Harsh news now coming from the US, where foreclosures are running at double the rate of last year, and are now almost happening at a rate of 200,000 per month.

From what I’m observing in the US, if the reaction to this crisis turns out to be further rate cuts (translation, ‘let’s inflate our way out of this problem’), then I think the trade of year in 2008 will be to short the US Dollar. Considering the currency is already so weak, this could be far scarier than a lapse of liquidity in the mortgage bond markets.

Given the choice between seeing some banks and builders go bankrupt during a few years of painful unwinding, and triggering hyperinflation in the world’s largest economy, I would much prefer the former.

Link: U.S. Foreclosures Rise Sharply in July: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

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The first paragraph from this article in yesterday’s Observer about Fed intervention in financial markets:

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke could be forced to cut US mortgage rates within days if Friday’s rally on Wall Street fails to contain the fallout from the lending crisis.

What??….This is some really sloppy writing; Bernanke can’t “cut US mortgage rates”; and how is a rally in Wall Street meant to “contain the fallout from the lending crisis”?

This is writing that reminds me of the spam-blogs, where robots steal content from real blogs, mix it up, and republish it on fake blogs. Such fake blogs from a distance look legitimate, but are really just a mish-mash of ideas that make no sense whatsoever. Just like this article’s first paragraph.

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UPDATE: In the end Deutsche Telekom ended up buying the whole of ImmoScout. It was a pre-existing shareholder, and my guess is that they exercised a right of first refusal to PBL’s offer. At least this outcome seems much more logical, although it’s a bit boring: is a state-owned telephone monopoly really the best owner for a booming, successful real estate portal?

Link: FT.de (in German)
Also commented on today by Jesus Encinar on his blog (in Spanish)

In the past couple years in Europe, most of the large ‘web 1.0′ survivors in online real estate have been realizing exits through acquisition or IPO.

One of the major acquirers has been Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, through its controlling stake in Australia’s online leader realestate.com.au. They have entered Europe by buying the UK’s Propertyfinder, Italy’s Casa.it, and Luxembourg’s AtHome.lu.

So it was pretty weird to see one of the last remaining big national players, Germany’s Immobilien Scout (aka ImmoScout), rumored to have been ‘in play’ for a while, finally sold to PBL……….who??? Exactly.

PBL, it turns out, is one of Australia’s largest media companies. It’s publicly traded, and has interests in magazines, TV, gaming, and increasingly, online media. A sort of mini-News Corp. But without any meaningful online real estate holdings.

Except now, this Aussie firm controls the leading real estate website in Germany. Although it could be a purely financial investment, it rather looks like some kind of chess move as it now controls a very important asset that effectively blocks News Corp’s roll-up of Europe’s online real estate sector.

My guess is that PBL bought ImmoScout to use as a future bargaining chip to trade against some other asset they would want from News Corp.