Real Estate

  Bloomberg Allianz Real Estate is set to make its biggest Asian investment to date, in a first step toward adding as much 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) of real estate in the region within three years. The $150 million pan-Asian fund investment will allow Allianz SE’s property unit to test the water before buying buildings directly, Francois Trausch, chief ...

  AFP Barcelona city hall on Tuesday announced a 20-fold hike, to €600,000 euros ($660,000), in the maximum fine that can be levied against home rental sites such as Airbnb if they promote illegal accommodation. Under a 2012 regional law, any apartment rented to visitors in Catalonia must be logged in the province’s Tourism Registry and have a permit. In ...

  AP U.S. home prices scaled new heights in April, with seven cities — Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon — setting highs. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.4 percent in April compared with a year earlier, just below the 5.5 percent year-over-year gain posted in March. Home values are now just ...

  Bloomberg In 1910, an attorney named Albert Barnes Boardman bought close to 10 acres in downtown Southampton, N.Y., and spent $250,000 (approximately $30 million today) to build a 24-room, four-story mansion modeled after the Villa Medici in Rome. There were formal gardens, fountains, sprawling lawns, a tennis court, and a gatehouse. Boardman owned it until 1927, after which the ...

  Bloomberg London may have just shed its safe-haven property market tag with the U.K.’s vote to break away from the European Union. That’s good news for real estate markets in Asia that offer stability. Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia, which face headwinds including oversupply and high prices, may see money flowing into property as investors flee to safer assets ...

  Bloomberg The Crown Estate, the property company that generates income for Queen Elizabeth II, said the value of its real estate rose 9.7 percent to a record 12 billion pounds ($15.8 billion). Total return, comprising of rental income and value increases, from its properties, wind farms and other assets was about 17 percent over the past year, the London-based ...

  Bloomberg Billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management agreed to move its New York offices to 55 Hudson Yards, the third skyscraper planned for Related Cos.’s $25 billion development on Manhattan’s far west side. Point72, the $11 billion firm that oversees Cohen’s wealth, plans to lease more than 175,000 square feet across six floors in the tower, according to ...

  AP The Qatar Investment Authority is considering abandoning the sale of 1 Cabot Square, an office building in London’s Canary Wharf financial district leased to Credit Suisse Group AG, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. QIA was reviewing the sale plan even before the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, the people said, asking not ...

  Bloomberg Y Combinator, the startup accelerator and investment firm that helped produce Airbnb, Dropbox, and Instacart, is embarking on a creation project arguably more ambitious than any company. “We want to build cities,” wrote Y Combinator partner Adora Cheung and President Sam Altman in an announcement slated for release Monday. YC Research, Y Combinator’s nonprofit arm, plans to solicit ...

  Bloomberg For all the damage it’s doing to a fragile global economy, Brexit might have some unintended positive consequences. Among them, perhaps, a soft landing for Singapore’s wobbly property market. With hindsight, the seemingly excessive S$3.4 billion ($2.5 billion) that Qatar Investment Authority paid BlackRock this month to buy an office tower amid a glut of commercial space could ...