Real Estate

WASHINGTON \ AP More Americans signed contracts to buy homes in February, with purchases surging in the Midwest ahead of the traditional spring buying season. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index rose 3.5 percent to 109.1, rebounding from a 3 percent decline in January. The index has reached its highest level ...

ROME / BLOOMBERG There are plenty of castles for sale across Europe, but few provide the opportunity for prospective owners to play the role of a feudal lord. It’s the difference between living like a prince and living as a prince. Now a castle has come onto the market to let you do the latter. The Umbrian Castle di Sismano, ...

Bloomberg Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. received a higher $14 billion takeover offer from a group led by China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co., raising the stakes for Marriott International Inc. to counter a second time to salvage a merger that would create the world’s biggest hotel operator. The takeover battle pits a 12-year-old Chinese firm with aggressive ambitions to ...

WASHINGTON \ AP Consumer spending and home construction are helping sustain modest U.S. economic growth despite problems caused by a strong dollar, low oil prices and an excess of business stockpiles. The economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, grew at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the October-December period, the government said. That was better than the 1 ...

MUSCAT \ Reuters Oman will encourage households to generate electricity with solar panels and feed it into the national grid, Qais al-Zakwani, executive director of the Authority for Electricity Regulation, said on Monday. The policy could put Oman in the forefront of Middle East nations promoting widespread use of solar power. Its finances severely damaged by low oil prices, the ...

Seoul / AFP A South Korean constructor that jointly won a $20 billion housing deal with Saudi Arabia said on Monday it was confident the project would go ahead despite the impact of slumping oil prices on the Gulf nation’s coffers. Under the deal, for which a memorandum of understanding was signed in Seoul last week, a three-party consortium will ...

Calif / AP Canadians are no longer flocking to California’s sunny Coachella Valley to buy homes since their currency has weakened, and many are putting properties they own up for sale, real estate experts said. The move coincides with a decline in the Canadian dollar since oil prices have plummeted, the Desert Sun newspaper reported on Sunday (http://desert.sn/1RCkkPj ). After ...

Bloomberg Real estate Web portals Leju Holdings Ltd. and SouFun Holdings Ltd. are standing out among U.S.-traded Chinese stocks, rebounding as government stimulus and a recovering property market improves the outlook for growth. Leju has surged 44 percent over the past month in the best performance on the Bloomberg China-US Equity Index, which gained 4.6 percent during the same period. ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Saadiyat Development and Investment Company (SDIC) awards the landscaping contract of Hidd Al Saadiyat to Gulf Contracting Company (GCC). Hardscaping of the neighborhoods, kicking off in 2016, will include pavement of driveways, pathways and road signage, benches, light poles, and bollards. Furthermore, underground work activities including irrigation, electrical, manholes and concrete bases for signage will ...

Bloomberg Macy’s Inc. named Four Corners Property Trust Inc. Chief Executive Officer Bill Lenehan to its board, enlisting a real estate expert to help the chain figure out what to do with its properties. The 39-year-old will join the board on April 1, the Cincinnati-based company said in a statement. Lenehan, who became CEO of Four Corners last year, has ...