Real Estate

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is taking an unprecedented hands-on role in housing finance and development as it seeks to re-energize a plan to build more than a million homes and make ownership more affordable. The Housing Ministry plans to create its own development company and start a mortgage-guarantee fund to encourage banks to increase lending, Minister Majed al-Hogail said in an ...

Bloomberg Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Co. is joining U.K. developer Delancey Real Estate Asset Management Ltd. and Dutch pension fund APG Asset Management NV to create a $2 billion home-rental business in London, with properties in the former Olympic athletes’ village and the Elephant & Castle district. The venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, will manage 4,000 homes, ...

Bloomberg The battle for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. may be over, but the company’s chief executive officer says it’s just the beginning for lodging-industry mergers. “Clearly the Marriott-Starwood transaction has created a lot of chatter about further consolidation,” Starwood CEO Tom Mangas said on a conference call with analysts in which he and Marriott International Inc. CEO Arne ...

Bloomberg U.K. house prices increased for a ninth month in March as rental investors rushed to purchase property before a tax increase, Nationwide Building Society said. The average price of a home rose 0.8 percent from February to 200,251 pounds ($287,280), the lender said in a statement on Monday. The annual rate of growth surged to 5.7 percent, the strongest ...

Bloomberg The average price of a Manhattan apartment topped $2 million for the first time, reflecting the closing of deals from a high-end buying frenzy that’s now showing signs of a slowdown. Buyers in the first quarter took ownership of condominiums in some of New York’s most-expensive developments after signing contracts as far back as three years ago, when construction ...

DUBAI \ EMIRATES BUSINESS London was the most attractive market for Chestertons’ MENA investors, with more than AED 265 million invested into the UK capital’s real estate market. This represented over 70% of their total sales of nearly AED 379 million. “London has long been a favoured destination for investors from the Middle East region, it is a mature, well ...

Bloomberg Iron ore will probably snap back to $45 a metric ton as a nascent real-estate rebound in China won’t bolster construction demand in the world’s biggest user and supplies remain plentiful, according to McKinsey & Co. The commodity will trade between $45 and $50 a ton this year, eroding a first-quarter rally to as high as $63.74 that was ...

MANAMA / EMIRATES BUSINESS Cluttons’ Bahrain Spring 2016 Property Market Outlook Report shows that retail at Al Seef continues to command the highest rents at BD 12.50 psm, representing a 4% increase over the 12 months from Q1 2015. Following closely behind Al Seef is Amwaj Islands, which has seen a rental increase of 33% since Q1 2015, to stand ...

Bloomberg There’s nothing to stop developer Kevin Maloney from starting sales at 111 W. 57th St., the latest sky-high condo tower rising on midtown Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row. He has the necessary legal approvals, and an office ready to welcome would-be buyers. But with luxury-home demand slowing and new condos piling up on the market, he’s waiting about a year before ...

Bloomberg Singapore home prices dropped for a tenth quarter, posting the longest losing streak in almost two decades, as tighter mortgage curbs cooled demand in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. An index tracking private residential prices fell 0.7 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, matching the longest series of losses since 1998, according to ...