by Calculated Risk on 4/14/2008 01:03:00 AM

From the NY Times: Housing Woes in U.S. Spread Around Globe

In Ireland, Spain, Britain and elsewhere, housing markets that soared over the last decade are falling back to earth. Property analysts predict that some countries ... will face an even more wrenching adjustment than that of the United States ...

Once-sizzling housing markets in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states are cooling rapidly, as nervous Western Europeans stop buying investment properties in Warsaw, Tallinn, Estonia and other real estate Klondikes.

Further east, in India and southern China, prices are no longer surging. With stock markets down sharply after reaching heady levels, people do not have as much cash to buy property. Sales of apartments in Hong Kong, a normally hyperactive market, have slowed recently, with prices for mass-market flats starting to drop.

In New Delhi and other parts of northern India, prices have fallen 20 percent over the last year. ...

For countries like Ireland, where prices were even more inflated than in the United States, it has been a painful education, as homeowners learn the American vocabulary of misery.

“We know we’re already in negative equity,” said Emma Linnane, a 31-year-old university administrator.

"Negative equity" will be a strong candidate for the phrase of 2008.