Another morning, another look at how the market meltdown is affecting/could affect our local real estate markets.
1) Picking over AIG: LA Times: “Bargain hunters could snag some good deals by buying parts of troubled American International Group Inc.'s profitable subsidiaries in California and around the world, market analysts predicted Wednesday. Top-earning units that could be up for grabs in the state include 21st Century Insurance Co. of Woodland Hills, the state's seventh-largest automobile insurer, and International Lease Finance Corp. of Century City, which owns more than 950 commercial airliners.”
2). Lehman Bros’ has long been a friend to California: LA Times: “In 1875, when Farmers and Merchants Bank was on the edge of financial collapse, threatening to undermine Los Angeles' fledgling economy, Isaias Hellman, the bank's co-founder and the city's most astute financier, turned for help to a venerable East Coast institution: Lehman Bros.”
3) Investing-wise, you are on your own: NY Times: "Money market funds have been among the few places that investors could put their cash and sleep peacefully At the moment, that is not necessarily true."
4). Depression: WSJ: "This has been the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. There is no question about it," said Mark Gertler, a New York University economist who worked with fellow academic Ben Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman, to explain how financial turmoil can infect the overall economy. "But at the same time we have the policy mechanisms in place fighting it, which is something we didn't have during the Great Depression."
