que realiza la búsqueda de las viviendas. Su objeto de deseo son activos bien ubicados, pero que necesitan una importante reforma, hasta el punto de que la inversión prevista se reparte casi al 50% entre adquisición de los inmuebles y las obras de mejora.

"Creemos que una vez tengamos construida la cartera, será diferencial", señala el ejecutivo, que evita dar datos concretos de esta estrategia, más allá de que sus planes pasan por llevar esta estrategia también a Barcelona, Valencia y Málaga. El ejemplo de Portugal indica que Tikehau piensa a lo grande y, de hecho, en el país vecino sigue buscando oportunidades, con Lisboa como próximo destino.

Gigante de la inversión

Tikehau Capital es un grupo de gestión alternativa con 37.500 millones de euros de activos bajo gestión y que opera en deuda, inmobiliario, capital riesgo y acciones cotizadas. En inmobiliario, el mercado ibérico representa un 15% de su inversión, que aborda a través de un fondo de valor añadido, otro core y un tercero core +.

Este último es una socimi (REIT) de Singapur centrada en logística y oficinas, aunque actualmente está más interesado en naves industriales que en sedes corporativas. El fondo core se centra en operaciones de entre 10 y 40 millones de euros tanto de residencial como logística y supermercados.

Es a través de este vehículo con el que Tikehau ha adquirido recientemente a Urbania un edificio de 45 viviendas y dos locales comerciales en la calle Fray Luis de León de Madrid, una de las primeras operaciones que se han cerrado en España solo con capital, sin deuda, una nueva tendencia por el giro de los tipos de interés.