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by Piers Williamson
Developing Housing Associations are capital intensive businesses. You carry substantial financing, refinancing and liquidity risk. A bit like banks you transform cash into very illiquid assets (in the case of HAs, we hope the valuations hold up a bit better than the banks have seen in recent months!).
Continue reading Mystic Meg: normal funding will be resumed…when?
by Piers Williamson
At THFC we have been trying to track the growing impact of the credit crunch on the Housing Association sector. So far, most attention has been paid to the rising cost of credit and how the sector will be able to meet its development targets in the midst of one of the most marked slow downs in living memory.
by Sarah Hayes
From what we see as lawyers from the loan transactions going through the credit crunch is hitting the RSL loans market quite severely and it seems to be a time of great change for RSL loan expectations. However some RSLs don’t yet seem aware of how much disruption or change there actually is.
Continue reading Housing Associations and Bank Credit – Nelson or Ostriches?
by Piers Williamson
Presumably Caroline Flint and her Cabinet colleagues (Hazel Blears also got caught yesterday, but her notes were deemed less news-worthy by Fleet Street) are now aware of the technological wonders of modern high-resolution photography!
by Piers Williamson
BBC Radio 4’s PM and 6 o’clock news on Monday 5 May carried a story on the potential shortage of committed funding for HAs to deliver the affordable housing programme. Tom Dacey, CEO of Southern Housing Group, was interviewed. He said that a shortage of lenders is making it hard for housing associations to plan developments. He said:
by Piers Williamson
Two volume house-builders, Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon delivered defensive statements at their recent AGMs. Persimmon in their 24 April statement commented “over the last three weeks the unprecedented tightening in the mortgage market has caused a further deterioration of the housing market leading to lower sales volumes and increased cancellation rates”. They went on to say that “against the current backdrop we have postponed the commencement of scheduled new sites until the mortgage market improves”. Their share price dropped 6% on the news.
by Piers Williamson
Many housing finance professionals have not experienced a full-on ‘bear’ (falling) social housing market at all. Most focus on 1992 (15 years ago), the time of the Housing Market Package, as the last real bear market. Then, Housing Associations (“HAs”) generally enjoyed low gearing (grant rates averaged between 60-75% in 1992), but interest rates were twice as high as today. Then, as I predict now, there were real winners and losers…
Continue reading 2008 the first ‘bear’ market for Housing Associations since 1992?
by Piers Williamson
The credit and inter-bank lending markets were starting to breath a little easier until the last seven days when monster losses were unveiled by two American Banks: Merrill Lynch and Citigroup where losses for the year stand at: $20Bn (and still may get worse). Not altogether surprising is that both banks are now minus their CEOs.
Continue reading Just when you thought it was safe to go back into…the markets
by Chris Brown
Attempting to forecast the fallout of the present financial conditions is impossible. Students of chaos theory will recognise the dynamic, evolving market sensitivity to initial conditions in the present circumstances and will confirm the impossibility of forecasting.
Continue reading Banking Crisis and Credit Crunch – impact on the real world
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