It seems the latest hot property commodity is handled Down Under on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. With plenty of sun, gorgeous beaches and a trendy lifestyle as well as very affordable prices for those coming from the UK, it is no wonder that there seems to be a mass exodus. Ok, maybe not mass, but we are sure you get the picture.
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:
Brisbane’s brisk lifestyle
Australians are beginning to feel the pinch as cracks begin to appear in their real estate market. In a recent report on Australian news website, thedaily.com.au, real estate agents in Queensland’s Sunshine Coast are gearing themselves for a property price drop by as much as 30% in the next 18 months.
Well they are numerous reasons that have been largely linked to rising interest rates, soaring petrol prices and the recent stock market crash.
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 
Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Australian Property, Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)Australia has one of the oldest established REITs frameworks in the world, dating from the early 1970s. In Australia they are known as LPTs (Listed Property Trusts). LPTs come in two forms, firstly, the pure real estate portfolio investments and, secondly, so-called ‘stapled securities’ which would in this instance tie up the direct property investments with investment in a fund manager and/or a property development company. Stapled securities could be seen as an attempt to overcome the country’s relative shortage of potential real estate investments (see below) by diluting the pure real estate LPTs portfolios. The most distinctive feature of Australian LPTs is the investor’s ability to postpone paying tax on part of the income stream from their LPT investment. Typically, the untaxed element of the dividend would be applied to the capital gains tax calculation with the effect of creating a notional (lower) LPT purchase price so that the CGT bill is higher when the investor comes to sell their LPT. It seems that the flexibility in terms of target investments and in paying tax on one’s investment adds up to a more versatile type of investment instrument than the new regimes in Germany and the UK allow for. As in other countries, Australian LPTs are required to distribute to all of their income.
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Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Australian Property, International Real Estate Trends, Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), United States PropertyIn our forthcoming piece on Australian REITs we shall be looking at the key role played by the country’s pension funds in property investment. Unlike UK staff superannuation sector where pensions seem to be on track for death by a thousand cuts, Australia pension funds are riding high on the back of an increase in statutory contribution levels in 2002. The result is that Australia has a lot of investable cash looking for good returns and given the limited size of the country’s real estate market, it is not surprising that a lot of this money is going overseas.
The figures are impressive with US$ 7.7bn invested in US property so far this year. This compares to a total of $ 5.5bn invested by Australia in US real estate in the whole of 2006 and gives Australia some 43% of total inward investment into US real estate for 2007 to-date. The reasons that the US is so much in favour are, according to Mark Baillie of Macquarie Bank, a liquid market, good governance and a relatively benign tax regime when it comes to repatriating profits and income.
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Australian Property, Jamaica Property, Malaysian Property, Miami Property, Property News Summaries, Syria Property, Turkish Property, UK Property
Friday, February 23rd, 2007 Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Australian Property, International Real Estate TrendsAustralian property investors spent over four times as much in overseas direct property investments last year, with growing interest in Western Europe, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.
According to their recent report, local investors poured $6.7 billion into overseas real estate in the first half of 2006, compared to $1.52 billion in the first half of 2005.
The US received almost half (46 per cent) of overseas investments, making Australians the third largest cross border investors in the US after global and Middle Eastern investors.
However, the fund flows are slowly shifting to European markets with Germany getting 19 per cent of the funds, or around $1.27 billion. The largest overseas acquisition was made by Record Realty, which bought seven office assets in Germany leased to Deutsche Telekom for a total $520 million.
Matthews said the rest of Western Europe enjoyed more than 14 per cent of inflows.
“Investments were also made in Belgium (6 per cent), the UK (3 per cent), Poland (2 per cent), the Netherlands (2 per cent) and France (1 per cent) over this time.”
In Asia, Hong Kong was the most popular choice accounting for 12 per cent of investor money. Macau, South Korea and New Zealand fund flows trailed behind at 4 per cent, 2 per cent and 2 per cent respectively.
John Talbot, the group’s head of capital markets, said that many investors are renewing their interest in the more established markets of Singapore and Japan. “While the US and Europe continue to represent the main focus for Aussie investors, increasingly Asia is coming onto the radar with core mature markets like Singapore and Japan of most interest.”
According to the report, property investors are buying more property overseas than they are selling with foreign purchases making up 60 per cent of total cross border transactions.
Source: Financial Standard
Thursday, February 15th, 2007 Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Australian Property, General, Irish Overseas Property Market, Property Industry News, UK PropertyGLASGOW tycoon David Lockhart is laughing all the way to the bank after pocketing £11million. He made the killing after deciding to sell his property group Halladale to an Australian firm for £171m. The multi-million pound pay-off is a bumper dividend for the former family lawyer who launched his property firm from rented premises in Gordon Street in Glasgow 16 years ago.
The workforce of 42 manage assets worth almost £1billion. Halladale has a comprehensive property portfolio, much of it centred on office accommodation in London and South East England. The firm also has a fund management division.
Halladale has been bought by Stockland, Australia’s largest housing developer. Mr Lockhart is to become executive chairman.
Source: Evening Times
Also read: Australian firm Stockland makes first move into Europe
PROPERTY values in the coastal town of Mandurah are skyrocketing – with some block and house prices doubling in value in the past six months.
David Green, principal agent at Century 21 Mandurah, said prices had steadily increased over the past few years, but had “gone through the roof” in the past six months.
He said Mandurah’s real-estate boom was driven by interstate and overseas investor interest, the resource sector boom, easy access to Perth and an attractive lifestyle.
In the past 15 years, Mandurah has grown from a population of 13,000 to a city of more than 60,000.
“The resource sector boom in WA means we get plenty of cashed-up, fly-in/fly-out workers who are buying in Mandurah so they can spend their time off in a relaxed lifestyle-focused area,” Mr Green said.
“As well as the Perth and baby boomer market, we get huge interest from interstate and overseas.”
The shortage of land in the region was also driving prices up.
“Every time there is a land release, people camp out for days and it has even got to the stage that people are pre-empting land-release announcements and camping out,” he said. “There is simply more demand for blocks than there are blocks.”
Mr Green said a 600sq m block bought six months ago for $135,000 in the Halls Head development of Seascapes sold three months later for $198,000. The buyer put the block on the market six weeks later and it fetched a staggering $270,000.
“These sorts of stories are pretty common in the Mandurah region at the moment,” Mr Green said.
“Blocks that were sold for $85,000 two years ago now sell for $230,000 and you would be lucky to find a home anywhere under $400,000.”
The recent sale of a $3.6 million canal home set a new record for Mandurah real estate. Mr Green said the Hong Kong buyer represented a new breed of international investors who recognised the seaside town’s potential.
“I took the man out on the canal in my boat and he picked out which home he wanted and negotiated a sale with the owners,” he said.
“The owners had no intention of selling, but he paid well above what would have been the asking price because he was keen to secure a place. You couldn’t get a canal home for under $1.5 million now and they rarely come on to the market.”
Elders Mandurah agent Renee Hardman said that despite the soaring values, Mandurah was still an excellent place to buy and invest.
“It is really good value for money and the canal and beachfront properties, especially, have been undervalued for a very long time,” she said
Source: Sunday Times Australia
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