FT: How much does the Basel Committee influence the property values in Europe?

Sir, I refer to FT Special Report on Property Europe October 18.

I wonder has anyone of the contributors to this report, or anyone else in FT for that matter, tried to figure out how much of the property values in Europe derives from the distortion produced by bank regulations?

Info: For the purpose of deciding the capital requirements of banks Basel II (and III) set a risk weight of 35% for when banks finance residential housing, and one of 100% for when banks finance the “risky” SMEs and entrepreneurs that are to help home buyers to find the jobs that will allow the house owners to pay their mortgages and the utilities.

Sure that has to mean something for the current and for the future value of properties in Europe. How much? I haven’t the faintest! Except that it’s a lot!

PS. In fact regulators make banks finance the “safe” basements where the young can live with their parents, not the new “risky” jobs they need Per Kurowski

@PerKurowski ©

Why should banks earn higher risk adjusted returns on equity financing property than when financing businesses?

Sir, John Plender writes “Historically, the biggest single cause of financial crises in the UK has been the bursting of property bubbles” “BoE lacks tools needed to prick property bubble” September 25.

If that is so, which I have no reason to suspect it is not then would he, or Lord Turner, explain to us, why were regulators allowing banks to lend to property against less capital than when doing much other lending? Did that not signify that banks would be earning higher risk adjusted returns on equity on property lending than on other lending? Did that not doom banks, next time a property bubble burst, that everything would be so much worse, since banks would be standing there with especially little capital?

BoE does not lack tools. It just needs to arm itself with a new generation of regulators capable of understanding that risk-taking is not something dirty, even when banks do it. And of understanding that there is nothing as risky as excessive risk-aversion.