a question for the gold bugs, page-24

2nd domino to drop. Given this is yet to hit the Australian housing market - which it will - then the talk will be about interest rate cuts in Australia.

By the way, before a debate ensues - it should read the AUD will not appreciate against the USD as much as most people predict.


"U.K. House Prices Fall the Most Since 1992, HBOS Says (Update2)

By Svenja O'Donnell and Brian Swint

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.K. house prices dropped by the most since 1992 in March as the seizure of credit markets worldwide forced banks to pull mortgage offers, a report by HBOS Plc showed.

The average cost of a home in Britain fell 2.5 percent to 191,556 pounds ($379,000) from February, HBOS, the U.K.'s biggest mortgage lender, said in a statement on the Regulatory News Service today. The 1 percent drop in the first three months of this year from the fourth quarter was the biggest since 1995.

The pound fell after the report on speculation that the Bank of England will reduce the benchmark lending rate on April 10 for the third time since December to prevent an economic slump. Abbey, the U.K. unit of Spain's Banco Santander SA, today became the last major British lender to withdraw its 100 percent mortgage as rising funding costs hampers banks' ability to lend."