Property developers looking to expand their existing projects or commence new projects before selling out existing developments can, in today’s climate, find the sourcing of new development loans very difficult.

So where do property developers turn when they want to take opportunity of potential developments? Development loans are available to property developers and builders with proven track records and who meet the lending requirements.

Development loans through “Mezzanine funding” can help property developers double their return, spread their risk and increase their development capacity.

High Street Banks have traditionally funded 50% of the site cost and 100% of the construction cost which frequently represented 70% – 80% of the total residential required for a project.

CALMEZ now can assist in financing builders and property developers with mezzanine funding.

This Mezzanine funding provides the full shortfall of residential development loans for a particular development.

This highly geared mix of senior debt and Mezzanine funding (which equated to the total residential development funding required) was created to enable the property developers to use their own funds for the acquisition of new sites without having to wait for earlier projects to complete.

Following the banking crisis and the ensuing recession, which saw residential property value fall by 20% to 30%, the High Street Banks have largely withdrawn from the residential development funding market.

- a few of the High Street Banks are currently testing the residential development loans market by offering to fund up to a maximum of 60% (but typically) 55% of the total residential Development loans .

This leaves property builders and developers to find 40% – 45% of the residential property development loans at a time where a large proportion of developers are struggling to keep their property development businesses alive!

The growth of two specialist property banks together with mezzanine funders (including CALMEZ) are now between them, able to offer selected developers up to 90% of the required residential development funding in an attempt to re-establish the property market by providing residential development loans essentially required for this recovery!

When we start looking at the political posturing around the world, we see world leaders and their advisors making serious mistakes. The President of China made a huge mistake when he condemned the United States of America at the Davos World Economic Forum. Now, it is true that there were many people upset with the Credit Default Swaps, and to the Mortgage Bundles that helped bring down the global economy.

Still, the president of China owes the United States a great sense of gratitude. If it were not for the US middle class consumer, China could not have experienced the 10% GDP growth year-over-year that they have for the last two decades. In fact, China would not have the third of fourth largest GDP of any nation on this planet if it weren’t for the United States buying all of their exports.

With the United States in recession, China has noted that their exports have fallen over 35% by their estimates, although global economic analysts, and even the factors considered when reporting the Baltic index show it to be more like 50%.

Meanwhile, China has claimed that they have achieved 7 to 8% growth in 2009; that simply isn’t so, they are making up numbers, but since they own the media, they can control what is said.

But you can’t fool all the investors all of the time, and a 25% hit in the Shanghai index shows a completely different story.

Did the Chinese president shoot himself in the foot by condemning US monetary policy at both the Davos World Economic Forum and the BRIC Conference? If you will recall at the Brazil-Russia-India-China meeting, the Chinese president stood with the leaders of those other nations and suggested that perhaps, we need a different global currency than the US dollar.

That is completely outrageous, as if the Russian Ruble, or the Chinese Yuan could be a replacement currency, and even if they knew currency was created, who in the WTO would trust using it, not me.

If China is upset with US monetary policy, then perhaps China should change some of its policies for free trade, and the way it float currency.

China has taken advantage of the United States trading policies and caused problems for their greatest trading partner. If anyone is to be blamed for what has happened, it really would be China. If the Chinese do not stop talking trash about the United States, then the US consumer will turn on China and boycott all of their products.

Nothing could be worse for the future of China that, because if those peasants don’t get some work soon they are going to starve, then they will riot, and then they will overthrow the government of China. Historically that’s what happens, and just because we live in the 21st century does not mean it cannot happen today.

The United States and China are friends, and the Chinese government needs to start acting as if it is a friend. That is if they want to continue their GDP growth and ever reach Super World Power Status. Please consider all this. Not long ago, I mentioned this to Guang Wu, the author of a new book; “China: Has the Last Opportunity Passed by!?” and he said there are many challenges that lie ahead for their great nation, and nothing was set in stone, and all issues should be discussed.

If you were building a time machine, you need only find a way of travelling back two years to find a land of plenty. Remembering how good it was almost brings tears to your eyes. Every week a bank, credit card company or finance company would mail you their latest offers. Cheap overdrafts, reduced interest with expanding credit limits or yet another way of converting that positive housing equity into cash for spending. There seemed no possibility of this coming to an end. Yet suddenly the price of gas was up to $4 and more a gallon. That proved just a passing straw in the wind. A month or so later came the bank failures, the credit crunch and a full recession with major problems of unemployment. Comfortable lives disappeared. Family budgets suddenly had to pay for debt reduction. Everyone was looking for ways to save money.

Lives must go on but the problem was how to stay mobile. During the good times, towns and cities had exploded. Gone where the high density housing developments close to workplaces. In their place came suburbs and then exurbs. People were organizing their lives around private transport and expecting to commute further and further to get anything done. What do you do when you find you cannot afford to replace your current vehicles but live too far away from work, schools and convenient shops? There is no private transport so, as a first response, you are looking at constantly patching up your old vehicles to keep them moving. But small repairs become major repairs, particularly if your mileage is high or you get into a traffic accident. You look around the neighborhood for carpools. This can work for routine journeys, but it ties you to other people’s timetables. That leaves renting.

