Sunday, April 22nd, 2007
Posted by Overseas Property Mall in
London Property
It could be the stuff of World War III: Arabs, Americans and Russians trying to outfox each other and seize control of valuable land. A new terror crisis? A stormy session of the United Nations? No: this is a typical scene from central London’s super-wealthy and overheated housing market, where the rich and famous compete for the rarest of commodities - a perfect property in a prime location.
The whole of the London property market may be hot at the moment, with the average asking price nearly £379,000, according to property website Rightmove, but central west London - from Kensington and Holland Park in the west, through Bayswater to the north of Hyde Park, past the mews of Mayfair and Knightsbridge and down to Belgravia and Chelsea in the south - is at melting point.
According to Rightmove, in Kensington and Chelsea average property prices have soared by £120,000 to £1,329,878 in the past month and by £620,000 in a year.
There are two reasons for this extraordinary increase: the first is pure economics: there are far more wealthy buyers than there are homes for sale. The second is status: when the world’s wealthiest buyers want to add another prestigious address to their real estate portfolio, they look to Pimlico rather than Paris, to Marylebone instead of Manhattan.
‘London has what the world’s richest people want - security,’ says Charles Peerless of Winkworth estate agents. ‘It speaks the new universal language of English, has an easy air hub at Heathrow, good schools, a welcoming tax regime for foreign owners, and the world’s financial capital in the City.’
In the past year Peerless has visited Singapore, Dubai, the US and (three times) Shanghai, to explain London’s property market to wealthy would-be buyers.
‘The number of high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) is expanding more rapidly in North America than in Europe for the first time since 2001, while Singapore, South Africa, Hong Kong, India and Australia have seen the highest growth in HNWI numbers,’ explains Liam Bailey of Knight Frank, an estate agent that at any one time has about 300 of London’s most expensive homes on its sales books.
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Tags: london+property, billionaire, high+net-worth+individual, HNWI
Speculators from Wenzhou who contributed to the hike in real estate prices in China’s large cities, are moving their money to Malaysia.
A tour group is departing from Wenzhou for Kuala Lumpur and Genting on Friday. With most of the members being entrepreneurs and professional investors, the group looks like it will be doing more scouting property than sight-seeing.
Wenzhou is located in coastal Zhejiang Province, the richest area on the Chinese mainland, and many of the people there accumulated their wealth from manufacturing clothes and commodities such as lighters and drinking straws. They have invested in many cities across the country. Many have bought hundreds of apartments, spending tens of millions yuan. A few residential developments in Shanghai were bought in wholesale, such as The Xiangmei Garden and The Shimao Riverside Garden.
This time, the investors are going to Malaysia for their first overseas purchases because of the high return on investment, the Malaysian government invites of foreign investment and the convenience of getting there from China.
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Tags: property+china, real+estate+malaysia, property+overseas, real+estate+china
Finally got hold of a quality rotating tower video. This is an interesting piece from CNBC on good old Dubai featuring the rotating tower in Jumeirah Village….it’s a US$350m off plan 68-storey hotel condo & office tower designed by Italian architect David Fisher. Each floor individually rotates 360 degrees, constantly changing the shape of the building.
Tags: dubai+property, duba+real+estate, UAE+property, UAE+real+estate, jumeirah+village, architecture, structures
House prices in France have skyrocketed by about 210% since 1995, making homeowners including 180,000 second home owning Brits well pleased to see their investments soar. But in recent times, the French market appears to have slowed down, from double-digit gains to about 7.2% in 2006 and a sudden fall to the negative at 0.6% in January this year.
Experts and economists attribute this pandemic to the already cooling US property market & economy. Jean-Paul Six, chief Europe economist for Standard & Poor’, was quoted as saying: “I think we will see falling house prices in France during the coming months and that is going to cause headlines. It is the delayed effect of rising interest rates, which have already gone up seven times to 3.75pc, and continue further up.”
In Europe, the boom has not only been restricted to France alone, but Britain, Spain, Ireland, Scandinavia, Holland and Italy have all enjoyed a housing boom of sorts in the past decade. The exceptions to this have been Germany and Switzerland, where the property market has been flat since 1996.
Spain is where the bubble is really evident, with soaring house prices; homeowners have witnessed a rise of about 270% in the last ten years. And with Spanish banks preference for floating rate mortgages or fixed ones, 93% of Spanish mortgages have been issued on this basis. France compared to this, looks as solid as a fortress because French banks normally restrict lending to a maximum of 75% LTV. Another factor to look out for is household debt to disposable income ratio which in France is a mere 65%, whereas in Britain a stout 146%, and Spain a slimmer 115%.
What has emerged from this French property scare is the glut of housing in France, in part due to an overheated construction industry that could well impact negatively on The French property market. Anyone for Croatia? Read more on Telegraph.
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Tags: france+property, europe+property, property+boom, property+bubble, real+estate+crash
Abu Dhabi, an obscure – yet substantial – oil producer in the Middle East is seeking to take the world by storm in it’s largest up scale venture.
The precedent has already been set by it’s neighbouring city, Dubai, which became a global commercial and tourist hub when it’s oil supply began running low creating a necessity for wealth replacement. Part of Dubai’s step to recovery included the $1 billion Burj Al Arab hotel, looser land sales laws, and what will become the world’s tallest building among other things. Although many believe that Dubai was built too quickly and urgently, it continues to be a stronghold in the Middle East and is giving Abu Dhabi a good run for its money.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the 46-year-old crown prince of Abu Dhabi, has high hopes of putting his little city on the world map. Considered the richest city in the world, each of Abu Dhabi’s 420,000 citizens are worth $17 million. Over $1 trillion is invested worldwide by this one city alone, and an unfathomable amount of money is being put right back into its soil.
Etihad Airways, one of Abu Dhabi’s first projects along with its $6.8 billion airport expansion, included an $8 billion order with Airbus. Although it covers all major destinations in the globe, the successful airline industry of Dubai makes Abu Dhabi’s seem pointless and so far apparently unprofitable. The immaculate Emirates Palace hotel was soon to follow with suites costing between $1,000 and $10,000-per-night. The practicality of the hotel is debatable as it seems to serve as a landmark rather than a place of lodging. However, with popularity being the primary goal for this city, it serves it’s purpose well.
The most crucial change in Abu Dhabi has been the relaxing of it’s property ownership and selling laws to allow foreigners 99-year leaseholds and giving citizens the ability to sell land. Native investors that have settled in Dubai are now returning to their home city in a bid not to miss this ‘gold rush’.
Abu Dhabi’s most recent endeavour is Saadiyat Island (meaning island of happiness in Arabic), a glowing $30 billion island with two golf courses, 29 hotels and enough housing accommodation for 150,000 people. Numerous other features on the island make it the ideal tourist destination.
Will the world notice Abu Dhabi’s gigantic strides in creating an empire of wealth? Only time will tell, and perhaps one day Abu Dhabi will be to the Arabia what Tokyo is to Japan. Read more on CNNMoney.
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Tags: abu+dhabi, UAE, united+arab+emirates, dubai, real+estate, wealth
