Real Estate

Bloomberg Buyers from China comprised about one-third of purchases of Vancouver’s hot housing market in 2015, according to “back of the envelope calculations” by National Bank of Canada. Chinese investors spent about C$12.7 billion ($9.6 billion) on real estate in the western Canadian city in 2015, or 33 percent of its C$38.5 billion in total sales, according to a note ...

Bloomberg Singapore’s real estate investment trust market is set to consolidate as smaller vehicles merge to cope with rising regulatory costs, according to Cambridge Industrial Trust. “The wave of consolidation for Singapore REITs is about to begin,” Philip Levinson, chief executive officer at Singapore-listed Cambridge Industrial, said. The trust has a market capitalization of S$730.5 million ($536 million) and focuses ...

Bloomberg Strength in real estate and labor markets helped consumers in China’s biggest cities shrug off last year’s slowdown, according to a new survey based on 12,000 interviews. RFi Group’s Urban Financial Sentiment Index rose to 101 in the second half of 2015, up from 92.5 in the first half. Readings over 100 show consumers say they’re optimistic about their ...

Bloomberg Canada will allocate C$500,000 ($383,000) to the country’s data collection agency to develop ways to determine foreign ownership levels in the country’s hot housing markets. “Currently it is not possible to fully understand the role of foreign homebuyers in Canada’s housing market since a comprehensive and reliable data set on the number of homes sold to foreign homebuyers does ...

Bloomberg Property investors London & Regional Group Holdings Ltd. and Chelsfield Partners LLP are considering selling one of the most valuable development sites in the U.K. capital, with an asking price of about 300 million pounds ($427 million), according to three people familiar with the matter. Various options are being considered for the Elizabeth House plot in the Waterloo district, ...

NEW YORK / Reuters Macy’s Inc appointed William Lenehan, an expert in real estate investments, to its board amid investor pressure to monetize its real estate assets. Shareholder Starboard Value LP has been pressuring Macy’s since July to spin off its real estate assets, which the hedge fund estimates are valued at about $21 billion. The assets include Macy’s landmark ...

Bloomberg South Africa is struggling to stave off recession after commodity prices fell, demand from China weakened and the worst drought in more than a century. Investors are still making more profit from that country’s property companies than from landlords in central London. Growthpoint Properties Ltd., South Africa’s largest real estate investment trust, and Resilient REIT Ltd. have gained more ...

Cairo / EMIRATES BUSINESS Egypt’s state-run Heliopolis Company for Housing and Development (HELI) aims to start developing the fourth neighborhood in New Heliopolis at the end of 2016 with investments, its Chairman and Managing Director Hani Al Dib said on Monday. New Heliopolis fourth neighborhood includes building 500 villas of various spaces with investments worth one billion Egyptian pounds (US$112.6 ...

ABU DHABI / Emirates Business Bahrain-based investment holding firm GFH Financial Group has signed a sale agreement with Integrated Capital (IC), the capital markets arm of Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG), under which IC will acquire a 10 per cent stake in Bahrain’s Falcon Cement Company (FCC) from GFH. The signing ceremony took place between Hisham Alrayes, CEO of GFH ...

Cairo / Emirates Business Egypt-based Business to Business for Investment and Real Estate Marketing -B2B has made sales on belalf for 450 residential, administrative and commercial units in addition to recording 450 leasing transactions by end of 2016, its CEO Nehad Adel said on Monday. B2B seeks to increase the sales and leasing transactions 35 percent by the end of ...