If you decide to drive other people around and take payment, you need to check whether your existing policy covers you. The majority of insurers believe taking money makes you a taxi business and they want a higher premium. As with all insurance, use the online search engines to find affordable cover. But, in some parts of the US, it’s now economic to give up ownership. There are new rental systems allowing you to take a vehicle from a local pick-up point as and when you need it. Booking online, you only pay for the vehicle for the hours you use it. Economists have calculated the average yearly spend on car ownership is about $8,000. The average hourly rental rate is $15. That’s 533 hours a year in a rental car before you pay more than an owner. But here comes the warning. The rental car always comes with cheap auto insurance, but the companies are only interested in protecting their capital. You are usually asked to pay more to top up on cover against medical expenses for your own injuries. But even with this extra premium, it’s often significantly cheaper to rent as needed. Even better, you do not pick up from local offices where sales agents pitch extra options. Pick-ups and drop-offs are in local garages with no formalities. Check out what services are on offer in your area. If the cheap auto insurance terms are right, you will save to go down this road.

When you look around your neighborhoods, it’s hard to find any good news. Friends and neighbors may have lost their jobs or be on short-time. There are foreclosed properties on every street. Shops and businesses have been closing down with increasing frequency. These are the signs of a real recession where unemployment and poverty stalk the land. The cause of all this pain is not hard to find. We have all been living beyond our means. When the banks and credit card companies offered us more money to borrow, we just took it. Why bother to save when the value of our homes only goes up? Let’s plan for our retirement by borrowing cheap money and buying stocks and other more risky investments. No-one ever loses if they follow the advice of the credit rating agencies. Well, we know better now. What goes up can also come down. What is given a triple A rating can be junk tomorrow.

In the midst of all this chaos, the credit card operators have been cutting back on the borrowing limits. This has forced pain on us for two reasons. Firstly, finding the money to pay down our debts more quickly means redesigning the family budget. Sacrifices have to be made. Secondly, the way the credit score is calculated depends in part on the extent to which we use the credit cards we have. If the limits are reduced, we look like bad risks because the amount borrowed is closer to the limit. We have less money available to borrow and cut down on card usage so we can repay faster. Put the two together and the score falls. This is a direct criticism of the methods used to calculate the scores. It produces a fundamentally unfair result during a recession.

This would not be a problem if the credit score was only used by banks and credit card operators. But it’s also used by companies to help decide whether to employ you, by landlords deciding whether to rent to you and by insurance companies deciding whether you are a responsible person. National figures show more than half all insurance companies use credit scores as a key factor in deciding your premium rate. This is extraordinary. There is only one possible effect of being in debt when it comes to the way in which you drive. If you cannot afford to repair your vehicle, you drive defensively to reduce the risk of an accident.

Some states like California and Massachusetts have banned the use of credit score for this purpose, but they are a minority. They cite discrimination as a reason for the ban. The majority of the population without access to banking services and credit cards fall into minority racial groups. When they do not have a credit score, they are forced to pay a higher premium simply because of who they are, not how they drive. So, when you are looking for affordable cover, get the maximum possible number of car insurance quotes to find the best policies. If you live in a state which refuses the regulation of the car insurance market, contact your local government representatives and tell them how much pain you are suffering because of this unfair use of credit scores.

Urban sprawl never used to be an issue. Even though the latest development might be miles from where you work or the nearest shops, this was never a problem. Most families owned two vehicles. Some three or more. No-one walked. Everyone just jumped in the nearest vehicle and off they went without a second thought until the price of gas rocketed up. Now we have the credit crunch and a recession just bottoming out. Car ownership has become an expensive proposition. Too expensive for some who have been reborn as a one-car family to cut their losses. The first step in crisis management is to find out which of your vehicles is the cheapest make and model to insure. Now balance that against the likely costs of maintenance and repair over the next twelve months. And which will sell for the highest price? When you know which vehicle you are keeping, maximize the number of discounts on the policy, including bundling auto and home together with the same insurer. Except, one vehicle for a busy family may not be practical. What are the options?

Many families talk to their neighbors and work out a carpool. This is reasonably easy to organize for routine journeys. But there is one slight problem. If you are going to carry passengers, you should have insurance to pay their medical costs should they be injured in an accident. It is not safe to drive your neighbors around on the state’s minimum liability cover. Then we come to the always difficult question of sharing the costs of the gas. If the passengers always pay something towards the cost of the journey, many insurers treat this as a business arrangement and require the vehicle owner to take out a commercial policy as a taxi. Needless to say, this turns a friendly social service into an expensive excuse to argue with your neighbors over prices. Of course, you could all agree to lie about the arrangement. But the stories can change rapidly if everyone ends up in a hospital and big bills are presented.

The second option is the new rental plans which site vehicles for rent by the hour in local garages. You book what you want over the internet, travel to the garage for the pick-up and drop it off at the same garage when your time is up. The cost per hour on the standard plans are attractive and, assuming you do not want a vehicle more than an average of one hour every day, you will save money on car ownership. But you do need to look carefully at the insurance offered in the standard plans. Some have poor cover of medical expenses for you as the driver and passengers. Others do not include the loss of use charge if the vehicle is off the road being repaired. Always read the small print. Summing up, finding insurance for a single vehicle means getting multiple auto insurance quotes and finding the one that works for you. If you are going to use your car to drive neighbors around, you also need to get auto insurance quotes to cover the additional liabilities. If you use one of the new rental plans, consider paying extra for LDW which gives more comprehensive protection against loss.