Posts for 'Real Estate' Category

Canada's largest shopping mall operator, will seek more deals in the United States in the next three to five years after unveiling its first investment south of the border earlier this week. The REIT on Monday said it forged a $181 million alliance with Cedar Shopping Centers (CDR.N), taking a minority stake in the U.S. company and forming a joint venture on 124 shopping centers in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic states.

"We intend over the next year or so to take advantage of what we believe is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to buy quality properties on an accretive basis, to be able to do this in a North American field, rather than Canada alone," said Edward Sonshine, chief executive of RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust, said in a conference call with analysts. "It enables us to pick the absolute best opportunities from a much larger pool," he said a day after the company posted a 66 percent decline in funds from operations.

RioCan, which owns more than 200 properties in Canada, has largely stayed away from acquisitions for nearly four years, but now expects to lay the foundation for a major expansion. In the short term, any deals are likely to take the form of joint ventures rather than outright acquisitions, Sonshine said.

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Dubai house prices fell 16 per cent in the second quarter of this year, after rising sharply at the beginning of the year, and are expected to remain flat for at least the next 12 months, according to a new report by a leading international estate agent yesterday.

Issued on the eve of the biggest property exhibition of the year, the report by Colliers International indicates that a six-year-old boom in Dubai’s freehold market – which saw prices rising 78 per cent in the year to June – may finally have ended.Cityscape opens its doors to an expected 60,000 visitors today, amid widening uncertainty over the future of the global economy as the credit crunch curbs home buyers’ access to capital.

“In the first quarter, the average price went up by 43 per cent while in the second quarter they came down by 16 per cent,” said Ian Albert, a regional director at Colliers International.He attributed the drop to “seasonable” trends and a possible inkling among investors of the looming credit crunch.
Colliers now expects prices to remain flat until 2010.Dubai’s largest developer, Nakheel, defied the downturn by launching the world’s tallest tower.

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Interior designer refashions unsold house into office

National sales of existing homes rose 2% in May as the median sales prices dropped, but it doesn't mean the beleaguered housing market is staging a rebound.

In metro Detroit, sales rose 12.7% to 5,288 in May from 4,691 in May 2007, according to data from Realcomp, a multiple listing service based in Farmington Hills. The data represent sales handled by Realtors that closed in the month.

But when looking at sales recorded at the county level when deeds are filed, home sales were down 32% to 590 in Macomb County in May when compared with May 2007. And sales fell 21% to 956 in Oakland County compared with a year ago. Wayne County figures for May were not available.

U.S. sales of single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops increased by 2% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.99 million units in May from 4.89 million in April, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday.

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New York’s homeowners can’t be blamed for wanting relief from today’s heart-stopping property-tax bills. But a new call to cap property taxes for schools is an election-year gimmick that will do far more damage than good. Gov. David Paterson, who endorsed the idea on Tuesday, should take a deep breath and then call for a broader look at ways to make taxes fairer and the state’s contributions to schools more equitable.

The proposal would allow local property taxes for schools usually about 60 percent of the bill to increase at no more than 4 percent each year outside of the cities. To go over that cap, at least 55 percent of local voters would have to approve it. But as communities in California and Massachusetts have learned the hard way, a tax cap is a dangerously blunt instrument.

California’s schools have been forced to slash vital services. In Massachusetts, the state has tried to make up the difference by increasing its school budget by more than 8 percent after inflation, a leap that New York is unlikely to be able to maintain.

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House prices dipped slightly in February, says the government
UK house prices fell 0.1% between January and February, according to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG).
The government's official house price index, published by the DCLG, said the average home cost £205,102 in February, down from £205,339 in January.

Year-on-year though, UK house prices were 12.1% higher, the DCLG added.

The DCLG result differs from recent Halifax and Nationwide surveys which have shown house prices rising sharply.

People invest their hardly earned and valuable money in the stock market. It would not be wrong to say that they play with their fortunes. Most of the people who invest in the stock market lose everything and reach a position that they even don't have enough money to buy a begging bowl. So is not the case with real estate. You would have hardly heard about someone going bankrupt while investing in the real estate market. People who have rationally invested in the property market are making a good fortune as apparent from surging real estate prices everywhere around the world. The only thing this business requires is entrepreneurial skills and vision.