Ravi Karandeekar's Pune Real Estate Market News Blog: hedge funds

Showing posts with label hedge funds. Show all posts

Friday, September 7, 2007

Och-Ziff Capital, New York, has got into a JV with Marvel Realtors, for a Rs.500 crore luxurious residencial project in Pune

The Marvel-Och-Ziff super luxury residential real estate project will come up in Kharadi, Pune. The project will have a built-up area of 1.10 million sq ft on a seven-lakh sq ft plot. The project will have a mix of 400 different sizes of luxury apartments.

At the Kharadi super luxury project, apartments will have specifications like exclusive swimming pools, spas in every apartment, extensive use of advanced home automation technology, Italian marble flooring and the latest VRV central air conditioning systems.

Construction begins in three months and the project will be completed by 2010.

“Presently this is a project specific JV with Marvel having a 55 per cent stake and Och-Ziff picking up 45 per cent. But we will do more deals with them and are open to all possible business ideas,” Vishwajeet Jhavar, CEO, Marvel Realtors said. The investment in the project will be Rs 350 crore with Rs 100 crore being the investment in land.

Automated super luxury apartment makers:

The demand for super luxury homes in Pune was increasing with demand outstripping supply by many times. Marvel has been able to sell projects even before formally launching them.

Marvel already has ongoing projects in Pune in the super luxury range with Rs four crore plus price tags. It has completed five super luxury projects and 12 regular projects covering 4.40 million sq ft worth about Rs 2,000 crore.

Marvel is a six-year-old Rs 176 crore turnover company promoted by a group of five young professionals with diverse experience in construction, engineering, electronics, automation and finance

"Global Hedge Fund" ? It's Wall Street, US Hedge Fund:

Och-Ziff is a New York-based global hedge fund. Och-Ziff has invested US $ 55 million in Bangalore-based Nitesh Estates and in another company in Hyderabad. Och-Ziff Capital founded in 1994 by Daniel Och, senior managing member currently manages over $ 29 billion and has offices in the US, Europe and Asia.
Source: PUNE Newsline

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Media Deserves Blame for Homelessness in the U.S.

The same media that sold us the “certainty” of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has redefined homelessness so that low-income individuals, not powerful Presidents, Senators and Congresspersons, are to blame. It’s no wonder the public feels hopeless about solving homelessness, and blames local mayors rather than the federal government.

After the Nixon Administration stopped the construction of new public housing in the United States, the country was left with fewer low-cost units for families than would be required to meet future demand.

Within a decade, homeless families became visible on the nation’s streets. No subsequent President has addressed the shortage of low-cost housing for families by increasing the nation’s public housing supply, and the number of such units has steadily declined.

As young professionals returned to major cities in the late 1970’s, upward pressure on rents left urban areas increasingly unaffordable for low-income people.

The Reagan Administration responded to this emerging affordability crisis by sharply cutting federal housing funding in 1981. This denied low-income residents the subsidies necessary for them to stay housed.

Widespread homelessness resulted, and it was not until 1999--after Bill Clinton had eliminated any new Section 8 vouchers--- that the federal government began meaningfully increasing the numbers served by federal housing subsidies.

Bush then stopped this progress in its tracks.

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Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Subprime lending crisis changes buying, selling plans

It's hard to avoid negative news about the mortgage lending business. Defaults are rising, subprime lenders are closing shop, and fortunes could be lost as mortgage-backed securities go up in smoke. Sounds ominous, but how will these trends impact someone who's trying to buy or sell a home?

The first thing to understand is that lenders are moving back to basics. No- and very low-down-payment mortgages are available only to buyers with high credit scores. This means no more 100 percent and 95 percent mortgages for subprime borrowers.

Lenders are also backing away from low-documentation and stated-income mortgages. Many lenders now require buyers to have a cash down payment, good credit and the ability to verify income.

For years, home buyers stretched the price they could pay by using adjustable-rate and interest-only mortgages. Not long ago, lenders qualified buyers for these loan products based on the lower initial rates and on interest-only payments. Now, borrowers must qualify based on the fully indexed rate and amortized payment. In other words, qualifying for a home mortgage is more difficult.

