• MANCHESTER developer Modus seals £296m property deal in Romania, with sign up of European retailer Carrefour as anchor tenant at the £296m Colosseum shopping centre, in the heart of Bucharest. [Manchester Evening News]
• Average US REITs yield drop to 3.6% – Have REITs Lost Their Footing? [Business Week]
• Austrians Opening Three Factories in Bulgaria [Focus Information Agency]
• Koreans find dream houses abroad [JoongAng Daily]
• Blogging for Property Sales [NY Times]

• Foreign property investors purchase whole villages in Bulgaria [Sofia Echo]
• Goldman Sachs and Indian-based real estate company Unitech are close to jointly setting up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for investments in India’s real estate sector [Economic Times India]
• Vietnam: Real estate projects in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) numerous, but are having difficulty finding investors [VN Economy]
• Sofia is Europe’s Cheapest City for Luxury Apartment Buyers [Sofia News Agency]
• Japan Real Estate Shares Rise ASIA MARKETPLACE [Bloomberg]
• India: Citigroup Property plans US$100 mln luxury hotel in Bangalore [Antara News]
• Malaysian partners sought for green property projects [Business Times Malaysia]

International real estate news articles worth reading in the past week in our opinion:

Malaysia’s biggest property developers; Maxisegar & MK Land who account for 37 percent of outstanding corporate bonds worth $5.4 have had their debt ratings lowered by The Central Bank – Bank Negara Malaysia. [IHT]

In the US, Seattle’s metro area has been ranked as the No. 1 most desirable place to buy and own office property in the US by 600 real-estate professionals [Seattle Times].

Top international property consultancy, Colliers have been appointed by India´s leading real-estate developer, DLF Ltd., to offer retail development consultancy on its flagship shopping centres, Mumbai Mall and Mall Of India. The Indian retail real estate market has a predicted double digit growth rate, with more than 300 shopping centres expected to come on line by 2010 [AME Info]

In Hongkong, HSBC (Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp.) said it will cut its prime lending rate, to 7.75% from 8.00% revive HK’s moribund property market [MarketWatch]

India is looking forward to Morgan Stanley’s biggest ever property fund that is going to pour in US$8billion (US$2billion of which will be invested in India & China), [Moneycontrol India]

There has been suprising growth in The Czech Republic’s commercial real estate sector with office, retail, logistics & warehousing space experiencing record level rents and sales [Czech Business Weekly]

According to the Central Bank of Bahrain, bank credit to Bahrain’s private sector hit a record high in June with loans to construction and real estate growing 50 per cent from a year earlier. [The Peninsula – Qatar]

Have a great weekend guys!