Property Investment News Around the World

Some headlines and stories from the property investment world, showing some considerable volatility in the markets still.

• Record price set in Perth, Australia. An apartment sold in Perth for a record $4.2 million. Yes, I am as shocked as you are. God forbid some one sold it to themselves for a headline.
• UAE developers switch from luxury to low income housing. Many developers are facing huge losses, enormous drops in share value and a lack of sales, causing them to rethink their models and switch to low income housing instead.
• The latest rescue package for the USA includes a plan to reduce mortgage payments. But not principal. Hard to imagine many being prepare to switch to a 70-year mortgage, which is what I suspect this will amount to. Most of the government initiatives seem intent on passing on the current generation's debt to future generations. What a wonderful legacy.
• House prices in the UK saw a brief 1.2% increase in asking prices. Optimism or denial?
• Famous architects, Hertzog & de Meuron are to build three new towers in London. Assuming they can get permission t0 destory one of London's landmarks, Guys Hospital.
• The Candy brothers need cash, and have several London homes for sale. Considering one of the properties is for sale at £10 million more than was paid at the height of the housing boom, it may be that they are open to offers.
• More losses at Lloyds cause shares to fall again, prompting talk of nationalization, which is of course, strenuously denied. The denial is astounding. Sooner or later we are going to have to bite the bullet and nationalize the banks.
• The German government is considering emergency measure to rescue Hypo Real Estate. The tricky thing is to do it in a way that is within the law, although it seems there is no alternatives now and shareholders will, rightfully, lose their money.
• Vietnam reduces interest rates, in the hope that this will spur real estate sales. One look at the US and the UK should be enough to dispell that notion.
• Anglo Irish bank is foreclosing on developer air Levy. I have a feeling we are going to see an awful lot of commercial foreclosures as banks aggresively attempt to rebalance their books.
• Atlantic Yards gets a breather. The beleaguered Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn won a reprieve Friday when its lender agreed to extend its loan rather than demand full payment this month. The developer Bruce Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, has been scrambling to keep alive his proposed $4 billion project.