China property: bigger index, bigger bubble
China’s property market is suddenly looking a whole lot hotter.
A new housing index covers more cities than any other available gauge, reaching into many of the smaller towns where development has been most frenetic. And lo and behold it has produced a striking conclusion: that property prices are rising twice as fast as official data suggests. Continue reading »
Property: how to get out of Shanghai
If you had an indebted, loss making property development business in a market that was saturated with supply and you asked your local government to cough up a reasonable chunk of money to take it off your hands, what do you think would happen?
Well, if your name is Weixian Wang and your business is in Shanghai, it seems the government says ‘ Yes!’ Continue reading »
Xinyuan Real Estate: developing in the US with a US look
Xinyuan Real Estate is making bold moves into the US property market, backed by its ready access to China’s monied classes. But in its latest project, it is surprisingly keen to play down its Chinese roots. Continue reading »
India real estate: can FDI save the day?
Investment in India’s real estate sector is falling fast – yet another bit of bad news for the economy.
In the fiscal year just ended, new investment into real estate was down 55 per cent from Rs926bn to Rs420bn (from $18bn to $8bn) according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham). Continue reading »
Baku takes punt on Asian property
As the guardian of the nation’s oil windfall, Azerbaijan’s state oil fund has traditionally been a highly conservative investor. But as the global economic slowdown takes the shine off fixed income instruments, Sofaz has embarked on a quest for higher yields. After a first foray into gold and European luxury real estate last year, the fund is sizing up the property market in southeast Asia. Continue reading »
Indian real estate: mired in corruption
The images were harrowing enough, as bodies both dead and alive were pulled from the wreckage of an apartment block that collapsed in a northern suburb of Mumbai last week, killing at least 70. Just as disturbing is the picture that is emerging from investigations and media reports, providing further confirmation of a construction and real estate industry mired in corruption. Continue reading »
Standard Life: calling time on Brazil property
Photo: Bloomberg
The sale of two office buildings in central São Paulo may sound like a rather insignificant event in the scale of things.
However, Standard Life’s decision to sell the two properties, marking an exit of the British insurer’s real estate fund from Brazil, could be a bad omen for the country’s property market. Continue reading »
Turkey: under-insured for earthquakes
Turkey is no stranger to seismic activity having suffered eleven earthquakes of magnitude 5.8 or over in the past 20 years, and daily experiences 50 or more minor tremors.
So, although the magnitude 4.5 quake that hit the Black Sea north westof Istanbul on Tuesday was felt across the city, it was in itself nothing unusual.
It did however serve as a timely reminder to Turks of the country’s potential for natural disaster. Continue reading »
What can S Korea do about its stagnant housing market?
South Korea’s protracted housing slump is causing a headache to its new government. President Park Geun-hye faces a challenge in boosting stagnant property prices, which has been holding back domestic consumption in Asia’s fourth-largest economy.
South Korea’s house prices have been flagging for the past two years and are showing no signs of recovery this year with the economy forecast to grow only 2.8 per cent after last year’s estimated 2.0 per cent expansion. Continue reading »
Poland property: have we seen the bottom?
It’s hard to get consumers to ramp up spending when residential property prices are slumping – the wealth effect drags down spending, as economies ranging from Spain and Ireland to the US have found in recent years.
Poland has been hit by the same phenomenon – one of the many reasons that retail spending has slumped, helping drag down the country’s economic performance. Polish residential real estate prices have been steadily falling for five years – but that trend may now be changing. Continue reading »
Jak-ing up the rents
It’s traffic clogged streets are some of the most difficult and slow to navigate anywhere, but that’s not stopped the flood of businesses setting up offices or expanding in Jakarta.
The limited amount of prime office space – and the desire to beat the traffic by staying as close to the centre as possible – has seen Jakarta office rents shoot up by almost 80 per cent in the past year. Continue reading »
Guest post: China investors should bet on urbanisation
By Kristina Sandklef of East Capital
The annual National People’s Congress (NPC), which is meeting in Beijing this month, is expected to take steps to deepen the economic reforms required to ensure a sustainable economic development.
While it is still too early to confirm any major changes instigated by the new leaders, we can assume urbanisation will be an important part of the new economic reforms and a building block of fulfilling the Chinese dream, the new mantra of the new party chief Xi Jinping. Continue reading »
Corporate watch: Turkey’s Emlak Konut – risk free real estate?
It doesn’t take much familiarity with global property markets to work out that the concept of risk-free real estate development is, well, pure fantasy. Investment risk is like death and taxes: unavoidable, isn’t it?
Perhaps not if the interest in a planned secondary offering and capital expansion by Turkey’s Emlak Konut is anything to go by. The sale is worth noting given that Emalk’s's unusual business model has to a large extent done the seemingly impossible – eliminated most the risk associated with the development of the mega housing projects required to meet the needs of Turkey’s growing population and booming economy, but not at the expense of profitability. Continue reading »
Polish property IPO builds interest
Poland’s real estate sector has been a little lacklustre in recent years, but that has not not dissuaded investors from taking a flyer on PHN, a government controlled property holding which had its IPO on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
Shares were up by 7.4 per cent to 23.62 zlotys ($7.67) on the WSE, valuing the company at just over 1bn zlotys. Continue reading »
Hungary’s commercial real estate market – skinier and skinier
When the property market struggles, the marketing spin has a tendency to rise exponentially. Take this recent example about the sale of a “big format unit”:
“Cushman & Wakefield, the world’s largest privately-held commercial real estate services firm, has secured 200 sq m premium retail space for Skiny, the well-known, originally Austrian underwear retailer, at Market Central Ferihegy on behalf of the owner AIG/Lincoln.”
Er, 200 sq m? That is 0.45 per cent of the space in Market Central Ferihegy, a 44,000 sqm complex described as “one of the most successful” in Hungary.* Continue reading »
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