Housing bubble is spreading overseas

Washington -- Britain, Spain, India and Ireland are feeling the effects of falling real estate prices as the U.S. housing bubble spreads around the world, analysts said.

The International Monetary fund estimates homes in Spain, where prices tripled in the past 10 years, are overvalued by 15 percent, The New York Times reported. In parts of India, houses have declined 20 percent in the past year.

In Ireland, a home bought for $575,000 by university administrator Emma Linnane in May of 2006 would sell for about $475,000 in the spring of 2008, the report said.

"I'll let reality hit me when I go to sell it," Linnane said.

In Britain, mortgage approvals have dropped 31 percent this year.

"The problems in the U.S. are being transmitted to Europe," Michael Ball, a professor of economics at the University of Reading in Britain, told the
Times.

"What's happening now is an awful lot more grief than we expected," he said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.