Appraisals are also being scrutinized more carefully. If home prices have dropped in your neighborhood, the lender's underwriter might knock the appraised value down 5 percent and require you to increase your down payment accordingly. Some lenders now require two appraisals. Before the credit crisis, this was required only for loan amounts above $1 million. If your contract includes a contingency for the property to appraise for the purchase price, make sure that you have underwriting approval before you remove the contingency.

New York House - The guide to inspired living and real estate in the Hudson Valley

The School of Hard Work Or Habituated Hand-Outs?

After signing the ‘American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003’ Bush added, “We want people to be fully aware of what it means to buy a home and what it takes”. The contradiction, if otherwise unclear, was that the President was signing a law that gave free money to those who could not afford to buy a home, and then he planned to educate.about the hard work, savings, and planning that is required to buy a home.

With Wall Street packaging and selling mortgage reset time bombs, rating agencies dolling out A's first and asking questions never, and many homeowners essentially signing future default notices before their new home purchases were finalized.

Bush's efforts at expanding homeownership since 2003 have gone unnoticed as the subprime debacle widens. Unfortunately, so have the costs of funding Bush's homeownership initiatives.

What should not remain unnoticed is the irony of it all: near the height of the housing boom Bush wanted to do everything he could to boost already record high homeownership rates, but now, as the boom turns to bust, Bush is eying a plethora of emergency policy moves to simply try and keep ownership rates stable.

You can not help but wonder whether or not many Americans would have been better off if Bush simply left the mortgage market alone.

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Monday, September 3, 2007

the psychology of the subprime mortgage

So why do people take out sub-prime loans? Don't they realize that they won't be able to afford the ensuing 28 years of mortgage payments? I think a big part of the reason sub-prime loans remain so seductive, even when the financial terms are so atrocious, is that they take advantage of a dangerous flaw built into our brain. This flaw is rooted in our emotional brain, which tends to overvalue immediate gains (like a new house) at the expense of future costs (high interest rates). Our feelings are thrilled by the prospect of a new home, but can't really grapple with the long-term fiscal consequences of the decision. Our impulsivity encounters little resistance, and so we sign on the bottom line. We want the house. We'll figure out how to pay for it later.

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Hedge Fund Implode O Meter

The "imploded" list contains hedge- or hedge-like funds which have gone through some sort of permanent adverse change. This is a somewhat subjective call, and does not necessarily mean total shutdown or bankruptcy. It can also mean steep and rapid mark-downs in net asset value; or abnormal "bail-out" by corporate parents or peers in order to avoid write-downs and provide liquidity. The funds are of any type and sector.

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Bush's Bogus Bail Out: Introduction To Tony Soprano Economics 101

In the current George W. Bush-Tony Soprano, infamous main character of the HBO TV series "The Sopranos", scheme, every time a corporate player commits fraud, he gets to keep the profits, and borrowers have to pay an inflation tax as a result.

Eventually, this results in the fraudsters owning more and more of the nation and world economy until they own it all.

Money is simply printed out of thin air to bail out the fraudsters which causes all of our expenses to rise because we don't have the rigged income to hedge those costs as the fraudsters do.

We have only begun to see the reverberations of the mortgage meltdown. They will be as sweeping and mind boggling as global warming or an earthquake measuring 10 on the Richter scale. Tony Soprano economics aren't necessarily noisy, but they are gargantuan in their reach and ramifications.

Global economic meltdown, initiated by the ruling elite of the United States with full knowledge of omnipresent, pervasive global resource depletion-or as some have called it "Peak Everything", will obliterate the American middle class and result in the ownership of the planet by a voracious ruling elite.

Tony's predecessor said it best decades before Tony was even a twinkle in his father's eye:

"Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."

Al Capone

Column: Carolyn Baker

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Sunday, September 2, 2007

oh, those energy markets...

oh, those energy markets..., originally uploaded by courtneyBolton.

"Amaranth Advisors, the $9.2 billion hedge fund that lost $6.5 billion in less than a month, is preparing to shut down. Nicholas Maounis, the founder of the hedge fund, sent a letter to investors last night informing them that the fund was suspending all redemptions..."

"...Amaranth is only one of 9,000 hedge funds that collectively manage an estimated $1.2 trillion in assets -- a size and scope undreamed of a decade ago."

Uploaded by courtneyBolton on 12 Oct 06, 2.15AM IST.
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