CLEVELAND, OH REAL ESTATE NEWS

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U.S. summons bankers; stocks surge 900 points

by Martin Crutsinger / Associated Press

Monday October 13, 2008, 4:15 PM

WASHINGTON -- Stocks surged on Wall Street and around the world for the first time in days Monday as the U.S. said it plans to swiftly implement a broad financial rescue package and Europe put almost $2 trillion on the line to break the lending logjam threatening the world's economy.

The Bush administration summoned executives from leading banks to a meeting in Washington Monday afternoon to work out details of the $700 billion plan aimed at thawing the credit markets -- the economy's lifeblood.

The Dow Jones industrials gained more than 900 points in a stunning rebound from days of big losses. European markets rallied following Asia's lead in response to the widespread government initiatives.

"These are tough times for our economies yet we can be confident that we can work our way through these challenges and America will continue to work closely with the other nations to coordinate our response to this global financial crisis," President Bush said following a meeting with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

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Obama offers new proposals to help economy

by Christopher Wills / Associated Press

Monday October 13, 2008, 3:32 PM

TOLEDO -- Democrat Barack Obama proposed more immediate steps Monday to heal the nation's ailing economy including a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures at some banks and a two-year tax break for businesses that create new jobs.

With the economic turmoil weighing down his Republican presidential rival, Obama also proposed allowing people to withdraw up to $10,000 from their retirement accounts without any penalty this year and next.

The Democratic presidential candidate said his proposals, with a price tag of $60 billion over two years, can be enacted quickly, either through the government's regulatory powers or legislation that Congress could pass in a special session after the election.

"I'm proposing a number of steps that we should take immediately to stabilize our financial system, provide relief to families and communities and help struggling homeowners," Obama told a crowd of 3,000. "It's a plan that begins with one word that's on everyone's mind, and it's spelled J-O-B-S."

Obama delivered his economic message in Toledo, a struggling blue-collar city in a state that could be critical to Obama's presidential hopes. Polls show a close race between Obama and Republican John McCain in Ohio, which decided the 2004 presidential election. At stake are 20 electoral votes.

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Developers Diversified still manages financing

by Michelle Jarboe

Monday October 13, 2008, 12:30 PM

Despite the crunch on credit and the slowdown of commercial real estate deals, Developers Diversified Realty closed $525 million worth of financing deals and pulled in $73 million from asset sales during the third quarter.

The quarter ended Sept. 30, as credit experienced a near-lockdown and the U.S. government wrangled over a potential bailout package for the financial industry. For months, commercial real estate owners and developers have struggled to find money for projects, refinance properties and buy and sell land and buildings.

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Is the era of easy credit over for the long haul?

by Adam Geller / Associated Press

Sunday October 12, 2008, 10:41 PM

An inflatable gorilla beckoned from the roof of Don Brown Chevrolet in St. Louis, servers doled out free bowls of pasta and a salesman urged potential customers to "come on up under the canopy and put your hands on" a new set of wheels.

But sitting across from a salesman in a quiet back room, Adrian Clark could see it would not be nearly that easy. This was the ninth or tenth dealership for Clark, a steamfitter looking for a car to commute to a new job. Every one offered a variation on the discouragement he was getting here: Without $1,000 for a downpayment, no loan.

"It's just rough times right now," Clark said. "Rough times."

For Clark, and for a nation of consumers heavily dependent on credit, there are growing signs that those rough times could prove to be more than just a temporary problem, that they could be the beginning of a stark, new reality.

Is America's long era of easy credit over?

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Obama: McCain's mortgage plan rewards banks

by Charles Babington / Associated Press

Thursday October 09, 2008, 2:48 PM

DAYTON -- Democrat Barack Obama told a campaign audience Thursday that Republican John McCain's mortgage buyout plan would cost taxpayers billions of dollars and reward bad behavior by lenders.

Speaking in Dayton as he started a two-day bus tour of hotly contested Ohio, Obama said McCain's plan would force the government to absorb the full cost of renegotiating mortgages to prevent borrowers from losing their homes. Lenders should share some of the costs, he said.

The Democratic presidential candidate's campaign also criticized McCain's mortgage plan in a new 30-second ad to air nationally on cable TV, a relatively inexpensive way of drawing media attention to an issue.

Both candidates are competing hard for Ohio's 20 electoral votes which were pivotal in President Bush's victory four years ago. Obama plans five Ohio rallies Thursday and Friday, and will return next week to Toledo to prepare for Wednesday's debate on Long Island, N.Y.

Obama took another jab at McCain, whose family owns several houses, when he renewed his call to change bankruptcy laws to help hard-pressed borrowers keep their homes.

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Administration ponders part ownership in banks

by Martin Crutsinger and Jeannine Aversa / Associated Press

Thursday October 09, 2008, 2:29 PM

WASHINGTON -- News that the Bush administration is considering taking part ownership in a number of U.S. banks helped restore a relative calm over global financial markets Thursday.

The aim of such a move would be to thaw the lending freeze that threatens to push the world's economy into recession. It comes after rampant fear about the global economy sent investors scurrying on Tuesday for safety in U.S. government securities despite an orchestrated round of rate cuts by the world's central banks.

Investors also were hoping that selling, which gave the Dow its sixth straight day of losses, was overdone. Wall Street began the day higher, but then slid after declines in some blue chip names like General Motors Corp. weighed on the markets.

In an effort to show that governments around the world were focusing intently on ways to resolve the crisis, the administration announced that President Bush would meet with finance officials from the Group of Seven major industrial countries at the White House on Saturday.

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McCain housing proposal: Easier said than done

by Julie Hirschfeld Davis / Associated Press

Wednesday October 08, 2008, 8:07 PM

WASHINGTON -- Experts are skeptical about Republican presidential candidate John McCain's push for the government to buy up bad mortgages to cut homeowners' monthly payments, saying it is unlikely to solve the U.S. housing crisis that has pushed the economy toward recession.

One big problem: The vast majority of the toxic home loans that are clogging financial markets and freezing up credit have been sliced, diced and repackaged into complex investments that the government would be hard-pressed to unravel and buy.

Even if the government did gain access to the mortgages, it would have to pay far more than they would ever be worth, housing specialists said Wednesday. That would effectively bail out banks and lenders with taxpayer money to a greater degree than Congress and the Bush administration are already doing through the $700 billion financial industry rescue enacted last week.

"The mortgages that are causing this credit freeze are generally mortgages that aren't available for purchase," said Alan M. White, Valparaiso University specialist in consumer law.

"It's not quite as easy as the McCain campaign thinks it is," said Andrew Jakabovics of the Center for American Progress.

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Obama rejects McCain's plan to buy mortgages

by Charles Babington / Associated Press

Wednesday October 08, 2008, 7:20 PM

INDIANAPOLIS -- Democrat Barack Obama 's campaign criticized John McCain's mortgage bailout plan Wednesday, saying it would cause the government to lose money by paying too much for bad loans.

McCain's proposal to spend $300 billion in federal funds to buy distressed mortgages was a highlight of Tuesday's presidential debate, and it seemed to catch Obama off guard. At first, Obama's campaign said he had made similar proposals and there was nothing new in McCain's remarks.

But after McCain aides offered more details Wednesday, Obama's campaign shifted gears.

The plan would cause the government "to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don't recover," Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said in a statement. "The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud."

McCain's proposal would devote nearly half the $700 billion from the recent financial rescue package to buying troubled mortgages directly, rather than indirectly aiding the nation's financial markets. The government would buy distressed home loans at their face value, said campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. Then it would pay the difference between a mortgage's original value and its renegotiated, lower value.

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