Each week, Report on Business editors choose five stories that shouldn't be missed. Here are the 'must reads' for the week of Feb. 1, 2010.
|
It's a deal so big - and so bad - that one observer mused it was the city's worst property transaction since a group of Native Americans were swindled out of the island of Manhattan by Dutch settlers. Struck at the height of the real-estate boom, the $5.4-billion (U.S.) purchase of two storied New York apartment complexes finally crashed to earth in late January when the owner walked away, turning over the keys to a group of creditors. The deal's failure is a harbinger of trouble ahead in the U.S. commercial real estate market, where prices have tumbled but many say the woes have just begun. Much like overstretched homeowners, developers borrowed heavily to buy office buildings, shopping malls, hotels, and apartments across the U.S.
|
The federal Competition Bureau has launched an aggressive attack on the Canadian Real Estate Association, challenging its rules governing the Multiple Listing Service and calling for a radical change in how homes are sold in Canada. "Our concern is that [CREA]are improperly and unlawfully leveraging [their control over MLS]in order to impose these restrictions and to deny competitive forces and to deny good old-fashioned market competition," said Competition Commissioner Melanie Aitken. "This case is focused pure and simple: Let consumers have the choice, let agents have the opportunity to satisfy and serve those choices."
Share your experiences with other readers at The Globe's discussion forums
|
Europe is scrambling to stop a spiralling debt crisis that threatens its monetary union and the fragile global economy. Germany, Europe's most powerful economy, is reported to be leading an effort to backstop Greece and other troubled members of the 16-member euro zone, which share a common currency that has come under increasing pressure amid fears of wider credit troubles. The problems of countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal, each in a fiscal mess, have rippled through global stock, bond and currency markets for weeks as investors worry about a new credit crisis based in Europe. Repeated promises by Greece to get its fiscal mess under control amid severe austerity measures have failed to win investors over, leading to the latest plan being considered by the wider EU.
|
Ottawa is considering new rules that would force banks to use tougher criteria to evaluate mortgage borrowers, a move to ensure that consumers aren't taking on more debt than they can handle when they buy a home. The key proposal under discussion would see the creation of new conditions the banks would have to follow when determining whether a customer can afford a mortgage, according to sources. Those rules would require banks to consider whether a person who takes out a variable-rate mortgage on a home can continue to make the payments if interest rates were to go up significantly.
Share your thoughts at The Globe's forums
|
|
Beginning Friday evening, people tuning into the Vancouver Olympics across the globe will see the Games in the opening theatrics, the helix etchings of blades on ice, the patriotism of the podiums. But a tireless group of self-described "research geeks" see the Olympics as something else entirely: a giant petri dish. NBC, the network that paid $820-million (U.S.) for the rights to broadcast the Games in the U.S., has put almost as much thought into tracking viewer behaviour as covering the Games. The peacock is rolling out a massive research effort - the second of its kind for the U.S. broadcaster and the first during the Winter Olympics - to attempt to understand how audiences behave.