Real Estate

  Bloomberg SouFun Holdings Ltd. plans to switch its stock listing from the U.S. to China, joining companies including Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties Co. that are seeking higher valuations on mainland stock exchanges. SouFun, China’s biggest real estate web portal, is seeking to move its shares to the Shanghai stock exchange via an asset and share swap with storage-battery manufacturer ...

  Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP is in talks to acquire industrial property assets in Australia valued at about A$250 million ($190 million) from Malaysian palm-oil producer Sime Darby Bhd., according to people familiar with the matter. The New York-based private equity firm is in discussions to acquire as many as five industrial buildings in Australia, the people said, asking not ...

  Bloomberg While a luxury-condo glut spurs some of New York’s biggest developers to re-evaluate their plans, a relative newcomer is plowing ahead with confidence. Michael Shvo, a former real estate broker who closed his eponymous firm during the financial crisis, says he has about $4.3 billion worth of apartments under development and two more sites in contract. He’s trying ...

  Bloomberg U.S. construction spending advanced in March to its highest level in more than eight years. Gains in home building and nonresidential construction offset a drop in government projects. Construction spending rose 0.3 percent in March after a 1 percent gain in February, the Commerce Department said on Monday. The back-to-back increases raised total spending to a seasonally adjusted ...

  Bloomberg Australian lenders are clamping down on home loans to foreigners as concerns about the health of the nation’s housing market mount. Westpac Banking Corp. will no longer lend to offshore customers who aren’t citizens or who don’t hold appropriate residency visas, it said in an e-mail. It follows Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank Ltd. and Australia ...

  Bloomberg Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe said the central bank’s Financial Policy Committee won’t hold back from quashing risks that appear in the housing market. In a speech in London, the deputy governor for financial stability highlighted three property “hotspots” that warrant attention: buy-to-let, lending at high loan-to-income ratios to owner occupiers and commercial real estate. He ...

  Bloomberg Fitful financial markets and signs of a southwest Florida real estate slowdown so unnerved Canadians Fab and Christa Michetti that they sold one of their two vacation homes there last month. The U.S. presidential election’s isolationist talk provided one more push. “How safe are my assets going to be with the change in the political landscape?” said Fab ...

  Reuters Turkish conglomerates are racing to add high-end apartment blocks and office towers to Istanbul’s rapidly-changing skyline, turning to one of the world’s most profitable real estate markets for quick returns as other parts of the economy suffer. Anadolu Holding, which has interests in banking, retail and brewing, plans to venture into real estate with two developments in Istanbul ...

  Bloomberg Cousins Properties Inc. agreed to buy Parkway Properties Inc. for about $1.95 billion in stock, then spin off the combined company’s Houston office buildings into a separate real estate investment trust. Parkway shareholders will receive 1.63 shares of Cousins stock for each share they hold, the companies said in a statement. The deal values Parkway at $17.46 a ...

  AP U.S. home prices continued their steady upward march in February as buyers competed for a limited number of available properties. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.4 percent that month compared with a year earlier, according to a report released on Saturday. That’s down slightly from January’s 5.7% rise. Prices are rising even as sales ...