News - Archive for March 2011

US Residential Market sees Dire Start to 2011

Just two metropolitan areas of the US witnessed positive year-on-year house price gains, the latest Standard and Poor's S and P/Case-Shiller Home Price report has revealed....

Foreign investors are remaining active in the Chinese property market, despite the country's government introducing a raft of tightening measures designed to cool to sector....

UAE Stable and Affordable Office Market

Political turmoil and continued economic uncertainty in the Middle East has helped make the UAE appear a stable and attractive option for company offices. With office rents in the emirates falling considerably over the past few years....

Following a successful sales performance in 2010, the Singapore property market has remained robust in the first quarter of 2011. Research by CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) has revealed that the total investment sales over the past three months....

The change in Stamp Duty, whilst positive for the larger investor and institutional buyer, is basically the death-knell for aspiring home owners under the age of 45...

International demand for property in London has helped to increase real estate values in the city, it has been claimed. Property consultancy Savills has claimed that London has experienced six quarters of consecutive growth....

The global property market recovery continued to rise in stature in the last quarter of 2010 with house values climbing 2.8 per cent, the latest data shows. Knight Frank's Global House Price Index has revealed that real estate values are have been enjoying a sustained period of growth...

US Commercial Property Rents to Rebound

Commercial property rents in the US are expected to reach their former peak levels by 2015, a recent forecast has suggested. Growth in warehouse and office rates is expected to drive the rebound, RREEF said....

More positive signs are emerging from the UK commercial property market, with occupier demand up six per cent in the first quarter of 2011. Preliminary figures released by Jones Lang LaSalle suggest that there has been a marked turnaround in the sector compared to 2010 and also point to a return of business confidence....

Growing investor confidence in commercial real estate market in the US has been highlighted with the results of a recent survey. The PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Real Estate Investor Survey has suggested that many buyers believe that the sector is slowly recovering....

Investors Welcome Stamp Duties Changes

Reforms to Stamp Duty Land Tax rules, as announced in yesterday's (March 23rd) budget, have been welcomed by UK's property investment bodies. Under new terms announced by chancellor George Osborne, the rate of Stamp Duty land Tax on purchases of multiple residential properties...

As a rule I personally tend to largely steer clear of politics for a several reasons. Firstly, because I am not a politician, it doesn't really matter what I think, if a change is made in parliament there is little I can do about it...

Measures designed to cool the property market in China are starting to have the desired effect on prices. In February, fewer large and medium cities in the country reported increases in home values. The measures, which were introduced by the Chinese government over the past year, include the banning of selling land at record high prices in an attempt to cool down the property market....

IPD Launches New European Index

The Investment Property Databank (IPD) has launched a new pan-European property fund index which will reveal the cross-border performance of real estate funds. Set to be released quarterly, the index is made up of 18 cross-border funds in the region, which represent approximately 82 per cent of the total market, Property Week reports....

US real estate has delivered its third strongest annual returns of the last decade during 2010, at 14.2 per cent. Measured by the IPD US Annual Property Index, the result indicates a substantial turnaround in the market following 2009...

Restrictions on foreign investment in Thailand mean that overseas buyers are increasingly being put off purchasing real estate in Bangkok...

The world has been forever changed by the first and worst international financial crisis since World War II and World War I before it. One of the main differences is that in the wake of the crisis, emerging markets are becoming dominant in the global economy.

Asian Property Ends 2010 Strongly

A rapid resurgence in capital values among prime properties, improving business sentiment and growing investor confidence ensured that Asian real estate continued to grow in stature at the end of 2010....

UK Commercial Recovery is Patchy

Overall recovery in the UK commercial property market is "very patchy" outside of London, Capital Economics has said. Figures from the Investment Property Databank show that during February, the UK commercial real estate sector saw capital growth of 0.2 per cent...

It's been a while since we ran a poll on IPINLive, the last one being the future of the Euro after the uproar concerning the bailout of Greece and Ireland - the results of which are surprisingly close...

Riskier assets in stable countries could present investors with the best opportunity to make substantial returns this year, it has been suggested. According to Stuart Fiertz, co-founder of Cheyne Capital Management, 2011 will be characterised by prime properties yielding less and emerging markets losing their stability....

Commercial real estate investors in the UK could be encountering problems with bank lending, according to the latest result of a Jones Lang LaSalle reports...

Investor interest in Asia Pacific property was up last year, with upmarket property group Savills reporting a near doubling of profits. The firm's Asia Pacific arm delivered an "outstanding performance" with revenues up 33 per cent to a record GBP 280 million...

Experts are predicting that 2011 will be a strong year for Real Estate Investment Trusts, (REITs) and particularly for those running Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).

Around the world, commercial property investment will rise to total USD 606 billion in 2011, a growth of 5-10%, according to a recent survey. According to Cushman and Wakefield's International Investment Atlas, the growth will be based on a massive increase in activity in the emerging Asian markets, especially China's second-tier cities...

Occupancy costs in European commercial real estate are expected to grow by two per cent year-on-year until 2015. This is according to research conducted by DTZ, which noted that rental increases will drive the rise....

Japan Land Values Fall 3% in 2010

Land price values in Japan fell by three per cent last year, following a period of sustained growth the previous year, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said in a report.....

Concerns surrounding the future of the UK jobs market are expected to hold back full recovery of the region's property sector. The March 2011 Building Societies Association Property Tracker survey has suggested that demand for property will remain weak, with job security acting as one of the main barriers for potential owners....

US Real Estate Investment Trusts have purchased USD 24 billion worth of properties in the last 12 months. This is more than triple what they spent in the 12 months previous, and commercial property transactions as a whole were twice as high in 2010 as in 2009, as the US market continues to turn bullish.

Investing in property using a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension) has a number of tax benefits and can be a flexible pension investment option