US housing starts surged in September after falling for two months, but a drop in building permits suggested slower future growth, according to official data released on Tuesday.

GMAC Mortgage will pay USD230m to borrowers as part of a government review of potentially flawed foreclosures, says the Federal Reserve.

Those who believe, probably correctly, that economic trends in the USA are always mirrored, to an extent, a few months later in South Africa will take heart from the latest US housing data published by Standard & Poor/Case-Shiller and analysed in a recent article by “The Economist”.

Towards the end of 2010, Bill Rawson, Chairman of Rawson Properties, said in an off-the-cuff comment that he could think of no better place for a South African with limited knowledge of world markets to invest in property right now than in South Africa itself