Thursday December 10 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Chinese Cash Floods U.S. Real Estate Market - (www.nytimes.com) Canyon Lake Ranch was once a playground for Christian day campers, and then was a corporate retreat with water-skiing, barbecues and cowboy shoot-’em-up shows. Hawks now circle above 108 sunbaked acres occupied by copperhead snakes, a few coyotes and the occasional construction truck. Soon this ranch will be a gated subdivision of 99 mini-mansions designed for buyers from mainland China. The developer, Zhang Long, a Beijing businessman, is keeping three plots to build his own estate along the site of an old rodeo arena. This luxury development 35 miles northwest of Dallas is the latest frontier in a global buying phenomenon as Chinese money becomes a major force in real estate around the world. The flood of money is likely to persist despite the current tumult in China. While a currency devaluation and stock market crash have crimped the country’s buying power overseas, the resulting uncertainty is making many Chinese individuals and companies eager to invest anywhere except their home country.

China brokerages investigated over margin trading contracts - (www.reuters.com) Chinese brokerages currently under scrutiny from the country's securities regulator are being investigated for suspected rule breaches related to the signing of margin trading contracts, they said in separate filings on Sunday. Shares in Shanghai sank more than 5 percent on Friday, the biggest drop since the summer rout, after brokerages announced that they were under investigation by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. China's biggest brokerage, CITIC Securities, said on Sunday that the investigation was looking into possible violations of rules on margin trading contracts with clients, adding that the company is operating normally during the probe.

Chinese Pull Back From U.S. Property Investments - (online.wsj.com)  Karen Xu, a Shanghai resident looking to invest in U.S. real estate, decided this spring to seek a Miami one-bedroom condominium in the $500,000-to-$750,000 price range. China’s economic slowdown has since changed her mind. “I don’t think I’ll be investing in the U.S. right now,” said Ms. Xu, who works at an investment consulting firm. “Maybe I’ll wait another five years, or invest in China.” Capping a five-year real-estate binge, Chinese nationals surpassed Canadian snowbirds as the top foreign buyers of U.S. homes for the year that ended in March—the most recent annual data—scooping up everything from $500,000 condos in New Jersey to $3 million vacation homes in California to $13 million Manhattan condos. But in recent weeks, some Chinese buyers have started to pull back, scared off by China’s stock-market selloff, slowing economic growth, currency devaluation and tightened restrictions on capital outflows. On Friday, China’s benchmark stock index fell by 5.5%, its biggest daily slide since August, as Beijing authorities stepped up a crackdown on the securities industry.

China's Shadow Banking Risk Shifts to Booming Bond Market - (www.reuters.com) A year after China's financial regulators squared up to the systemic perils of "shadow banking", the threat is shifting to a booming corporate bond market, and risky borrowers' debt is finding its way into products aimed at retail investors. An opaque network of trust companies and non-bank lenders had grown their annual market to a hefty 2.9 trillion yuan (£299 billion) in loans before regulators stepped in, spooked by rising defaults on wealth-management products (WMPs) backed by such high-interest shadow lending. Now the high-risk borrowers who took those loans, such as unlisted real-estate firms struggling with a stagnant property market and financing companies backing shoddy local government investment, are finding a new avenue of funding after regulators began allowing unlisted companies to issue bonds on public exchanges.

Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President - (www.zerohedge.com)  Russia's Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said "a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack", had this to say: "We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation" by Turkey. But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to Turkey has since canceled such plans). As Sputnik transcribes, according to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov pointed out that, "by shooting down a Russian plane on a counter-terrorist mission of the Russian Aerospace Force in Syria, and one that did not violate Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish government has in effect sided with ISIS."

OTHER STORIES:

U.S. store sales down slightly for Thanksgiving and Black Friday - (www.reuters.com)
BTG Sees $1.1 Billion in Fund Withdrawals After Esteves's Arrest - (www.bloomberg.com)
Merkel under pressure from her own ahead of EU migration summit - (www.reuters.com)
Brazil's Rousseff Cancels Japan, Vietnam Trip Amid Budget Woes - (www.bloomberg.com)

Top Kurdish lawyer killed in southeast Turkey, protests expected - (www.reuters.com)
Kremlin says Putin 'fully mobilized' to tackle threat from Turkey - (www.reuters.com)
Syria army says Turkey increases arms shipments to rebels - (www.reuters.com)
Putin, citing national security, signs Turkey sanctions decree - (www.reuters.com)