There is a risk that the US slowdown could be more severe as the housing market gets sharper than expected.  This is foreseen in global growth and financial markets.

The hope is that there will be a soft landing, which would produce weaker US growth with negative implications for financial markets. 

The most vulnerable segment of the U.S. housing market which generally carry interest rates higher than 8 percent and are designed for people who can't qualify for traditional mortgages because of low income or poor credit is the sub-prime mortgages.
 
"Indeed, we have seen that the delinquency rates among sub-prime borrowers have started to increase from a very low base and (are) still very low historically, but (they) have shown an increase in recent months and again that is the area of potential vulnerability," he said.
 
Last month, the U.S. Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes in the United States dropped 4.3 percent in July, the largest amount since February, while the inventory of unsold homes climbed to a record high.
 

  
Edwina Baniqued