With the financial wounds many institutions are receiving right now, lending has reached an all time low. Many are therefore cashing in on existing assets to get some cash flow happening for refinancing purposes.
Property giant Savills has recently closed a massive deal in which they sold the Trade Square building in Hong Kong for an estimated US$200 million to get funds flowing again.
Asia is especially favoured right now by investors, since the market pressures those with huge mortgages to sell. Investors with plenty of cash flow can sit back quietly and wait for the housing prices to drop before they buy up big. This is especially true for American funds that are tied up in countries like Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and China.
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According to latest sources Malaysia’s real estate market is expected to reach a plateau this year. Having enjoyed fantastic growth over the years from 2003-2006 and a holding a steady market last year, experts predict there will be changes for the future caused by the U.S. market melt down.
Especially the growth in rentals and capital value is said to ease out by the end of 2008. There will also be an oversupply of yet to be finished residential developments, which will further stop the growth of recent years.
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An approximate 8 million Filipino workers are in overseas employment, giving them the chance of sending their hard earned money back to their home shores. At least that was the situation until the dollar started losing its value not so long ago.
With the weak U.S dollar come major challenges for all those overseas stationed Filipinos who were more or less responsible for the strong Philippines property boom of 2006 and 2007. Their local peso value has dropped by 10 percent since the fall of the dollar and this has caused a ripple effect in the community.
Where before workers would send their money home to invest into local properties, now they can hardly afford to do this anymore. With 1/5 of their income gone (in Philippine terms) the building boom has slowed down tremendously.
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The once richest lady in China’s “Babylon” has lost half of her fortune due to recent cracks in the Chinese property market. The 27 year old, once worth an estimated $17.5 billion has lost around half of her worth since taking her company public about one year ago.
Yang Huiyan is one out of 80% of people in China who top the richest people list, having managed to acquire a fortune with real estate investments. She is the major shareholder of Country Garden, a high end residential developer. The worst affected listings are those in the big cities of southern China, namely Shenzhen. Once a hot property market, the price of flats have fallen by 28% since October 2007.
Beijing on the other hand shows a somewhat level playing field with leveled prices but a lower rate of appreciation altogether.
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With this years Formula 1 Grand Prix hotting up after just two races, we decided to feature special Formula 1 theme posts to bring some of the action to you. With every race we will feature some local information about real estate in the area so that you too can be a racy investor.
Melbourne, Australia offered a great start to the season on 16.March and only 8 of the 22 drivers managed to finish the race. The guys on the podium were:
- Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes)
- Nick Heidfeld (BMW)
- Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota)
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Thai resort style developments have lured many sport stars into their fold in recent years. The latest to join the gang of Thai investors is Kimi Raikkonen. The Ferrari racing Finn has invested his money into a luxurious beach front unit in Phuket, Thailand’s largest and most popular island.
Raikkonen who lives in Switzerland has apparently paid a hefty US $1.5m for his upmarket private villa in the sought after Serenity Terraces.
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Trung Hoa Nhan Chinh Residential Towers in Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam is facing yet another invasion, this time from foreigners armed with capital.
Local Vietnamese investors are currently experiencing difficulties obtaining finance from Vietnam based banks tightening their lending criteria. This has created “Golden opportunities” for foreign investors according Vietnam based news website VietNamNet Bridge.
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Where to Look
Kuala Lumpur is in a class apart as the country’s business capital and definitely the focus of most activity in residential, retail and office real estate. The city’s central business district is currently undergoing rapid change. However, KL’s long term prospects are not guaranteed despite all the activity. Singapore (pop. 4.5m) is only as far away as London is from Paris and this proximity means that Kuala Lumpur only has Malaysia (pop. 27m) as its hinterland. Given that KL and the KL ‘metropolitan region’ have populations of 1.8m and 6.9m respectively, it seems unlikely that the city can surprise by growing into a different league, either in terms of wealth or size. However, genuine friendliness and cooperation between the two countries could herald impressive new opportunities. WTW’s (CH Williams, Tahar & Wong) series of annual property reviews provides a good breakdown of developments around the country.
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With a strong and very optimistic outlook in China’s domestic real estate market, leading Chinese webites SINA Corp & Baidu.com have each announced a move into real estate web marketing.
Sina
China’s larget web portal, SINA is to embark on a joint venture with real estate service provider, E-House (China) Holdings Limited in a bid to launch a range of real estate and home decoration web channels. The JV would involve E-House China providing proprietary real estate content ranging from its property database & analysis system to its Chinese Real Estate Information Circle system (which contains transaction data on land, residences, offices, as well as commercial buildings in 30 major Chinese cities).
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Thursday, May 1st, 2008 
Posted by OP-Mall in 
